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    Thread: New Journey – Garden and Pond

    1. #1
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      New Journey – Garden and Pond

      Well, we moved early this year to a new home.. Beside building a new pond, the landscaping requires a lot of work.. With a busy life with work and young kids, I plan to take it slow.. I give myself 2 years to get the yard to a decent shape.. That seems a lot of time but it’s actually not.. The weather here allows us to really work outside for 4 months a year..

      All the fishes are in a temporary housing, 1400 gallon Intex pool in garage.. The need for a new pond is on the top priority.. This will be another DIY pond, with limited budget.. Below is a plan. Any inputs are welcome. And please stay with the available equipment if possible. Other low cost equipment is OK but NO new & Expensive equipment at this point (not on the wife approval list ):
      1. The pond will be around 4500 gallons liner pond, 15x10x4.5ft. Because the backyard is going up “hill” after the patio, as you see in the pic below, the back of the pond will be below/same as ground level. The front of the pond, at the patio, will be ~2ft above ground. This will limit the digging. And after seeing fishes in the intex pool, I like the idea of seeing fish up close.
      2. Equipment in hand: 2 pumps (8200SEQ22 and ES5500). 2x Cetus sieves. 2x air pumps (40lpm and 20lpm), 8 cft K1 for MB, and ~200 lb feather rocks for shower. 1x57W UV, 2x S&G. And a few 55 Gallon barrels and few 300Gal Totes for MB and other needs
      3. Filtration plan: I plan to have 2 circuits. 1 will be running year round, and 1 will run during summer month.
      a. First circuit – will run year round: 1x4”BD to 1 sieve + 1x4” Skimmer to 1 sieve. Both sieve output connects together and go to 8200SEQ22 pump -> 3xS&G -> MB -> Water stream. There will be a bypass directly to pond that can be used in the winter.
      b. Second circuit – will run during summer only: Mid-level water -> ES5500 -> 3 tiers DIY shower -> water Stream or directly to pond. The first tier will be matala mat for pre-filter. Last 2 tiers will be feather rocks.
      4. The UV probably go on the first circuit but still need to determine its location.

      Thanks,
      hp.

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    2. #2
      pickerel's Avatar
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      Looks like a well thought out plan. I'm looking forward to watching it progress. How soon are you going to break ground?

    3. #3
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      Quote Originally Posted by pickerel View Post
      Looks like a well thought out plan. I'm looking forward to watching it progress. How soon are you going to break ground?
      Plan to break ground next weekend.. If I may use one of the 3 days this long weekend to start digging.. Just want to test out to see what this ground look like..

      hp.

    4. #4
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      Lots of space to work with

    5. #5
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      I started the garden work with redoing the front yard lawn.. The grass was messy... I killed all the old grass with Roundup, then 3 weeks ago, got new topsoil in, finished seeding on Saturday.. The next day, the main water line broke in the middle of the new lawn .. Based on the neighbor, it broke before and the previous owner fixed it.. I figured, I had to do it right this time.. So, I had to dig it up and replace the main water line from the meter to the house.. I had to spent another Saturday to fix the lawn again .. Hopefully this will last for a long time..
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    6. #6
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      Wow front and backyard at the same time? I want to do bonsai and koi pond in front yard. Would be nice

    7. #7
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by Nguyen365 View Post
      Wow front and backyard at the same time? I want to do bonsai and koi pond in front yard. Would be nice
      Seeing a messy grass in front yard bothered me so much.. So, that was the first thing I did.. Still need to add some plants/flowers.. I think with a new grass, it will make a big different..

      hp.

    8. #8
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      Next was removing evergreen trees.. Around 14 evergreen trees along that fence were cut down.. I like those trees, really green and gave me more privacy.. It was just that the previous owner did not maintain them and let them outgrow.. It's all over my roof.. Plus, they start blocking the view of people behind my house and on the day we moved in, they came over and asked if we can cut them down.. I'll plan to plant some treed again..

      The fence was newly build in March.. I and the neighbor shared... Before the fence was built, The whole area was cover with big Andorra Junifer..

