More Bakki Shower talk

[gregbickal]

Valarc: My pond is set up where I draw water from my lower pond, pump it to a header pool, it goes over waterfalls, down a stream, over more waterfalls to the main pond. Main pond overflows down a waterfall down another stream, through an underground pipe, down 8 waterfalls, back to the lower pond. Round trip. Only water lost is through evaporation or leaks which I replace with an autofill float.

Same concept, the flow will balance out. What goes up, must come back down.
Water in the skimmer is always the lowest water in the pond, if the pond evaporates enough, skimmer doesn't get enough flow, pump sucks air. How does the estroseive work? Does it use a float?

Im just trying to think outside the box.

True the air flow would have to be supplemented with a fan.

[Valarc]

No, not the same concept.

A stream is open and has no restrictions, it can handle much more flow than you're putting through it. A spray bar can't handle arbitrarily greater flow, and is more susceptible to clogging. What diameter is your pipe between waterfalls? I guess it all depends on just how much water you want to pump - if you have a skimmer with a 4" pipe and pump 1000 gallons per hour, the overflow should be able to drive it fine. If you are pumping closer to the limit of what the pipe can handle in terms of gph, it wouldn't be so good.

However, your stream analogy does give an interesting alternative. If, instead of a pipe, you had a weir passing water into a spreader plate, like a waterfall at the edge of your pond going into the pit, and allowed enough of a reservoir at the bottom to keep the pump from drying out, the concept could work. You'd still have the problem of airflow, though.

[gregbickal]

Gotcha, yes, Im thinking of a drip plate more than a spray bar. Your weir can be handled pretty easily with a skimmer. The concept is almost like you are merging a estroseive with a BH.

Air flow you would just have to run a fan. This pit wouldnt have to be underground, just lower than the pond. Some people might not have room above water level for a BH but they might have room somewhere lower in their yard for an exposed one.

[luke frisbee]

GB,
Valarc has said whatr I was thinking...the headache of having a PMS in a pit that fills if the power goes out is thinking outside the box of sensibility...you see if the power goes out and the water does indeed fill the pit the media will still die of a lack of oxygen... probably before a PMS tower would die by drying out.
But believe him when he says the flow design will be a nightmare

[junglegeorge12]

the idea if underground could work easily, you would need holding tank down there the pump draws from (ie a little pond, or in greg's case a big one), It would need to be capable of holding about 4-6 inches of volume from teh main pond water. When teh pump turns on, it increases the pond volume until it goes over the skimmer, and starts recirculating. A bottim drain woud work if it had to pass through tubing that ran up to skimmer height before the spray bar.

But, who the heck wants to dig a pit that big in their back yard??? It would hacve to be a huge hole to hold a tank big enough for that much water UNDER the depth of the bakk shower. You are talking 8-10 feet down and probably at least 10x10 wide.

You could build a seperate little house by the shed, andn house them in there, and run either a pipe or a stream back to the pond.

[Ryan S.]

FIAB makes a SS shower setup. Not much cheaper but with much larger trays (I think) I make be more affortable for large setups. AES carries them.

You can buy plenty of kinds/sizes of plastic crates, although they are usually sold by the pallet.

I was in a similar situation as Tom C. I choose a shower out of plastic crates. I ran returns via 4" PVC that dump into the pond. I have not space no room, I just threw together a enclosure with pvc lattice work and planted Jasmine vines around it. Hopefully it will grow and look OK.

[gregbickal]

Quote: you see if the power goes out and the water does indeed fill the pit the media will still die of a lack of oxygen

Well, the power usually goes out cause its raining heavy, so it might stay wet, however, Im wondering about the media dieing from lack of O2. I would think that if the power was out for days (never happens here), the submerged would be better because some bacteria would have to live, but complete drying out, should kill everything.

Quote: It would need to be capable of holding about 4-6 inches of volume from teh main pond water.

JG12: Im not talking about something that large scale. A pump that draws from a skimmer doesnt have that large of reserve. Typically the skimmer is the lowest point in the pond, and as water evaporates its level gets even lower. Like a Savio, Could only hold 30 gallons.

Im talking about a 4' long by 2' wide chamber about 4' deep. Then below that a small resevoir pit for the pump to draw water from, enough that it doesnt suck air. The auto-flill for the pond would be down in that pit. The pit should be high enough sidewalls, so that if the power went out, it would not overflow all the pond water out of the system. Something of this size is very easy to hide under a deck or walkway.

I realize this is not ideal and that a raised BH is eaiser, Im just daydreaming the idea. Its my non-conventional nature.

[Ryan S.]

Greg,

Hard to get consistant flow with that idea. You would need autofill and a overflow, both with minimal distance between each other. This could be risky unless source is very good water in case autofill was a little out of adjustment. Then a pump with a float valve to pump back to pond. Or you could pump to underground shower and have a larger pump pump from base of shower (with a float valve). Either way you are not going to get good air exchange underground, you would need a vent system worked out. Its not that it can't be done, just requires a lot of extras. So much eaiser above ground and just hidding the shower. If its not an option then I'd use aerated K1 beds instead.

Ryan S.

[luke frisbee]

Greg,
just tell me this...how are you going to get the pump that is pumping the water out of the pit to be pumping the same amount of water as the pump that is pumping water into the pit?
Ya see greg, even if there is a difference of just 20 gallons an hr it will cause problems either way....either way

[Valarc]

Luke, no reason to get snippy - this concept could actually work if you had the pond overflow onto the shower. I wouldn't be a big fan of the idea of using a pipe to do it, but some sort of weir would work great. However, if you're going to that much trouble I'd just do as Ryan said and go with a moving bed filter. To me the whole benefit of a shower is its open sides which can gas off into the surrounding air - bury the shower underground and you've lost a lot of this benefit.