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Ponds & Aquatic Plants

Bottom Drain

16 years ago

I'm really confused about this. this is what I think a BD is...

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Is this what a bottom drain is? If its not, could someone please explain what it is because im really confused. oh and btw those brown things are dead leaves moving through the pipes

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Comments (7)

tcpd28
16 years ago
I'd like some help too. I just received my tetra 3" BD and I don't know what to do with it. I know...dig the hole first, but then what?!?!
surfhead
16 years ago
yeah, you got it about right. The bottom drain is not for draining the pond. It is where the filtration system begins. The bottom drain is so water from the bottom of the pond can be sent to the filter system. The bottom of the pond is where the vast majority of the solid waste and rotting debris will settle. So thats is where you want the filter to pull from. Skimmers are good and you need them. but you also need a bottom drain.

Once you dig the pond, dig a trench for the 3" pipe. Lay the pipe and the base of the bottom drain in place and then cement the base of the drain in place and fill the trench with dirt. Before you cement it in, make sure it is level and cover the opening so no cement or dirt can get in. Then lay your liner, cut the hole, and attach the top flange and dome. badda bing you have installed a bottom drain.
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I have two bottom drains which I added at the end of my build. The pond was already dug and the retaining wall built. The pond does slope but not enough towards the drains. This causes some muck to not make it to the drains. They are not as effective as if I had planned to have them at the very beginning stages of my build. My pond is more of a watergarden with goldfish than a Koi pond so I have more muck from plants, etc. With my situation, I bought a Oase Pond vac 3 . My pond is 4.5 feet at the bottom drains. At this depth, I put on full waders and climb into the pond to clean the very bottom. I only have to climb in once a year though. I can not reach the bottom of the pond with the pond vac from the sides of my pond as it is too wide. If you are able to reach the bottom drains with a broom to swirl the debris towards the drain, than a pondvac should be able to work for you. I am happy with the Oase Pond Vac 3. I use my pond vac about once a month just to get leaves and debris that are trapped in the plants. It was a big splurge for me but it has more than paid for itself.
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Mckool, Depending on how steep a slope there is on the v shape to the 2" flat spot on the bottom will determine what can be done. Going to the skimmer you will probably only be able to use 2" pipe. Then the only flow through this pipe will be by gravity. That flow will be determined by the difference in the water level in the skimmer versus the water level in the pond. As an example if you have a 1/2" difference when the pump is running then you will have about 800 gph flow through the 2" pipe. If you are able to block the flow into the skimmer and can get a 2" drop then the flow increases to about 1700 gph which is far better. To get the drain to work somewhat correctly I would like to see a flow around 2400 to 3000 gph. This would require a drop of 4 to 6". Mike
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Ok, you only really have 2 vertical feet when talking about had loss. As far as I know, you have no head loss to get water from the bottom to the top of the pond. If you want a settling chamber, it is actually quite easy, but I had a hard time grasping it at first, also. Hopefully this will help. First, I will just describe how mine is set up. I have both a bottom drain and a skimmer, but they are not attached. I think this is important. I have a 3" bottom drain that is 4' below surface of the pond. The drain has 2 parts that screw together and form a seal with the rubber liner so that the pipe is run outside of the pond and below the liner. The drain is attached to a 3" 90 degree elbow to go horizontal, then immediately to a 3"-4" coupling. Then I have about 4' of 4" pipe, followed by a 4" 45 degree coupling angled upwards. At about 1' below water level I have another 45 degree coupling to get the pipe running horizontal again. After about a 6' run, the pipe goes through a hole on another liner (settling chamber) with a hose clamp creating seal. Right after the pipe enters the chamber, I have a 90 degree elbow that is deigned to move water in the chamber in a counter-clockwise direction. Here it is again... 3" drain -> 3" 90-degree -> 3"-4" coupler -> 4" pipe -> 4" 45-degree upward -> 4" pipe -> 4" 45-degree horizontal -> 4" pipe into chamber -> 4" 90 degree elbow. The chamber is set in the ground with the top at the same level as the pond so that the water level in the pond equalizes with the chamber. Now, whenever water is removed from the chamber, water will flow through the pipe from the pond to feed the chamber. In the chamber, I have a submersible pump that pushes water through a 1.5" pipe back into the pond. I do wrap the pump in a screen, but all debris that enters the chamber has already settled to the bottom of the pond, so it now settles again at the bottom of the chamber. The 4" pipe allows the debris to move more slowly when entering the chamber so it settles faster. Now, at the bottom of the chamber (about 1.5 feet deep), I have another 2" shower drain that is connected to a pipe that runs just outside of the chamber. I can hook a shop-vac up to the pipe and suck all debris out very easily. The chamber is sort of cone-shaped so that debris settles near the drain. Back to the skimmer... The pipe from my skimmer immediately goes from 1.5" to 4" to minimize friction loss. The 4" pipe goes for about 20 feet before going into a skippy filter, waterfall, bog and about 10' of creek before re-entering the pond at the opposite end. The top of the skippy/waterfall is probably only 2'-2.5' above the pond level. I know this was lengthy, but I hope I answered more questions than I created. Fire away! Brad
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Jenny, We stop up the line going into the first tub.(we use a nerf football :) Then we let the pump run to take as much water as possible out of all the tubs. Then either using a scoop or shop vac we scoop out all the muck. Cliff usually mucks it out will a jug -- emptying the muck into a 5 gallon bucket, then he walks around watering all the flowers and plants with the fish muck...The flowers and plants love it. Keep in mind we built our pond in 1997, that was the dark ages as far as the internet was concerned. We took books out of the library and then went shopping for a liner (nowhere was a bottom drain ever mentioned) Fortunately for us we shopped in a large pet store that sold pond supplies and liners. The owner had a large pond in his backyard and explained to us the necessity of the bottom drain and the dome top on the bottom drain. The pond floor is all slightly tilted toward the bottom drain to enable all the muck that settles on the bottom to naturally gravitate towards the drain. The water swirles around the drain with the dome top and flows through the drain into the tubs. The first and second tubs have the filter material. We cut sides of milk crates and wrap them in various materials like cotton batting and force them standing straigt up into the tubs. Most of the waste is trapped into the first tub. The last tubs hold our pumps, we have about 5 or 6 pumps ranging from 1200 gph to 500 gph. We usually have 2 going all the time one for the main pond and one for the biological pond, which we added the next year... (more about that another time) We like to have several small waterfalls all over the place, that's why we have several pumps. Another reason for the different sizes of pumps is we have more control over the flow. When the filters are in need of a cleaning the flow of water slows down and we have to slow down the pumps. If you want koi, forget about goldfish. The goldfish multiply like crazy and soon you'll be trying to catch them to give them away. We only have two goldfish (our original goldfish that are 12 years old) We also have 3 orfs they are the population control in our pond... One more recommendation, think about using a 4" drain. We have a 3" but if we were doing a pond today we would use a 4" drain. The shelf, be sure to build a shelf all around, ours is deep and wide -- we then built up to ground level with rocks. The only place we don't have a shelf is in the beach area. We also replaced all our small beach pebbles the next year with bigger round stones. It's easier to keep it clean, we hose it out about every two week, and when the rocks start to get an alge build up, we just turn them over to show a nice clean and shiny side. Our beach is about 5 foot x 4 foot, maybe a little bigger... Joann More beach... Here is a link that might be useful: Our website
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ozziekoi
16 years ago
Hi steelyphil,

