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  • Page 2 of 8 FirstFirst 12345 ... LastLast
    Results 21 to 40 of 150

    Thread: New House, New Pond!

    1. #21
      SGKoi is offline Junior Member
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      Thank you for your pointers! For landed, when you say 2m separation from neighbour, do you mean from the boundary wall? I am really at the preliminary planning stage. I have always been a fish tank person with discus and planted tanks. So moving on to kois and koi ponds is a big change for me.

      I was wondering if you can pm me some reputable pond builders who are experienced in making bakki showers. I was thinking of incorporating a bakki showers into a water fall features.

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    2. #22
      DragonFireSG is offline Senior Member
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      Take as much time as you need with the planning.

      2m is from the boundary wall adjacent to the neighbour. The reason they state is to prevent splashing heh. This applies only to 100% above ground or half-in half-out ponds. Most folk here prefer 100% in-ground ponds as the weather can make the pond heat up fast without the moderating effect of the earth.

      In any case, building a pond less than 1.5m deep is not something subject to BCA approval. It as such is possible to fudge some details. If you plan on going uniformly deeper than 1.5m, you may need to engage a professional engineer and have BCA approve the designs. Here, almost all ponds are rebar reinforced cast-in-place and are extremely strong.

      I designed my own pond, and had the guy who built my cousin's house build it for me. As such I am not really in touch with "reputable" pond builders locally. It is my personal observation that most are involved with shallower ornamental ponds meant for fengshui purposes, and are less experienced with serious koi ponds with serious filtration systems. Raceway brush and mat filters, sometimes augmented by swimming pool type sand filters are still the norm here. If the US is behind in the koi hobby (sorry guys :p), we are still in the stone ages.

      You don't need a rocket science degree to build a bakki shower. Look up medicine2's thread (he's a member who did his pond indoors in Malaysia) He designed everything himself, shower included.

      https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showth...ond-build-plan

      If you want something more compact, check out Deepwater Koi's Zakki shower. It is a different take on a Bakki that uses a enclosed manifold to evenly distribute water over the media without taking up a lot of space. Zac will ship to Singapore. A small filter handles a lot of pond relative to its size. I chose to operate mine in the nude. There are many folk who bury the whole setup in their water feature walls, or at the head of their waterfalls.

      I have a video of it in operation on my current pond here.

      Manifold Off:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3IcoAc1tyk

      In Operation:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPVY9LrALgY

      You must consider sound issues when building a waterfall. Many folk underestimate how much white noise a waterfall can generate. If may be good to have the bio stage not tightly integrated into the waterfall so that you can keep the bio running, and have the option of turning off the flow to the waterfall if you need to.

      Oh btw here is the build thread for my current pond.

      https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showth...ts-appreciated
      Last edited by DragonFireSG; 03-13-2018 at 05:12 AM.

    3. #23
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      That is fantastic sharing especially the BCA's requirements as well as the noise resulting from the waterfall! Let me go through those links.

    4. #24
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      Btw I don't consider what I have a waterfall - it is quiet enough that nothing is heard from beyond the gate.
      A waterfall is what you might see in the Botanic Gardens.



      This is a fairly tall one, at about 2.5m.

      I am looking to incorporate something just a bit shorter into my new pond by making use of the stepped retaining walls.
      Last edited by DragonFireSG; 03-13-2018 at 05:08 AM.

    5. #25
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      Working out the trench runs with the architect. Results from the soil tests to determine how the retaining wall supporting the waterfall will be built should be in soon.
      Might have to make that area of the pond shallower as the retaining wall has a large buried foot which needs a certain mass of material over it to stay stable. Deeper foot is an option, but that could get expensive. Maybe using real rock or massive concrete for building the waterfall might substitute for some amount of that mass. The structural ngineer will definitely be consulted for his opinion.

    6. #26
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      Architect came over yesterday and told me digging the pond 6 feet down so close to my neighbour will require sheet piles that might set me back 6 digits for the piles alone.

      Gotta rethink the design... Maybe drop the depth to 3 feet near the neighbour's boundary. 3-4 feet doesn't require piles as per local ruling.

