Hi folks,

me again with a quick update. Sadly I've got little done to the pond since we last spoke due to the fact that it's been raining solidly since ;-( I have however managed to get the screen around the pump and am happy to report it got me a 200% improvement to the pumps sludge life. From the 1 day it was running previously to 3 days. So my thanks go to all who helped out and especially to catfishsam for the idea. The pipe coming off the pump made it was really hard to find a suitable bucket that wasnÂt huge for the pond, so I ended up using a large aquatic plant pot! Very handy as all the little holes in it act as a pre-filter for the pre-filter ;-)

I also disconnected the fountain as it was restricting the flow from the pump and am now running the hose directly over the pond, which is moving the water quite nicely. The fish seem much happier, moving around a lot more and eating better already. A vast improvement IÂd say. The downside is that the folks living next door now think I'm crazy, as every 3 days I'm out in the pouring rain cleaning some screen ;-) Photos will be incoming if it ever stops raining.

OK a new question. IÂve decided IÂll defiantly build a skippy, IÂve got a 227 litre (59.9 US gallons) water butt, which I think would do nicely. I plan to plumb it with 1.5 inch heavy duty hose, however IÂm puzzled about water inlet and sludge outlet.

For the inlets my local supplier suggested I use this type of connector

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However my water butt is round, so IÂm pretty sure this type of connector wonÂt make a good seal. Can anyone advise on this one?

For the sludge outlet he suggested one of these, used horizontally on the bottom of the butt, or vertically via a drain outlet and a pipe on the bottom. Would this work do you think?

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My thanks in advance once again for any and all assistance.

Regards

ChrisC.