I 've also read that Aquaart's is best. That being said I couldn't afford it this year due to change in employment so made mine out of a 14" salad bowl. I used the elbow from the 4 inch pipe (street elbow) to trace the opening then cut it out with an exacto knife. Pushed the pipe through into a 4" coupler and glued. The edge of the hole rests on the elbow so I siliconed around the edge just to make sure no water going through there. On the bottom edge of the pipe I cut 4 sections out about 3/8" high and left 4-2" sections of bowl rim for the bowl to rest on. When I started it up the bowl was lifting so I put rocks on two of the legs to hold it down. It works okay but I don't get a large radius circle clean like would with the aquaart. I think part of the reason the aquaart works so well is it sits down low and maybe because it draws from the side. Also has large "feet" for weighing it down as I think unless you add some weight to it all retrofit drains have a tendency to lift. If you google retrofit drains I saw one diy salad bowl version where the guy had put concrete in the bowl to weigh it down. If your drain is coming up over the liner do you have problems getting it to work? Air in the line? Somewhere on this site Mike gives instructions on how to elimate that problem. In my climate and pond this drain works okay. In yours most people seem to use the "real" drain. I tried that but the line froze even with Mike's instructions for getting the water out of the line in winter. Could be because our frost line is 4 ft. Good luck with your project. If $ not issue I'd go with the Aquaart.

When I rebuilt my pond, I could not convince my hubby to put in a real bottom drain. He had a very bad knee, has since had it re-placed. But due to that fact he did it the easiest way for him. So I tried the retro that you are talking about with the inverted disk. I kept having my fish sucked up it and finding them dead in the primer basket of the pump. I tried several things to try to fix this. Nothing worked. Until I decided to use a long peice of the pipe across the bottom of the pond. We drilled 1 inch holes through the pipe spaced about 6 inches apart. Alternating top to bottom and side to side. and attached to the pipe coming up out of the pond with an elbow. This is a 2 inch pvc pipe. The draw is evened out over the length of the pipe and makes it less strong to pull any fish into it. Plus they are too big. This goes up through the bog filter which is a large poly tank filled with a ton of gravel before it overflows back into the pond. I get all kinds of debrie and even pea gravel that the fish have rooted out of the plant baskets and pieces of anacharis in the primer basket of the pump. I have to empty this basket at least weekly. It is probably not the best or most attractive solution, but I am pleased with it. Only thing is I should have used black pipe, because the white still is visible against the black liner. But when the plants are covering the pond in the summer it is not as visible. Glenda

I believe you are describing a self watering pot. Some people have no luck growing a violet in those. I have some myself that I've had some plants do really good and others I had to repot because they were not happy. I would suggest you not keep too much water in the bottom pot. If it is filled too full, the inner pot with the plant will absorb too much water and the roots will rot. So maybe the water just touching the bottom of the inner pot or a little more. Let it dry out a little between the times you add water. The soil should be damp, not wet. If the soil is too wet, the roots will rot. Is the violet planted in peat? That will hold too much water at the roots and may appear dry on the top. Most violets sold are growing in a peat, it should be repotted with a more pourous soil mix. The soil should have more perlite mixed into it so it drains better and the roots get more air. I even put 1/2" or so perlite into the bottom of the pot before I plant the av in a self watering planter. Hope this helps some.

May I rant? ;-) My DH delivered pizzas not that long ago, and managed to last two whole weeks before handing in the shirt that Dominos so "kindly" gave him. He was told that if he wanted to wear a jacket during cold months (and who wouldn't, being in and out of a car all night long?), he couldn't wear his own but would have to buy -- paid for out of his own pocket, mind you -- an official Dominos jacket. And it wasn't cheap. Of course, he was also required to use his own vehicle, buy his own gas, and pay for parking out of his own pocket (he worked a downtown beat, where free parking is practically nonexistent). He was never clear on the procedures for reimbursement. His manager was never quite forthcoming on how to go about things like that. The jacket-buying requirement was pretty much the breaking point for him, after several deliveries where he was tipped nothing to very little. If the pizza prep folks were running behind and his delivery thus thrown off schedule, some people were positively irate that he showed up on their doorstep bearing their dinner 15 minutes later than they expected. As though it was somehow his fault, they chose to "punish" him by not tipping one red cent. ("That'll teach that pizza delivery guy to be so slow" -- I guess that was their logic.) He delivered 10 pizzas to an office building that required him to pay for his own parking, carry his heavy load through security, and then when he arrived at the drop-off point, an employee at the office that had ordered the pizzas was standing there with her hand on her hip, wrist cocked to her face as though she were checking the time -- and she wasn't even wearing a watch. For his efforts, he received a 75 cent tip. If you ever want to encounter some of the most hatefully impatient and dismissive people on the planet, do a stint as a pizza delivery person. For every kind and generous soul, there seem to be two who are nasty and for whatever reason, feel it's their place to look down on a person performing what they consider to be a worthless, menial task. It seems that too many people tranfer their feelings about the "lowliness" of the job to the person, and that's a lesson I hope I'll always carry with me ... and behave towards others accordingly. OK -- sorry for that little somewhat unrelated-to-the-original-topic rant. Whenever the subject of pizza delivery folks comes up, I guess I get a bit defensive. ;-)