Is this pond built or under construction? There are DIY filter designs you can use.

I HIGHY recommend a bottom drain, in fact 2 of them for a pond your size.

What type of pond will this be? Koi pond? wildlife pond? water garden? What is your budget? How comfortable are you with DIY? what are the over all dimensions of the pond?

We dug it out to 3 feet deep, 16 feet wide, 40 feet long and it holds approx . 14,400 gallons of water. Not sure I want to do koi. I think my main thing is a water hole the kids can get wet in as its a big open area for 25 ft on one side and the other has two islands that connect via bridges. I am going to add a waterfall area to that side. So really plants and kids for now as my gazebo sits next to pond for relaxation. I have a epdm liner that is installed and have no bottom drain? My worries are I had pieced two liners together and they leaked so I had to have a one piece liner trucked in. I have been doing the pond all by myself already and am willing to try to learn anything. How do bottom drains install in liner withoput them leaking?

Thanks

Bottom drains can be purchased with all the needed fittings to go through the liner, or can be done with edpm using a pipe boot. Both need to be installed before and during the liner install. The final bottom drain option is referred to as a retrofit, and consists of a line that comes up out of the pond, and is the least recommended for looks, protection, and efficiency.

Pressure filters are what you seem to be looking at. It takes quite a bit of power to run one. If budget is an issue, you need to do a bit more research, and finish planning before you go any further.

-TT

I never said budget was a issue I just said I do not want to spend that kind of money if there is other choices. The liner is not in yet waiting on the trucking company to bring it in this week. So I will order a bottom drain. Just trying to fiqure out my options without breaking the bank. Thats why I am here is for advise as I take steps. Thanks

Have you looked at this site?
http://www.aquahabitat.com/ponds.html#swimming%20ponds

Here is a link that might be useful: My pond the way it was before the freeze.

Here is another.........
http://www.biopiscinas.pt/swimming_ponds.pdf

Here is a link that might be useful: My pond the way it was before the freeze.

No thank you new to all of this and these are two I have not. Thank you will go now and look,

you could add a couple of large barrel filters. You can hide them off a ways from the pond and connect them to the pond with black tubing. The sell the tubing at Home Depot and the barrel filters at garden centers. I have a snall one and it works great. You need black because clear tubes clog up with algae. That is a big pond you have for sure and might need two pumps. These aren't that expensive

Patricia Unless you are building a cement rectranglar swimming pool the gallonage of your pond will not be 14400 as it will not have vertial walls and be a rectrangle. I would guess that 8000 to 10000 gallons would probably be closer. What other equipment are you going to have on this pond? Bottom Drains would be a good idea but a skimmer or two would be good. Probably a couple of external pumps. What do you plan to keep in this pond? A drawing of the pond would be good to get the correct advise. Some idea of some kind of budget would be helpful. Than we can start to give you some good advise.
Mike

The pond is not cement but is a rectangle. I got my gallons from the web site when I put in my measurments to order a liner. I bought a 4 inch bottom drain and using pvc after looking over other sites. I bought a skimmer thats good for a 6000-12000 gallon pond. I think that is correct. Its a Pro1200 skimmer. I have a dragon that I am running with solar and than just a plain and simple water feature. I bought a spillaway and will use that in a waterfall feature. My biggest search now is a pump. Prefer one that will run both. I have a electrician running 110 volt outlet this week. I really have no budget and I can try to get a drawing or actual pictures.So far I have about 3000 invested but that includes some landscaping so far. The liner arrived in one piece a firestone and its laying there untill I had a idea of how to at least hook skimmer which I think I have fiqured out except what I need to buy after I cut hole in skimmer so I can hook the pvc pipe up to it. Than a pump is my last step before waterfall features . Or may'be its the opposite. Like I said budget is not a issue but if I can save money I would greatly love to.

My pond is 15,000 gallons. When it is time to fill the pond with water buy or rent a meter to get a true reading.

I have a pro 900 skimmer that does a good job but with a pond my size I wish I had gone with a second skimmer.

I have two bottom drains which I am glad I did. I have a pipe capped off in case I want to add another filtration system in the future.

I did the DIY 55 gallon barrel filtration system which is working well.

I have a submersible tsurumi pump for the skimmer system. I bought it before I learned about external pumps.

When I discovered my pond was going to be larger than I expected I did a second filtration system with a WLim external pump.

Each filtration system is on its on electrical circuit so that if one circuits trips or something goes wrong , I still have one system up and running.

I plan on adding a third filtration system in the future. My pond is more of a water garden with lots of plants. I have Sarassa and Shubunkin goldfish.

If I had chosen Koi, I would definately have added a third filtration system.

Hope this helps

Hi I will have to check into the meter part. We own a acerage so we are on well water so I would not see a bill :-) My brother gave me tonight a brand new internal pump to go in my skimmer but I am not sure how to hook it up. Its new in box but he lost directions to it. It has the hose connection that comes off the side. Box says its a 1/4 hp and pumps 1980 gph. I am assuming that you run a hose thru the side of skimmer into pond? No clue so I am researching that. LOL at this rate it might be in by summer, than oh well some fall enjoyment before winter sinks in. At least next summer I will be really happy. Sounds like you have a nice huge pond. Can I ask how you hooked up your submersible pump? I wanted to use one with my waterfall feature but now I am pulling hair because I read you do not really want it near your drain. So I am assuming that I can split the suction and run a long tubing?

