One Step Closer

[Akai-San]

Quote: Originally Posted by bekko Carl, when I looked at the drawing it did not occur to me that there is no skimmer. However, without one you can get a persistent layer of scum on the surface. The scum is dissolved proteins and other long-chain molecules that affect the surface tension. The scum may be colorless, but you notice a difference in the "texture" of the water surface. The bakki shower splashing may partially break it up, but its a long pond and the splashing may not be enough. Adding a skimmer would complicate matters if you want to stick with a vortex for each drain. Its difficult to simultaneously run a bottom drain and a skimmer to a single vortex becuse you can never get the flows equalized. Maybe you could alternate between having a single vortex draw from the skimmer for a while and then draw from the bottom drain. -steve

Steve,
Nice to have seen you again out and around. It was a really interesting experience to see which type of koi people buy. Great learning experience to talk to the people and see what they look for. A few nice koi, but I would be hard pressed to buy any, even if I had my pond.

Thanks for mentioning the skimmer. It has been a subject or part of the pond that I have been toiling over for some time. Its like you said, because its such a long pond, I've been having a hard time locating it. Soooooo...in lieu of the skimmer, I was thinking to instead utilize one of them overflow catchments that the old pools used to have. I'll build the end to end trough on one or maybe two ends of the pond to run-off the rubbish and proteins off the surface. Could I then run it through its own filtration, then back to the mainloop. What do you think?

[bekko]

You can use anything to pull the water off the surface. Even one of these little plastic things would work:
http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/4758/cid/1313
I suspect it will clear the surface where ever it is placed. Remember that the pond water is moving around in a circle and the surface scum will be delivered to the skimmer.