Looks like you're on the right track. Couple of things to consider:

The top of your settling chamber needs to be an inch or two above the pond water level. Otherwise the settling chamber will overflow with water.

Secondly you'll want to install a bulkhead fitting and a valve at the bottom of your settling chamber so you can periodically drain away the muck that settles in there.
steelyphil
Original Author
16 years ago
I have already made my pond and it doesnt have a BD. I suppose in the future I will redo it though and fix some things and install a BD. I was just wondering because everyone talks about em and I didnt kno wut they were.
steelyphil
Original Author
16 years ago
Another question though, how does the pump get enough suction to pull up all the leaves and water even though its behind the settlement chamber and filter? You would have to have a pretty big pipe to not have he leaves clog it right?
lsst
16 years ago
This is my set up.

I have a bd that gravity feeds to a 55 gallon filter barrel. ( I got the barrel at my local car wash for free.) The barrel is set one inch above the pond level do it does not overflow. This barrel is filled with matala round filter materials to collect all the leaves and gunk. This barrel flows to an Wlim external pump that pumps the water to my biological bog filter which is a 300 gallon stock tank which has a waterfall weir that flows the water back to the pond.

The barrel filter has a bottom drain that I use to drain and clean the barrel. The stock tank also has a drain that I use when I need to clean and drain it.
jalal
16 years ago
Chiming in here. I would put a knife valve before the pipe enters the sc--makes it easier for cleaning the sc. Mine is a 3" knife valve. I have a 4" piece of PVC pipe over the knife valve (like a tube) so that I just reach down into the tube to shut or open the valve. This tube sticks up out of the ground about 4" and has a cap on it to keep dirt/water from going down the tube. Just shut the valve (and your pump off unless it is plumbed to a skimmer as well and can run that line), clean your sc--if you have a drain line in it like ozzieko mentioned you can open the valve on that to drain the sc. I don't have a drain line on my sc as have level ground--no where to drain as yard was already landscaped. I use a sump pump to clean my sc.
Usually the discharge line is smaller than the intake from the BD. As my pump has a 2" inlet I have 2" ABS discharge pipe from my SC. I also put a leaf basket/priming pot before the pump as I had a problem the year before with crud going through the piping and wrapping around the pump. Depending on your pump/plumbing you'll need a check valve either before the pump or after the pump--others will help you here. Good luck!

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