If I had only known:
Five years ago I began construction of my Garden Railroad (the Rosebud Falls Scenic Railways, a fictional line loosely based on The Denver and Rio Grand Western.) As part of the GRR, my wife required a Koi pond. Having absolutely no experience in pond construction, I visited numerous pond web sites and decided that it should not be that difficult to construct. A couple of planning visits to my local pond supply store confirmed that the task of pond construction was not all that complicated. They supplied me with the following diagram describing how to plumb the pond.
As the drawing shows, I placed the vertical down pipe to the bottom drain very near the side of the pond. As a resident of southern California, I am very well aware that on occasion the ground around here has a tendency to shake. I had not allowed for any flex in the piping to the bottom drain. A few weeks back (towards the end of August 08) we had a quick little jolt by Mother Nature. Shortly after I noticed that I was adding a lot more water to the pond than normal. The pond holds a little under 2,000 gallons, and normal water replacement from evaporation, splash from the waterfall, and dogs drinking from the pond, is about 20~25 gallons per week. Over the last few weeks I've been adding 30~40 gallons of fresh water per day. Over the past weekend I decided to pump down the water level in the pond to find where the leak is located. As the water level reached the level of the top of the vertical pipe I heard the unmistakable sound of air sucking into the three-inch pipe, the pump lost its prime, and water quit flowing. Now I have the task of digging out the offending pipe and repairing it. Before digging out the pipe, I'll be puling up a 30(+) foot long bridge, and about 30 feet of track, as well as a few buildings, cows, pigs, horses, hobos and such and a bunch of plants that the wife recently acquired for the RR.
Lesson to be learned: When running a pipe to a bottom drain on a pond, always run the pipe far enough from the pond so that it will flex to accommodate any settling of the pond bottom, before making the pipe turn vertical.
Tom Trigg
GearDrivenSteam wrote:Whoops.
NO! It is not whoops. It is OOOPS! whoops implies having fun.
Back in my days in the Army we would have quoted the rule of 7-P's, profecient prior planning prevents plainy poor performance.
Rene Schweitzer
Classic Toy Trains/Garden Railways/Model Railroader
Tom,
Bummer!
Does the pond have a liner or did you do concrete? Either way the drain at the bottom is a major pain with external plumbing. Could you run the drain line inside the pond and just cap off the bottom exit? I know it doesn't look as good in a swimming pool but in a Koi pond I'll bet you wouldn't see much of a black pipe. It would save a lot of digging and disruption. Just a thought...
Rex
Rex: The pond is formed with a liner. However, there is a layer of mortared stone on top of the liner. I plan on ripping down just enough stone to pull the liner off of the offending joint. When I say "off the offending joint", that is exactly what I mean.
Here is an overall pix of the pond.
The offending joint is under the corner flat "ring stone" just inches away from the light house.
The corner ring stone sits on the rubber pond liner which is directly on top of the three inch ninety degree "sweep" where the pipe turns down and is in contact with the pond liner all the way to the very bottom of the pond. I'm going to start the repairs (or rather the demolition to begin the repairs) on Wednesday. I'll post a few picks of the demolition and repairs, if you guys are interested.
That does sound like a major pain. I for one would like to see pictures of how you work it out. I've got a rubber lined stream feeding a to-be-built flume for my grist mill. The stream is operated by a small waterfall pump located in a basin below the helix which means piping like you have. I'm at the plumbing stage so would love to learn from your experience and hopefully not make the same mistake.
If you had it to do over again what would you change?
Say Tom,
Is it really necessary to have a center drain/pump draw line in the pond anyway ?
I designed my two main ponds with only wide mouth skimmers for water return, and for recirculation of the water, the same as you would use on an above ground pool. Seems to be working just fine.
That way you eliminate the problem line all together. I will do any future, IF necessary, bottom cleaning, with a regular pool vacuum and sweeper head, with it connected to the skimmer inlet.
As for draining, if ever necessary again, I already have a small submersible sump pump, that I picked up from the Evil-Bay for less than 30 bucks. It has always worked fine in times past during the initial construction stages.
I have a sump pond, to draw water from initially, that holds about 300 gallons, and two main ponds, about 10 to 12 foot in diameter, that individually hold probably between 10 to 12 hundred gallons each.
All so far seems to work well, there is a stream flowing from the ponds back to the sump pond, I also have two fountains at present, and do plan on designing two water falls into the one pond.
It's all serviced with a 1.5HP self priming pump and a 16 inch sand filter, all Hayward Pool supplies.
Byron
First, the pond guys should have told you to use flexible pipe. Even here in DE when they built my pond they did everything with flex tubing, even the 3 inch stuff.
My pond guy sez he's only had problems with putting a hole in a liner to make a bottom drain; thus uses only the skimmer box, even though the company whose line he uses makes a bottom drain fitting.
I have a problem not having a bottom drain in that the fish poo and dead algae really just coat the bottom. I'd like to figure out a way to do some sort of submersible pump in the deepest part of the pond; one that would move the deleterus yet not suck up the fish!
