ididntdoit99
ididntdoit99
OKay... so As most of you know, i made my pond much larger, almost 3x larger than it was.
So I'm working with what i have at the moment for filtration and pumps. I had a 300 gph pump when i first built it, then the second year i went larger and bought a 950 gph pump, but now my pond is around 3500 gallons, and i dont have enough power, but its going to be a little while before i can buy myself another pump. I still need to buy a nice fence to put around it to keep critters out, Plus its kind of fun seeing what i can build, and see if i make make the movement and flow perfect and still keep clear water with undersized pumps.
so.. here is what i have thus far. my sketch isnt great, but gives you an idea.
okay, so i have a 9x15 pond, and in the one corner i dug a pit for a skimmer. being as how these pumps are undersized and i have such a large surface area, i put both pumps in the skimmer, and they still didnt seem to pull a whole lot, but they are working.
So the bigger pump (950 gph) is split off, there was a bigger 1" tube coming out the top that is supposed to be just used for a fountain head, i ran a 1 inch pipe all the way across to the other side of the pond, where i took a piece of 1 inch pvc pipe and capped the end, and drilled 1/4 inch holes every few inches across the pipe (numbered 1 in my picture) , this sits on the rock shelf near the surface of the water, and pushes a stream of water across the pond, helping to push all the leaves towards the end of the pond where the skimmer is. then the smaller tube off that pump goes to the boifilter i made from a galvanized tub that sits in the middle of the water, i also turned that toward the skimmer, so that the water pouring back into teh pond fro it is directed toward the skimmer.
I may need to change that, the boifilter is a good foot out of the water, and the water coming back into the pond "drops" more than it "pushes" it seems leaves coming from the end of the pond pushed by the current from that length of pvc kind of get caught up around the boi filter, the water "dropping" from there messes with the current.
Then lastly, I was worried that all of my water movement was near the surface of the water, and the water 4 foot down would not circulate as well and the deep parts would get cloudy. (I witnessed this last year, it could have just been the shape of my pond, but i had nice clear water on top, and cloudy down below until i dropped one of the pumps deeper into the pond.) So being as both of my pumps are in the skimmer, i then took the smaller pump, and coonected it to a 4 foot long piece of pvc (1/2 inch, not a big one incher) and i also drilled a bunch of holes in that and layed it in the deepest part of the pond. so now the pump sucks water into the skimmer and pumps it down to the bottom, and hopefully stirs water up from there. (number 2 in the picture)
anyway.. i thought it was pretty cool, im excited to see how well it works. I will try to get some actual pictures of it this weekend. but i thought it might be something someone wanted to try, as far as the length of pvc with the holes drilled in it... gives a nice current all across the length of the pond. to help push stuff toward the skimmer.
So I'm working with what i have at the moment for filtration and pumps. I had a 300 gph pump when i first built it, then the second year i went larger and bought a 950 gph pump, but now my pond is around 3500 gallons, and i dont have enough power, but its going to be a little while before i can buy myself another pump. I still need to buy a nice fence to put around it to keep critters out, Plus its kind of fun seeing what i can build, and see if i make make the movement and flow perfect and still keep clear water with undersized pumps.
so.. here is what i have thus far. my sketch isnt great, but gives you an idea.
okay, so i have a 9x15 pond, and in the one corner i dug a pit for a skimmer. being as how these pumps are undersized and i have such a large surface area, i put both pumps in the skimmer, and they still didnt seem to pull a whole lot, but they are working.
So the bigger pump (950 gph) is split off, there was a bigger 1" tube coming out the top that is supposed to be just used for a fountain head, i ran a 1 inch pipe all the way across to the other side of the pond, where i took a piece of 1 inch pvc pipe and capped the end, and drilled 1/4 inch holes every few inches across the pipe (numbered 1 in my picture) , this sits on the rock shelf near the surface of the water, and pushes a stream of water across the pond, helping to push all the leaves towards the end of the pond where the skimmer is. then the smaller tube off that pump goes to the boifilter i made from a galvanized tub that sits in the middle of the water, i also turned that toward the skimmer, so that the water pouring back into teh pond fro it is directed toward the skimmer.
I may need to change that, the boifilter is a good foot out of the water, and the water coming back into the pond "drops" more than it "pushes" it seems leaves coming from the end of the pond pushed by the current from that length of pvc kind of get caught up around the boi filter, the water "dropping" from there messes with the current.
Then lastly, I was worried that all of my water movement was near the surface of the water, and the water 4 foot down would not circulate as well and the deep parts would get cloudy. (I witnessed this last year, it could have just been the shape of my pond, but i had nice clear water on top, and cloudy down below until i dropped one of the pumps deeper into the pond.) So being as both of my pumps are in the skimmer, i then took the smaller pump, and coonected it to a 4 foot long piece of pvc (1/2 inch, not a big one incher) and i also drilled a bunch of holes in that and layed it in the deepest part of the pond. so now the pump sucks water into the skimmer and pumps it down to the bottom, and hopefully stirs water up from there. (number 2 in the picture)
anyway.. i thought it was pretty cool, im excited to see how well it works. I will try to get some actual pictures of it this weekend. but i thought it might be something someone wanted to try, as far as the length of pvc with the holes drilled in it... gives a nice current all across the length of the pond. to help push stuff toward the skimmer.