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      Last edited by hp; 05-24-2019 at 06:05 PM.

    9. #9
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      Your dirt looks like it digs easy

    10. #10
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      I hate all of you folks with land were on .25 acres and the house is 3300 square foot house. And in California. And the misses wants a swimming pool after house paid off.
      No dream pond for me anytime soon.

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    11. #11
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by delbert View Post
      Your dirt looks like it digs easy
      Yes, it looks like that.. It's kind of sandy in front yard.. However, that will cause me to change plan a little bit. My last pond, I just dig, then put liner down. If it's sandy like front yard, I have to plan to have blocks and rebar on all the way to the bottom.

      I guess the challenges will be the top/first couple feet where there will be a lot of roots from those trees..

      hp.

    12. #12
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      Quote Originally Posted by Nguyen365 View Post
      I hate all of you folks with land were on .25 acres and the house is 3300 square foot house. And in California. And the misses wants a swimming pool after house paid off.
      No dream pond for me anytime soon.
      Lol.. Mine is not 3300 sft house but the lot is more than .25... The lot was the main reason I moved.. I want enough space for me to have my pond/garden, and space for a play ground for my 3 boys..

      Lucky that we don't really need a swimming pool in this climate

      hp.

    13. #13
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      Quote Originally Posted by Nguyen365 View Post
      I hate all of you folks with land were on .25 acres and the house is 3300 square foot house. And in California. And the misses wants a swimming pool after house paid off.
      No dream pond for me anytime soon.
      1/4 acre for CA lots is a premium. In most other states they have driveways bigger than 1/4 acre!
      ~ Jose

    14. #14
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by jcardona1 View Post
      1/4 acre for CA lots is a premium. In most other states they have driveways bigger than 1/4 acre!
      Yeah, all relatively new homes are built on ~3000 sq ft lot these day, unless you can afford million dollar home.. That's why I had to go with old house in 80's and spend couple months making updates inside before moving in.. Had to make the wife happy before I can move to projects outside

      Anyway, back to the pond plan.. inputs please!

      hp.

    15. #15
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      To me the plan looks like a good one. I worry about how much debris you'll get in the pump priming
      pot and on the mats on top of the shower, but I like the extra bio in the summer.
      I've been talking to another KP'er that's planning to gravity flow 5k gph through a MB so I'll be interested
      to see how yours does. My MB was feeding a pump, not gravity return, but on mine it was hard to flow
      more than 2-3k gph without the media sticking to the output. Hopefully the gravity return will not have
      the same effect that I had but I'd try and make multiple large returns to keep the flow rate per return
      as low as possible.

      I look forward to watching your project! Congrat's on the new house!
      --Steve



      Koiphen 2021 Koi Person of the Year!

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      I installed a 3 inch inlet manifold for my two Cetus sieves (each has one bottom drain, and they share the no basket skimmer), plus a 3 inch exit manifold for two pumps (one for High pressure for backwash a polishing bead filter and fast turnover, and one for continuous life support). It requires some extra room but with planning not as much as you think. The piping costs are not great and it provides flexibility. Assuming each sieve will handle 4k gph, you will have plenty of capacity that you could run all of your pond thru your two sieves and have just two screens to monitor for all mechanical filtration.

    17. #17
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by icu2 View Post
      To me the plan looks like a good one. I worry about how much debris you'll get in the pump priming
      pot and on the mats on top of the shower, but I like the extra bio in the summer.
      I've been talking to another KP'er that's planning to gravity flow 5k gph through a MB so I'll be interested
      to see how yours does. My MB was feeding a pump, not gravity return, but on mine it was hard to flow
      more than 2-3k gph without the media sticking to the output. Hopefully the gravity return will not have
      the same effect that I had but I'd try and make multiple large returns to keep the flow rate per return
      as low as possible.

      I look forward to watching your project! Congrat's on the new house!
      Thanks Steve!

