Please report failures / bottom drains

[koiczar]

Quote: Originally Posted by moikoi your pond is more unbelievable then my friend's at least he has a 3200 gal Jmat bio chamber. how many fish in your pond? if fish can stay alive for three yrs you will shock all the koi experts.

Moi

I was just at a customer's home 2 weeks ago who's pond is leaking. When we arrived and surveyed the system (if you could call it that), I just shook my head. There were two ponds. The waterfall fed the upper pond of about 1500-2000 gal. and then flowed down into the lower pond, a pipe picked up the water and sent it to the pump some 30' away. The pump fed an old undersized Aquadyne bead filter and back to the waterfall. No UV, pump was undersized and the filter and leaf trap were probably so clogged that it would only allow a trickle of water (maybe 50 gph) over the waterfall.

My point is, is that upon looking into the upper pond (peering through the mass of water lillies which cover 75% of the surface, there were a total of 8 koi. Two were smaller, about 18" in size and the other 5 were well over 24". They were originally placed in this pond when very small (according to what the original owners told them) and have lived in this muck/crap toilet bowl for up to 15 years now!! I told my partner, "you know, every time I see one of these cesspools full of very healthy crapagoi, it just makes me wonder why we try to do all the work we do to keep our koi healthy!!?? Incidentally, these people were the "new" homeowners. They bought the house a year or so ago and it came with the pond. They have no clue what they're doing, but believe me, they didn't create the problems, they're just adding to them. As I mentioned, the pond is leaking as the liner originally used was 20 mil Tetra liner and it's cracking and breaking down from the uv rays of the sun where it's exposed. Haven't heard back from them. Amazing!

Mike

[moikoi]

Mike
it is really amazing how koi can survive under those conditions.

besides the waterfall leak i also lose water from splashing off the rocks.

[gregbickal]

Quote: Perhaps their is someone out there which has spent many hours constructing a DIY bottom drain and has created an amazing design. I'm always a fan of unique creative designs.....

My DIY bottom drain is pretty simple. Standard 90 degree elbow is connected through the rubber with a pipe boot. Capped off with a heavy plastic bowl. I have 6 of them at my place and have installed countless others at other various ponds. I have over 26 pipe boots in my one greenhouse pond alone. Single stainless steel hose clamp and the connection is at a 90 degree angle to the pipe. They do not leak. Don't require any silicone to install. The hole you cut for a 4" drain is only 2 1/2" and no screws penetrate the liner.

How simple is that? Need a bubble drain? I can DIY one of those for you too...

[Brutuscz]

Quote: Originally Posted by moikoi your pond is more unbelievable then my friend's at least he has a 3200 gal Jmat bio chamber. how many fish in your pond? if fish can stay alive for three yrs you will shock all the koi experts.

Nah..I dont think so. I have 2 other filters currently installed..I am just adding a third. Both are home-made filters but work well. A 275gal fiberglass tank...filled with rolls of filter batting, scrubber pads and 80lbs of calcite black sand(my water is very soft.) I also have a large pool sand filter..I changed the plumbing for better flow at the bottom intake and filled the filter with spring flow and nylon netting(no sand). These 2 filters run off the surface skimmer. I am adding the screenex biotec 12 to receive water from the submersible solids pump. I will eventually add a pressurized bead filter to go before the screenex. I really feel that a solids handling pump at the lowest point is doing the same thing a bottom drain would accomplish. I also feel that the scrubber pads are very similar to j-mat. I never felt I was doing anything too different than anyone else...just find less expensive ways to accomplish it. Also, avoiding cutting my liner at the bottom...I KNOW I would mess it up completely. I just keep my filters clean..vacuum and water change regularly. Part of the recipe for success

[mitten]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brutuscz I really feel that a solids handling pump at the lowest point is doing the same thing a bottom drain would accomplish.

Well, umm, no.

Quote: Originally Posted by Brutuscz I KNOW I would mess it up completely.

Well, umm, no. Not even you Doc.

[Brutuscz]

Mickey..lol!! How is it not the same....one collects the crap off the bottom and sends it to the filter, the other...well..you know..does the same thing.

[koiczar]

Brutuscz

Don't want to steal Mitten's excitement at responding to your last post but get this!! - A solids handling pump takes the nice whole fish excrement pieces and purees them before they go anywhere making them far more difficult to remove. The GRAVITY FED bottom drain removes most of the fish waste in larger or whole pieces and deposits them more gently into a settling chamber where the (okay, I'll say it) turds are removed by flushing the toilet. That's the difference my friend!!

Mike

[mitten]

Brutus-

It should be the same, right? Stuff from the bottom gozinta the filters, right? Besides the poop grinder effect, there's more and I'm not sure I can be specific about what it is.

The slope to the drains is never enough to make anything roll into the drain. Slope is good, but fish foraging on the bottom and swimming near the bottom are bigger cleaning effects than the slope. Water currents of inlets and waterfalls and the water movement from aerated bottom drains all add together to completely change the way the pond works, when there isn't a pump there.

This bottom drain stuff was not thought up as a whole concept, somebody's brainchild one day, though many try to present it as such. It was developed in bits and pieces over the last 40 or 50 years. It is still being added to now. But the root concepts are always - passive and constant and thorough.

This cannot be done by a pump in the bottom.

CC: Joseph and Gabby, Mike4100 and a few thousand others.

[mitten]

Besides someone that Brutus knows, not Brutus, we still have no leaking bottom drains. Bickal can build his own and install them with one hand tied behind his back. MCA posted a Duesy of a DIY at Shack a couple weeks ago. But No One has said "my bottom drain leaked."

We may have to go to an AS ADI website to get someone to bad mouth bottom drains.

Step up! Let's hear the story about the dumb pond guy who put a leaky bottom drain in your otherwise beautiful pond, thereby making your life miserable.

[Brutuscz]

Ok...so the best ya got is the poop is chopped up?? When it hits a 50 micron pad..it really doesn't matter. The pad will get it. Then I change or clean the pad. Not that I don't think the bottom drain is a great addition..I just think what I have will do the job just fine. I vacuum the bottom regularly..so I'm not too concerned.