[Ethan25]

To start off with, I have no money. Well, I have a little. I work at a library, my wife works part time to help with money, and we have a little one that is 9 months old. I will never have the money anytime soon to do what I would like to do with the pond, but I need to upgrade the filtration…I have to…what I have just isn’t cutting it.

I dug the pond in the fall of 2005 when my wife was pregnant. It was supposed to be around 10x13 and around 3.5 feet deep. I know I should have gone deeper, but I didn’t know that then. I don’t have the money or the tools to re-dig now. It is around 2500-2800 gallons….and in full sun until we build a pergola.



Current Specs:

2650 gph submersible pump that sits in the back of a Laguna skimmer…this runs to a Tetra UV to the Laguna Filter Falls. I got the Laguna pieces for a steal…..$225 for the both of them (retails at around $750 for both). I know they aren’t good….but they have done their job for now. I also have a 500 gph pondmaster I am using to circulate water with for the winter.

I would like to put as little money into this as possible while maintaining at least some good water quality until I come into more money. This is what I have come up with:

I made a retro-bottom drain. Here are pictures of my making it. Since these photos were taken, I have changed it to a 4” retro bottom drain (pictures are 3”). I bought a 7 gallon feed bowl from the local farm store.








Trimmed the bottom to add feet and raise it by 1/3 inch, and cut a hole out of the top with a box cutter…it worked really well except for my slipping and almost cutting my jugular….and another time almost cutting my big vein in my wrist….
Total Cost: $21.00

I will run this bottom drain to a 4” line through the pond wall using a pipe boot. This will run into a 55 gallon drum I found for free at the local pepsi bottling company. I plan on adding a DIY microscreen with spraybar in order to run a larger pump (seq 3600). This will then go to another 55 gallon drum full of some sort of media…either PVC shavings or K1.

I sold my old pump (Littlegiant 1900 gph) for $100.00 last fall….I had used it for a year, but it was an energy eater. We just used the cash at the time, so my wife will be understanding about another pump. The Seq 3600 can be had for around $169.00….although maybe the Seq4200 would be a better buy at $179???

After the last 55 gallon drum, I would go through the UV and then to pond (will probably need to split flow since it can only handle 2200 gph).



Would love your thoughts. Looking to spend very little on this….maybe $250 less the cost for the bottom drain I already made. The $250 includes media, 4” pvc, etc….
I may have a source for some free PVC.

Thoughts?

Ethan