Patricia, The pump you have is not going to large enough to run the skimmer let alone the bottom drain. I would want to run the bottom drain to an external pump and run the skimmer also to the external pump. I would want to think about a pump that can about 7500 gph. And if I could afford it I would go with 2 external pumps. Running the bottom drain to a skimmer will work but not much better than no bottom drain.
Mike

My submersible tsurumi pump is at the back of my skimmer box. I have a 2000 gph sub pump that runs a small water feature in it,too. That way I have no pumps in the pond itself as that can become a cleaning nightmare in a large pond! LOL. Your Pro 1200 can be set up like this

Do look at external pumps, too as the pro 1200 can be set up with an external pump beside it. My skimmer box is set in concrete and up against a rock ledge. There is no way I can go back and add an external now. It is much easier as the pond is being constructed.

As mike il stated you need at least a 7500 gph for that skimmer.

A 1950 gph will barely draw leaves into the skimmer.

The meter I was referring too is one that connects to your garden hose as you are filling the pond. You can buy one for less than $100 or some pond/garden stores rent them for about $20 a day.

My pond is about 35x40 and 4.5 deep in the middle and is only 15,000 gallons metered. All the pond volume websites stated my pond would be 22,000 gallons plus which overwhelmed me!

These volume calculators can not take into account sloping sides, ledges etc. As Mike il stated before,You may find with a meter reading that you are at about 8000-10000 gallons.

As usual nobody seemed to read what you wrote. You wrote that you want a waterhole for the kids to play in and to put plants in. Well if that's what you are going to use it for then there pretty much isn't anything that's going to take care of it. You just can't make a three foot deep rubber pit as a wading pool with plants that you are going to be able to filter properly for the use you want to put it to.
Now if you are going to forget about the plants and just use it for a wading pool then you can equip it like a regular swimming pool with all the accessories and chemicals.

But to use it for wading and for plants you have to do a LOT more DETAILED AND PRECISE construction and spend a LOT more money to make it safe for wading/swimming.
Without the extra bucks you're going to have to either:
1. Make it a swimming pool or
2. Keep the kids out of it and use it for a water garden.

right now I have no plants at all in it, they are on the islands and the outside, I will look into the ideas and check for another pump and use this one my spitting dragon.

A true bottom drain is really needed if the kids are going to go swimming in it. The reason is, if muck and debris is allowed to settle then everytime the kiddies go in you will stir up all kinds of muck and the water will get very cloudy and gross. If you have no fish or plants and you just want a natural looking "swimming hole" then I would focus on mechanical filtration and not worry too much about biological filtration. Heck you could even chlorinate it at that point, but most pond equipment, including the liner, is not designed to handle chlorine.

But again, with no plants or fish, you could always give it a heavy dose of Potassium Permaginate whenever it got dirty, then clear it up with Hydrogen Peroxide and the water will be clean and sparkly again.

I am installing a 4 inch bottom drain this week. Attached to the skimmer. I suppose when you get down to everything I want my pond basically for relaxing by. A place kids can take a dip we live on a farm in the country. The waterfall feature and such will be great with me. I think though I will make sure to equipt it so that in the future when kids are older and no longer have any desire or I can afford that 25,000 in ground pool I could add fish in the way way future, Thank you everyone for all the helpful advice.

don't attached the bottom drain to the skimmer. give it its own line. If you attach it to the skimmer it will do almost nothing since water will follow the path of least resistance.

A 4 inch line attached to the pro1200 will not do as much as a seperate line for the BD.
Like surfhead stated, make it a seperate line.

The hole was already cut into the skimmer before reading this post. I am not sure a hole can be put back. I suppose if I need to at some poinbt I can always install a second skimmer.thanks
Patricia

If I read your name correctly, I assume you live in Iowa. If so and it's in the Cedar Rapids area, There is a ponder in the area, He offers a CD on setting up a pond. He also consults on pond construction. If you are interested you can Email me thru this site and I'll send you his site. I'll be in Iowa nest week and would like to see your pond if you are in the CR area.

Hi I am actually about 40 miles outside of Cedar rapids. I put a bottom drain in my pond but than attached to my skimmer wrong so I just went head and bought another and waiting on it. If I hook up the bottom drain se\perate from skimmer than how do you work the bottom drain? I also am working on adding a waterfall and only have 2 outlets for electric.

I am definately no expert but the way I understand it, the bottom drain is hooked up to a sediment chamber and then to an external pump which pumps to the mechanical and biological filters.

I'm a super novice but I've learned some pretty cool stuff in the past year. For starts I built a fish/swimming pond for my kids. The pond is 3,500 gallons, two bottom drains that gravity empty into a vortex that collects leaves and other particles. The semi clean water is past through a screen which goes into a 3 by 8 ft / 3 ft deep rock filter that empties into a chamber with a submersible pump 1,300 gallon/hour that passes through a uv filter and back into the pond by way of a waterfall. I presently have about 20 3 lb, guapotes. It's a fish much like the large mouth bass. I also have 5 pots (no soil) of water lillies. I just put a little sand in the pots to keep them from floating. The water is crystal clear. I just had the water tested and it came out with a fecal coliform count at 79. They say anything under 150 is acceptable for swimming. My kids love it and I'm in the process of making a pond of about 23,000 gallons with the same concept. I sweep the bottom about once every two weeks for leaves. I don't have any problem with my plants and the kids. I also havn't been able to justify the use of a skimmer. I live in Costa Rica. I might also add that I have small tropical fish in the filter eating the mosquito larva.