My pond is about 22 feet wide X 40 feet long X 3.5 feet deep at the deepest, then there is the new 27 foot X 3 foot X 1.5 foot river running from the falls to the pond. The pond guy figures we have between 16,500 to 17,500 gallons in it.
Dunno as I'd do that again, costs a fortune in upkeep! Also costs another fortune in fish to feed the @#$%$#^%$*& Blue Heron. Can't put net over cause have to get in to trim lillies, etc.
I second Empire II Line's idea of getting rid of the bottom drain. I put in a preformed liner for a Koi pond and use holes through the liner near the top and above the water line for in and out. This was going to be camouflaged by flagstones but haven't got there yet.
SWMBO conned me into cleaning the bottom ONCE! If your filter really does its job, the bottom just takes on a 'natural' appearance. She thinks it looks okay, now.
Having everything that can fail above ground or IN the pond sure makes maintenance easier.
Art
I'll try to answer all the questions you guys have asked.
Rex: "what would you change?": When I built the pond, the bottom drain pipe runs about 18~20 inches under the bottom of the pond to the very edge of the pond and then turns vertical to join the main run to the pump. The vertical pipe is actually place inside the hole for the pond and covered by the liner with water on "2 ½ sides" of the pipe. The change I would suggest is to run the horizontal pipe from the drain several feet away from the pond before turning vertical. The problem I have is that the vertical pipe has been pulled out of the joint at the ninety degree sweep.
Byron: Having both the "leaf skimmer" and the bottom drain make for a much cleaner pond. The leaf skimmer removes all the floating debris and the bottom drain removes the sinking debris i.e. fish droppings and dead plant debris. Both of these drains join into a single pipe prior to the leaf catcher. The skimmer actually catches the leaves but the leaf catcher catches the plant stems and parts that sink to the bottom of the pond. A neighbor just a few doors down (so he has the same "micro-climate") has a pond roughly the same size and depth. He elected to not install a bottom drain. Routine maintenance of the pond filter is about the same 3~5 minutes each week for both of us. However, he spends about an hour each month cleaning the bottom of his pond with a shop-vac, which I do not do. It takes about three weeks for his pond to "cloud up" such that he can no longer see the bottom.
Pool vacs attached to the leaf skimmer of the swimming pool do very well as that is a totally closed airtight system. A skimmer for pond use is not airtight, by it's very nature, and a pool vac will not work on a pond skimmer. Been there, tried that, and failed.
Capt Bob: They did tell me to run the pipe a few feet away from the pond before turning up. They did not emphasize the point or tell me the WHY. Being an old hardheaded putz, I did not listen to them. So they are off the hook and I take the blame for this problem. My bottom drain is a "Savio" brand. It is a three-part piece, the bottom of the drain with a 3-inch flange (with 3 synthetic "O" rings) that attaches to bottom of the liner. The top flange (for top of liner) also has 3 "O" rings, and sixteen screws that join the two flanges with the liner in between. Savio claims that no adhesive is required, and they give a ten-year warranty to that fact. The pond supply shop guy gave me his personal recommendation to put a tubes wroth of "Marine GOOP" on the flanges. There is also a weighted "top cover" for the drain that covers the hole very well; it gives a one-inch tall gap that encircles the drain. This gap is covered with fist-sized rock, which let the debris through but not the fish. A Koi breeding friend has the same bottom drain installed without any sealant and has not had a problem with it leaking in the last twelve years.
For the fishing bird problems I designed in hiding holes for the fish. The sides of the pond hole come down about 18 inches to a "shelf". On this shelf I place two "patio stones", two inches thick sand stone 5 ½ feet long 3 feet wide spanning the width of the pond. This "rock bridge" gives the fish a hiding hole about three feet deep to hide under, it also provides the wife a nice place to put potted water plants as they sit about a foot below the water level. The water hyacinth and water lilies do an excellent job of providing concealment from flying eyes from mid-spring through late fall. During the winter the plants thin down and the fish need additional protection. During this time I place a "birds net roof" over the pond. A framework made with half-inch PVC covered with fine plastic netting. This keeps the birds away; it sits loosely over the pond and the netting is tight enough that an encounter or two the birds learn they cannot get in.
Yes, it is expensive to keep it all going. I figure that the pump costs about $3.00 a day in electricity. My pond holds just over 2,000 gallons. The pond guy says 2,400~2,600 gallons, I figure I have about 300 "gallons" of rock inside the liner. My pump it rated at 2,000 gallons per hour at a 20 foot level run, I have a ~40 foot run with a 4 foot rise, so I figure I'm getting a flow of around 1,000 gallons per hour. Theoretically this allows every bit of water to pass through the filter every two hours or less, thus a cleaner pond.
Art: I had a 600 gallon preformed pond for several years. When I put it in place I went to Home Depot and picked up a shower stall drain for the bottom of the pond. This allowed for draining and running the pumped water through an external filter. External filters are a whole bunch more effective than in the tank filtering.
Got the fish, plants and water out of the pond today.
http://s269.photobucket.com/albums/jj50/tltrigg/Pond%20Repairs/?albumview=slideshow
Get the Garden Railways newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month