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    Thread: Help with retro bottom drain

    1. #1
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Help with retro bottom drain

      We live in Ohio and put in a 5000 gallon pond last fall and am finally getting the to the filtration. I plan to use two 55 gallon barrel sand and gravel filters on the pond for filtration (I used one on a previous pond about a 1000 gallons and it worked great). I was thinking about using two retrofit bottom drains on one line and a skimmer on another line all on an external pump (Helix 6800 gph). I plan to split the flow from the pump between the filters and the waterfall. Couple of questions:

      1. Will two 55 gal barrel SG be enough? I am not crazy about pristine water....just enough to see the fish clearly.
      2. Should I use 2" or 3" in retro BD?
      3. Regarding the BD, is it okay if the pipe goes over the side of the pond then below water level to the external pump that will sit below water level? Not really sure I want to run the pipe through the liner if I don't have to.
      4. Lastly, is there anything you guys would do differently like use two pumps, etc? I plan to add another skimmer at some point too. I've got a lot of leaves I'll be dealing with.

      I've been a big fan of this forum and the insight you guys give. Would love your suggestions. I've attached a couple of pictures so you can see what I'm working with. Thanks.

      Ryan
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    2. #2
      OCkoiFan's Avatar
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      Have you consider any type of sieve of prefilter before the S/Gs?
      Surface for huge pond might requires 2 bottom drains

      I’m afraid you are doing this backward and it is a very hard task to improve for this size of pond
      Please also advice the measurement of your pond
      M.Nguyen


    3. #3
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by OCkoiFan View Post
      Have you consider any type of sieve of prefilter before the S/Gs?
      Surface for huge pond might requires 2 bottom drains

      I’m afraid you are doing this backward and it is a very hard task to improve for this size of pond
      Please also advice the measurement of your pond
      Agreed! When we moved last year, my wife wanted to take our koi with us so they lived in a stock tank for a while. Between 60 hour work weeks and the never-ending Ohio rain, it was a scramble just to get done what we did before the winter. If it weren't for trying to save the koi from freezing solid, I would have taken more time do it a little more properly. Anyway, here we are. I would like to do a prefilter before the S/G but not real familiar with what's out there. I was researching settling tanks but not sure how well they work with a retro B/D. I don't know much about sieves. I just started looking into them.

      The pond measures aprox 35' long and 14' at the widest. The depth is 3' then slopes to 4' at the deepest. There are a couple of shelves that measure 24' to 36".

    4. #4
      OCkoiFan's Avatar
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      Since the liner is already installed
      Your best and easiest option is to just pipes into 2 bottom drains and install a check valve vertical at mid water level
      2” retro fits should do it since most pumps intake is 2”
      Base on the size one BD is not enough coverage
      I would look into Zakki Sieve since it is most fit your situation
      Another option is just to use a big ultima 10k to minimize the waste and then 2 S/G barrels or perhaps a large DIY showers
      Others may have brilliant ideas so stay tune
      M.Nguyen


    5. #5
      trumpetdoug's Avatar
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      Go with the large Zakki. It comes with a 250 micron screen. I would order the 100 micron screen as well. After the pond is getting pretty clean, the 100 micron screen will really do a great job.

      Doug - out
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    6. #6
      Stevectx's Avatar
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      It seems to me that you absolutely should use 3" pipe as much as possible with a pond that large. I piped my first pond with with 2" and had to redo it all with 3" lines to get adequate flow rate at reasonable energy costs...the head loss of a 2" pipe is a factor of at least 10 larger over a longer span...say 20 feet and maybe 4 feet up ... than it is with a 3" line. I called a pump company and gave them my dimensions (distance, elevation, etc) and the calculated head loss with 2" pipe was about 26 feet and with 3 inch was about 3 feet.
      And use 3" bottom drains, two of them in your case. Vacuum pump to a Zakki sieve and then a bead filter. Reach out to Zac Penn or check out his stuff here on Koiphen and his website to get better understanding of the system.

      Regards,
      Steve

    7. #7
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Thank you for all your input! I'm going to look into the zakki and definitely going with the 2 bottom drains. Most likely the 3 inch. I think I'll go ahead with the 2 skimmers at the same time. Better to do it all now than redo it later.
      Last edited by jrhughes30; 05-08-2019 at 08:54 AM.

    8. #8
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      Very nice pond! Will be looking into the zakki for sure.

    9. #9
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Very nice pond, Doug! Will be looking into the zakki for sure.

    10. #10
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      As much as I don't want to, I think I am going to drain the pond and take up the liner to install 2 bottom drains so that the plumbing is hidden. Because of the size of the pond, I don't want to do a settling chamber but would like to do direct suction to a Zakki Sieve. However, I have no idea what size drains or lines should go to the sieve. Any thoughts on this? Or can anyone point me to a thread on this?