      Ouch I say.

    7. #27
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      Piling's gonna need to be done no matter what after detao;ed analysis, so the only way to reduce expenditure is to make them as shallow as possible.
      The footer for the structural columns of the house has to be under the pond bed, so unless I am making a wading pool, the footer will inevitably be more than 4 feet deep.
      A major factor increasing cost is is the complicated lay of the land. All the heavy equipment has to be crane lifted to the bottom of the hill as the access road is 6 meters up.

      Tossed the plan for running big expensive pipes from front to back. I will instead be installing two separate filters.

      New mockup of the layout...

      Dark blue area up top is the ingress area for the airlift circulator. It will be covered with a grate. Round circles are the drain covers made of concrete or cut out of granite. The top two will be aerated. Bottom 3 will not as the waterfall should provide plenty of surface movement.

      Skimmers are not represented. There will be two no niche zakkis, each adjacent to the collection chambers and connected through the wall.

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      Last edited by DragonFireSG; 04-16-2018 at 08:00 AM.

    8. #28
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      Still going slow.

      Almost finalized design for the shower filter in the back of the waterfall. This will actually be off to one side as it discharges from the bottom.

      It is designed with active aeration in mind to accelerate evaporative cooling like in an industrial cooling tower. That will hopefully help to keep temperatures down on hot days.
      That will also optimize contact of the media with oxygen rich air.




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    9. #29
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      The waterfall side. The chamber should be self cleaning since nothing more than 50 microns enters, and any mulm settlement will immediately be siphoned off by strategically located small diameter drains.
      My concern is access to the media when maintenance needs to be done. Not a place to work in if one is claustrophobic. Unlike the shower filter, which has a removable PVC wall on one side, this is a sealed off chamber accessible only from the top.

      The aeration disks are for breaking up the water some before they go over the falls to give the impression of more volume. Also to deter midges from laying eggs in calm spots.


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    10. #30
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      I have design buyoff from key stakeholders at this stage. Doing slice diagrams for the architect and the structural engineer to work on.

      Doing detailed work on the RDF chamber and secondary bio and pump system. I have limited depth to work with in the area as it is near the neighbour's fence.

      Chamber is 1.3m deep - bit over 4 feet.

      RDF chamber slices. 3 modified BE RDFs set up for electronic control will be used. A Neptune Apex will be used for control, with a Levelor as backup. Neptune controls down to per RDF level.
      The Levelor is the shotgun solution and runs all the RDFs if the water level in the RDF pit reaches critical, which happens only if the RDFs are all stuck (unlikely), or if the Neptune is offline for whatever reason. It is a simple, elegant solution to the failure of a complicated computer system - and is certainly cheaper and less complicated than running a second Neptune for backup.

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    11. #31
      DragonFireSG is offline Senior Member
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      So many reworks... But I think this is it...

      We switched to using vertical piles for the retaining wall up front. No more limitation on the depth up front, making pipe runs feasible.

      I am not sure if 1 skimmer is enough. Any thoughts? I've made sure there should be a fairly strong surface current with a ton of waterfall output and very very few corners.

      Wish I could have kept the airlift circulator - but the expense of doing sheet piling to make it reality made it a pipe dream.

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      Last edited by DragonFireSG; 05-10-2018 at 06:34 AM.

    12. #32
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      Some filter pit modifications. After some math, I determined that I needed (a lot) more pump pit buffer to offset dynamic head due to large pond surface area.

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    13. #33
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      Yet another iteration. Difference now is that it's now gone past the structural engineering review stage. We've dropped individual column footers for a 300mm thick monolithic reinforced concrete pour for base of the entire property.

      This means that depth is limited to an absolute 1.5m. It's not as deep as I'd like, but we've countered that by greatly increasing surface area. The 3 main bottom drains can go under this, and will be trenched, bedded and cast in place prior to the foundation pour.

      The general rework was at the suggestion of our architect, who said the visible area of the main pond was too small, and that the outdoor space under our driveway would generally go underutilized. Might as well make the best of it and waterscape everything!

      The waterfall's been scaled down some. Bore piles as it turns out are massive and consume a lot of real estate. They are the big purple blocks up front.

