Don't do it. All you'll be doing is creating a breeding ground for anaerobic bacteria that have great potential to rot roots. The bacteria will also produce methane, excess CO2, and sulfurous gas compounds that will impair root function and reduce plant vitality. Put your holes on the bottom at the container's lowest point. Containers that need more frequent watering generally offer much greater opportunity for plants to grow as close as possible to their genetic potential. Al

Time to hit the Sears cataglog, Black and Decker, or DeWalt tool listings. They all have what is called a Sawzall. A must tool. Either cord or cordless. Very usefull for cutting all kinds of things with metal or wood blades. Avoid China made, they don't last. I have three 55 gal drums that I think at one time had swimming pool chemicals in them. By the time I got them they had been emptied and it was several years ago and back then I rinsed them well and since have caught rainwater in them, added mosquito pellets and/or capped them and used the water when there is a lack of rain. Unless you are part gorilla I don't see how you could reach all the way down into a 55 gal container from the top but I would think if you have an open area far from plants etc, you could fill them and then siphon off the diluted chemical. Or lay them on their side and run a hose into them. They have a screw cap on top, don't they?My guess would be that you have diluted the chemical enough to be ok. Of course I'm from the old school where you did what you had to, not what was always politically or environmentally correct. One of my three containers had the top completely cut off and I catch garage runoff in it. I cut a small hole near the bottom and screwed in a small tap that I can turn on/off to let the water out. Gets a little scummy if I leave it too long but we get regular rain so I don't have to leave water in it too long.

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I second zendog. The pipe size needed can be computed but you need to know the pump's GPH and length of pipe, size and fittings. There are friction tables and calculators online. That gives you the amount of water entering the first barrel. Or you can test directly using a stop watch to see how long it takes to fill a 5 gal bucket or both 55 gal barrels if the media is removed. Once you know the speed of water coming in you can compute the size pipe needed to keep up using gravity. Not as complex as it sounds, but does take some noddling. A lot less work imo than trying different sizes. 3" from barrel 1 to barrel 2 would be a good guess, but you might be able to get away with 2". It throws a lot of people but a 2" pipe is a bit more than 3 times the area as a 1.25" pipe and a 3" has over 7 times the area. Another problem you may run into is called draw down. It means when this is running the water level in the 1st barrel will always be higher than in the 2nd barrel. So the out flow in the 2nd barrel has to be a bit lower than expected or the 1st barrel will overflow. This draw down thing get worst as more barrels are added in a series. The best way to deal with it is to put the pipe thru the barrel much lower than needed and then 90 to vertical. The water overflows into the vertical which is easier to adjust up and down. Once an an outflow is drilled too high you're kind of screwed. If I might make a couple of suggestions. First is the type of filter you're trying to make is submerged media meaning the media is always submerged. These are very poor filters and are pretty much impossible to use because the media clogs and the filters overflow. So at the very least you really need a separate overflow on each barrel to handle that case or you risk emptying the pond depending on where your pump intake is located. This is a very old style filter and modern filters have been tested to perform around 30 times better for ammonia removal. Mainly this is due to increased gas exchange (more O2). But also because submerged media conversion of ammonia gets less and less as the media clogs. Which means lots of cleaning to keep up conversion. Cleaning 55 gals of lava rock is no fun at all. Modern filters are self cleaning. Trickle Towers were the first of these modern filters. Moving Bed (aka fluidized bed) and Bakki Shower came next. You could convert your barrels to these much better designs pretty easily. To convert to Trickle Tower you raise the barrel up so the bottom of the barrel is above the pond water level. Water comes into the top and washes over the lava rock. It's like a water fall inside a barrel. The washing keep a lot of muck from collecting and gives the bacteria max O2. You'd split the 1.25 pump line so 1/2 goes into each barrel. It is much more efficient running these in parallel than in series. The next option to turn one barrel into a moving bed. You would have to buy media for this which is a little pricey but there are DIY substitutes. Conversion means placing a plastic grate at the bottom of the barrel to keep the media from flowing out. Then the water form the pump is directed downward into the barrel near the side of the barrel, That causes the media to roll. That keeps the media washed 24/7 and lots of O2. Lots of DIY ideas on the web, A shower filter would be more difficult and they are noisy. But if interested there are lots of DIY instructions around the web. It is very unfortunate that there are still lots of people pushing these old style submerged media filters. But that's the web for you...99% junk info. These newer filters are worth checking out as they will be much easier to build and perform so much better.