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    11. #11
      tbullard is offline Senior Member
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      If your doing all that work I would consider adding a filter pit and gravity flowing each bottom drain with 4" pipe to a UltraSieve III

    12. #12
      icu2's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by jrhughes30 View Post
      As much as I don't want to, I think I am going to drain the pond and take up the liner to install 2 bottom drains so that the plumbing is hidden. Because of the size of the pond, I don't want to do a settling chamber but would like to do direct suction to a Zakki Sieve. However, I have no idea what size drains or lines should go to the sieve. Any thoughts on this? Or can anyone point me to a thread on this?
      Here's a couple but there are more:

      https://www.google.com/url?client=in...8gPQZn34U3t1fn

      https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showt...sers-Need-help

      https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showt...i-sieve-owners!
      --Steve



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    13. #13
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Updated plans on filtration

      Some more thoughts....

      I have attached a diagram of the plan. After draining the pond I plan to add two 3'' bottom drains and two skimmers to Zakki Sieve to pump to bead filter and use all 3" pipe. (Thanks, Stevectx! Going with your suggestions) The return will be the waterfall (the waterfall doesn't correlate with the diagram. I'm going to move it to the other side and improve it).

      Luckily a built-in filter pit came with the house we bought. It is actually a limestone well with a concrete floor which they built an 8'x8' block house over. The well is in the center of the floor and I plan to install/hide the pump and filter components inside around the well. The floor of the well is about 4 to 5' below ground level. Hopefully the pictures I upload will show what I'm trying to describe.

      Does anyone see anything they might do differently or anything I'm missing? Any recommendations on bead filter or pump? I was thinking of going with the Ultima II 10,000 bead filter. I plan to figure out head pressure now and decide how big the pump needs to be. Name:  Pond diagram 5.18.19.jpg
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    14. #14
      Grumpy is offline Senior Member
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      It is very likely your pond equipment will leak, overflow, whatever onto the floor and the dirty water will try to run into the existing well. That dirty contaminated water will go into the aquifer that the well is established in. This is against the law in most places. The laws are setup to keep ground water clean without contamination, you really don't want to contaminate ground water. The well casing pipe needs to extend above the existing surrounding ground and have a proper sealed top. I assume this is a shallow irrigation well used only for landscaping, and I would recommend you research local authorities about extending the top of the well casing, or permanently closing the well, before you do any planning to use the building for pond filtration.

    15. #15
      icu2's Avatar
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      If you're going to the trouble of pulling the liner up I wouldn't use anything smaller than 4" bottom drains.
      A 4" BD flowing 3-4k gph is good for about a 12' diameter (3" BD flowing 2-3k gph is good for about 10') so
      in reality you could use 3-4 BD's for that size pond if you had enough filtration to handle all the water.

      Should be a great upgrade to watch!
      --Steve



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    16. #16
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by Grumpy View Post
      It is very likely your pond equipment will leak, overflow, whatever onto the floor and the dirty water will try to run into the existing well. That dirty contaminated water will go into the aquifer that the well is established in. This is against the law in most places. The laws are setup to keep ground water clean without contamination, you really don't want to contaminate ground water. The well casing pipe needs to extend above the existing surrounding ground and have a proper sealed top. I assume this is a shallow irrigation well used only for landscaping, and I would recommend you research local authorities about extending the top of the well casing, or permanently closing the well, before you do any planning to use the building for pond filtration.
      That's something to think about.

    17. #17
      jrhughes30 is offline Junior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by icu2 View Post
      If you're going to the trouble of pulling the liner up I wouldn't use anything smaller than 4" bottom drains.
      A 4" BD flowing 3-4k gph is good for about a 12' diameter (3" BD flowing 2-3k gph is good for about 10') so
      in reality you could use 3-4 BD's for that size pond if you had enough filtration to handle all the water.

      Should be a great upgrade to watch!
      Thanks, Steve. I'm not real certain how to plumb 4" pipe without a settling chamber. Can 4" pipe be plumbed directly to the the sieve and will I get a similar effect with direct suction versus gravity flow into a settling chamber? I haven't been able to find much on that in the forum.

    18. #18
      DragonFireSG is offline Senior Member
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      No need for a settlement chamber with the zakkis. Direct to sieve is the way to go. In fact, a settlement chamber will break the suction, which is not something you want to do.
      The Zakki is designed to separate solids from water immediately, which defeats the purpose of a settlement chamber anyway.

      The small Zakki sieve accepts up to 1x 4" direct connection. The large sieve can accept up to 3.
      Use only sweeps for any elbows in plumbing a BD and make provision for cleanouts if possible.

    19. #19
      icu2's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by jrhughes30 View Post
      Thanks, Steve. I'm not real certain how to plumb 4" pipe without a settling chamber. Can 4" pipe be plumbed directly to the the sieve and will I get a similar effect with direct suction versus gravity flow into a settling chamber? I haven't been able to find much on that in the forum.
      Absolutely. The Ultra III sieve has two 110mm inputs (4" with a fernco) that gravity flow to feed it. It will
      easily gravity flow 7500+ gph. 7500 gph being drawn by a pump or via gravity is the same. It's still 7500 gph.

      --Steve



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      Is there a reason to do zakki over the ultrasieve III? I'll probably end up doing the two 4" BDs because I can't think of a reason not to and several to do it.

      Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

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