      The bottom left section will be a walled off emergency fresh water store that holds about 2500 gallons of dechlorinated, pre-buffered fresh water. Overflow from this store will be used to top up loss from evaporation.

      I got the inspiration for this after talking to someone in the aquaculture business about their disaster recovery plans. A tap will take forever to top up a pond this size if there is a need for a large water change. A cheap sump pump in a fresh water tank on the other hand will do the job far better in far less time. IBCs plumbed in parallel in an elevated position would be better, but that is one bit of real estate I do not have to spare.

      Earth breaking will begin next month if all goes well. We've essentially received permission from the authorities to start work.


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    14. #34
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      Quote Originally Posted by DragonFireSG View Post
      The general rework was at the suggestion of our architect, who said the visible area of the main pond was too small, and that the outdoor space under our driveway would generally go underutilized. Might as well make the best of it and waterscape everything!
      I like the way your architect thinks!

      Can't wait to see the construction phase start.
      --Steve



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    15. #35
      DragonFireSG is offline Senior Member
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      Instead of using baskets for holding the anoxic media, I will be using #1 1000 micron polyester multifilament mesh drawstring bags. They're 7" in diameter and 16" tall. Partially filled, each will hold about 15kg of media.

      A single 50lb oil dri premium absorbent sack will provide media for about 2 bags. The bags on the whole will cost about $12 each to make and fill with media.

      I am wondering at this point if I can substitute some of the clay media with plastic bio chips or K1 to increase media volume whilst reducing mass. I might do this for the media installed in the waterfall upflow chamber where mass is more a concern.

      These, being essentially sand bags will be stood up on stainless steel grates inside the their upflow chambers.

      I had initially intended to hang these from schedule 80 steel pipes.

      I fear however, that their wet weight might be too much for the bag material to handle.
      Last edited by DragonFireSG; 11-06-2018 at 02:52 AM.

    16. #36
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      Approval from the authorities to start work has been given.

      Here's a photo of the empty plot. Some exploratory digging is being done to locate the old filled-in sewer connection. That will need to be rebuilt.
      The original house was built in 1962, and looked like the neighboring unit on the left. It was unoccupied for 20 years, and was demolished by the previous owner after being declared a mosquito breeding risk when the old ceiling caved in.

      The new pond will be adjacent to the slope of the hill. After shoring it up, a 12-15' waterfall feature will be put in place.

      It's going to be a nearly 2 year adventure at this point. More photos when we start the earth reinforcement work on the slope, and digging for the foundation. You'll notice that there is no direct access road to the property. All the heavy equipment has to be crane lifted down 24', and the debris similarly lifted out. Not the easiest piece of land to work on.

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    17. #37
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      Looking forward to watching your progress.

    18. #38
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      Wow, those are tight quarters!
      --Steve



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    19. #39
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      Thanks for the photo, now I understand your drawings much better. Looks like a great project I hope you will continue to post progress. Pond will be dug below existing ground level? parking and entrance to house on the street level? perhaps an additional floor above that?
      I can believe it will take 2 years, a very challenging tight site with VERY close neighbors and difficult slope.

    20. #40
      DragonFireSG is offline Senior Member
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      Parking and the main entrance is at the road level, with a floor and attic above that for bedrooms. There are 2 "basements" below the main floor. The bottommost hosts the kitchen and dining room, which overlooks the pond. A mezzanine floor above that hosts a general purpose room.

      We say "basements" because the authorities here consider anything below the main entrance a basement

      The close quarters are pretty much the norm here in Singapore. We're really short of open space, and the vast majority of the population lives in high rise apartments. There are tight rules to adhere to with regards to structural setbacks. The plans took nearly a year to clear. Glad that's all behind us now.

      The pond will be dug 1.2-1.5m down from the soil level, which is about as deep as we can go due to the monolithic foundation pour going under the pond. Any deeper and we'd have to install sheet piles next to the neighbors' plots, which will be complicated and expensive due to the special measures needed to avoid disastrous earth movement. The bottom drains will be trenched and bedded prior to the foundation pour since they need to go deeper.

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