More Bakki Shower talk

[woodyaht]

Duhhhhhh, Ya your right I need to have somemore coffee, hahahahaha. lol. Damn was trying to convince myself for a good reason to build one

Quote: Originally Posted by gregbickal Woody: There is head on the pump. The depth of the chamber must be included. The only way there would be no head on the pump, is if this chamber was flooded up to pond surface.

[woodyaht]

How much water will a "air lift" move, anybody have any figures on that. A air lift would be cool, would only move water that was available to it.

[woodyaht]

Ehhhh, Air lift wouldn't work, I need something more than coffee today, my brain is fried!!!!!!

[Ryan S.]

That would work. Are you just going to cut off filtration to do water changes? If holding camber is small, evaporation or any water loss would really be magnified in the smaller chamber. Overflow on pond that is slightly higher would minimize risk of flooding chamber from rain.

[gregbickal]

Ryan: Depends on how a system was set up I guess. Even tho the diagrams on this setup went off the bottom drain, they could as easily go off a skimmer. In that case, your bottom drains would be on a separate system, and you could purge a settling chamber, and fill it back up before re-connecting it back to the entire system. Altho, probably thats not how most people are set up, nor not the way I would want to handle water changes.


My lower pond is about 1500 gallons (6x14x30" deep) and my auto fill is there, so I have to loose about 100 gallons (2") before the auto-float is tripped and it begins to refill.


So I can see now what they were talking about with the larger holding tank where water changes would come in handy.

Im not saying this is an ideal way to do a bakki. I will probably put a bakki on my main pond next year, and probably just hide it behind a building.

[junglegeorge12]

greg, your idea is basically the same as mine, the waterflow principle is the same. The flow would be controlled by the pump, just as in yours, not a valve. The valve would be to balance the flow between a bottom drain and skimmer if one was wanted, that way the bottom drain still gets plenty of pull.

I just used a tank rather than the pit to hold the water reserve, that reserve the pump draws from has to be able to handle the fluctuation in volume that will occur when the pump is off, as well as enough to pump the pond back up to the height where it will flow if some evaporation occurs, which is why I had the autofill float. The safety switch is also a must in my book.
When the pump is off it will gravity fill the top 4" of pond water into the reserve, then when it comes back on it must be a large enough reserve to refill the pond those 4", with a little extra for evaporation, small leaks, etc.

I would use a tank with a bottom drain rather than a pit with the pipe stuck down in it, or it will become an uncleanable settling chamber. I put it in a seperate tank, with a large enough pit for good air exchange, and to be able to work on the shower itself for changing out or cleaning media needs etc.

The longer shape was just based on how the stainless steel showers are generally shaped, and the info that this pond was 10,000-12,000 gallons, which means more than one shower. If I were to use plastic, I would not use tubs, but veggie of milk crates lined inside with plastic on the outer sides. They are very sturdy and the right height.

The return stream was a luxury. I tought anyone sitting on a decking built over the pit would really enjoy sitting by it, and the bubbling stream into the pond would give the effect of a natural spring fed stream and pond, especially if surrounded by rocks. Since, by the plants I saw in the pond's photos, I concluded this was located in a warmer region of the country, so the cooling draft from evaporative cooling the shower would be putting off would be really enjoyed by folks on a hot day, especially if they had a little shade there.

The problem witht he elbow, I tried it, and it is realy hard to get even flow through the media, it tends to all go to one side, not all out evenly like your photo showed. I would use a removable spray bar. Just turn the pump off to clean it.