      Regarding to the MB return, I currently run one for my temporary pond in the garage. I use 300 gallons tote with 8 cu ft K1&K3 and 60lpm air pump. The output is 4" back to the pool. I use the Sequence 8200SEQ22 pump. I don't know the exact amount of water but at less than 5ft head, I think it pumps more then 6K gallon per hr. The pump can empty 50% of the 1400 intex in like around 7 minutes (I just changed the water this afternoon). So, yes, a lot of water flow! At the exit, I use about 2ft long 4" pipe with saw cuts. I do see K1 sticks to the output but doesn't block and causes over flow. below are pics for MB set up and the mutts.

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    18. #18
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by Grumpy View Post
      I installed a 3 inch inlet manifold for my two Cetus sieves (each has one bottom drain, and they share the no basket skimmer), plus a 3 inch exit manifold for two pumps (one for High pressure for backwash a polishing bead filter and fast turnover, and one for continuous life support). It requires some extra room but with planning not as much as you think. The piping costs are not great and it provides flexibility. Assuming each sieve will handle 4k gph, you will have plenty of capacity that you could run all of your pond thru your two sieves and have just two screens to monitor for all mechanical filtration.
      Grumpy

      Thanks. So, you had 2 BDs and 1 skimmer go to 2 sieves. And 2 sieves outputs seem to connect together, and connect to 2 pumps. Do I understand that correctly? I'll think about this little more and see if I should add a second BD.

      If both sieve outputs are 4K gph max each (8k gph max total), that is not enough to support both pumps. That's why I connect them together before go to the Sequence pump 8200SEQ22 which should give me 6 to 7k gph at around 7ft dynamic head. That is around 3k gph per circuit, enough to prevent settling in the pipe. I purchased these two cetus from a member here recently.. That's why the pumps and sieves don't go together very well.

      hp.

    19. #19
      hp is offline Senior Member
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      https://www.amazon.com/HydroTools-Wi...-1-spons&psc=1

      Is this the correct the pool skimmer people used for block wall pond? I will need to modify the output to 4", right? Will this be big enough to provide 4k gph?

      Thanks,
      hp.

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      hp, our pond footprint is similar but is a little deeper than yours and has about 5k total, but each pond is different. I didn't anticipate I needed a turnover rate as high as you are planning.

      I worked to keep the entire system balanced and my desire was future flexibility while maintaining the lowest energy consumption reasonably possible. The actual rated capacity of Cetus sieves are 4700 gph each, and our units were modified by birdman long ago with 3 inch outlets so I believed they would achieve their rated capacity. I felt the 9400 gph max volume thru both sieves was sufficent for our 5k pond. Our sieve outlet manifold currently has two pumps but has provisions for more. To keep my energy consumption low I wanted to have options in the future for better pumps. To keep max velocity inside the pressure pipes below 5 feet per second I used 3 inch pipes as much as possible.

      To have flexibility I choose two 3" bottom drains so I can still maintain a minimum 2 fps speed in each drain pipe while using only the current low energy pump. I followed the guideline that each 3 inch drain has an max effective cleaning radius of 4 feet (diameter of 8 feet) that provided a possible pond footprint of 8 x 16 with rounded corners and sloping floor. I wanted a minimum for each drain of 1500 gph to max of 3500 gph to keep the pipe speed reasonable, while flushing each drain can easily be done with the 9400 gph flow volume. To maximize the sieves, each bottom drain must provide 3500-4000 gph and the skimmer 1400 - 2400 gph.

      All of my current equipment has come from craigslist, so aren't perfect. The air pump is currently 112 watt (needs to be improved), the UV is 80 watt, one pump (75% efficient) is consuming about 600 watt, and the other about 500 watts. So my current minimum is about 0.6 kwh; while my max is about 1.3 kwh. To expensive for me, I would like my minimum to be lower.

      Birdman long ago told me the most important aspect of piping my pond was to allow for expansion and revision. He told me never get the piping and fittings so tight together you can't change or improve later. Make provisions for later revisions. Since it took me so long to finish my pond, I kind of went overboard with piping, but I do have great flexibility and can make changes easily.
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