Yes, thank you for the information regarding the pump! I have to ask, is it noisier than a submersible?
fredrump- there is a tour of koi ponds here in Central Florida on Saturday if you're interested. You may be able to pick up some answers to the questions you've been asking.
Do you have or recommend a BOTTOM DRAIN in your pond?
RatherB, I do hope you'll post pictures of your progress!!
MerryMary, the pump is very quiet. All I hear is the waterfall :o)
Merry Mary,
can't make it to C. Florida this weekend. I'm heading to the Redlands Orchid show on the other side of Fl and another 10 hour roundtrip up north is a bit much on the gas mileage plus hotels etc. :-) I suppose the general destination is in the Orlando neighborhood?
fred
Yes, most ponds (there will be 11) are within an hour of Orlando. There is also a bromeliad show at the mall starting tomorrow, so some will be attending both. Sunday there was an orchid class at the large nursery around here...I sent my mother, she's much luckier with orchids than I am.
NOte - if you put a bottom drain in - you need to treat it as pool and put at least two in. The reason being is that you don't want your fish or worse, a fallen child to get sucked by only having one drain. Two drains for pools (if not more depending on size) had been part of building code for a long time. When we built our pond (which we use for personal use until we get our 'real' pool built) was modeled as a smaller mini version of a pool. Very similar to Fredrumps' pic above.
I guess I should issue a progress report. I purchased a new Sequel Showa pump to see if there is any difference between it and my year old Sequence 7800 pumps. In the meantime I had sent one 7800 to http://www.thepondsolution.com/ (the Pond Solution in Delray Beach, FL) to have it checked out. I kept getting lesser and lesser flow with it. These folks had installed and sold this "solution" to me but now claimed that service was not part of the deal. They also claimed that the pump was fine but that I had damaged the impeller with rocks. How rocks can get to it thru the strainer basket is beyond my comprehension. In other words, I was on my own as far as warranty goes. While the 7800 was at the shop I used the 6800 pump they had sold me to run my skimmer but never got working. So it just sat there until now.
The Showa arrived and I got more flow but not what I would expect from a new pump. This model comes with two impellers with the low volume one installed. I figure I'll try the high volume and flow got better but still couldn't get enough water to really make a difference. This process sort of proved to me that there was an obstruction of some kind in the bottom drain pipes. Perhaps an accumulation of little stones or muck? I was going to get to the bottom of this and decided that proof of the pudding was a direct feed to that same pump but not via the 2" bottom drains. So I built a 4" filter pipe to set into the water basically over top of my pond wall into the piping system that was burried around it. I dug with a hand shovel around all the various pipes down there to see what went where. Much to my amazement I found the pipe coming up from the bottom of the pond going backwards to a U and then turning around to the pump at least 50 feet away. See the picture below.
The Pond Solution folks had simply capped that pipe (it led to the skimmer too) and installed a new pipe to the skimmer which joins the main draw pipe further down the line in a T. It was obvious that such an extreme U turn plus whatever other 90s and T's were below ground not conducive to good water flow.
The next pic will show how I proved this theory.
Fred
This message was edited May 15, 2008 10:28 AM
This is the temporary setup to go around the bottom feed/U-turn water source. It was an immediate and amazing difference. Water is now flushing thru the filters and after one day of running this new setup, the filters were filthy. I cleaned them last night and will do so again tonight. What a difference real water movement makes! I guess it's all about turns.
I'm now also convinced that these pond 'specialists' (I've now dealt with two of them) are basically seat of the pants people who hope their setup will work. If not, it's the customer's problem to resolve. I was told that 50 pleckos would cure my algae problem. No word about making the installation work properly.
I have 2 1/2' of three inch pipe leading into the 4" filter pipe. I simply drilled lots of holes and cut strips with a table saw into it.
this morning's picture in the 2' shallow part of the pond already shows how fast the water can clear up with proper filter flow.
and the customers like it too. :-)
Holy Cow! ( I found Holy Koi to hard to say fast....)
What an amazing journey you have been on to get to the bottom of this.
I'm either hiring you to help install my next pond, or convincing you to go in to business yourself!
Keep the information and pictures coming, it's SO much easier to see what should be going on, than reading a black and white manual somewhere!
THANKS!
Fred,
Beautiful pictures! Keep them coming.
Carolyn
Mary,
in the end it pays to do things right yourself. Trouble is one tends to trust the experts to know more and do a better job. I guess there are some out there but they sure are much harder to find then the folks on this list who have done these things themselves and are willing to share their knowledge. If you notice one of the pics above, I used 45s instead of 90s simply because it makes sense and folks here suggested to stay away from 90 degree turns whenever possible. If they can't be avoided at least use a wide 90 like an electrical conduit pipe. I even had a discussion about this with the installers and they look at you rather condescendingly as if you don't know what you are talking about and they go on and do their thing.
The new rush of water I'm getting actually flushed some rocks into the strainer basket today. These were in the piping system and must have entered when one of the bottom drain covers came off. The rocks themselves were fished out of the planters by the koi.
The 'bad' Sequel 7800 pump came back and I ignored the advice of the "pond solutions" guy to replace a damaged impeller because it had been damaged by rocks which mysteriously passed thru the strainer. I put the pump and its housing back together and installed it where I had the weaker 6800 and all is well. It runs like a champ.
Earlier another recommendation here was to get some activated carbon, I put a little bag of the stuff right in each of the strainers. Don't know what that does but I'm going with the expertise of this forum.
I didn't get a chance to look at and clean the filters tonight but will do so in the morning before we go to the Redlands Orchid show near Homestead, FL . I feel relieved to be able to go away for a couple days with the pond running well.
Fred
The activated carbon pulls chemicals, pollutants, and excess nutrients out of pond water. It will remove discoloration or medication. With the amount of water your moving it won't take long before the carbon has adsorbed all it can and will start putting it back into the water. Change the carbon at least once a week. If you're using large amounts of carbon (I use about 7 lbs in a large mesh bag) you can take the bag out, rinse it clean, roll the bag aound lightly to expose new particle surface areas and replace it the pond. You can get about a month out of good grade carbon use that way. It will really "polish" pond water crystal clear in a hurry if you use enough.
It sounds like your real problem all long has been insufficient flow through the filters. What an awful journey to get things working properly. It shoud be a whole new and a hugely much more enjoyable ponding experience.
I've been watching my pond flow slow down this past three weeks or so. I changed the impeller and checked the lines. No improvement and the pump continues to slow. I'm getting worried about the water quality so I've got a new pump sitting in box. I just need to get a plumbing part. They wear out. This one has been in service only 18 months ( two stints of 9 months) and has a three year warrenty. I just hope I get that plumbing part before I walk out there and find a trickle and have an emergency on my hands. It's always something.
You're my inspiration. No whining allowed after what you've been through!
Fred...
I think YOU should take up a new job as a "consultant to the consultants".
Hope you will let them know that the pump is fine and that by bypassing their system of knots, all is well. It is a shame for all the money you have paid them that you have to educate them too! But, it may save someone else the headaches if they continue to think that their method is best.
Fred, do you think a plumbing auger would fit into your bottom drain? Could this be used to 'fish' out any other stones, etc from the bottom drain piping?
RBD...I was going to ask Fred the same thing....if some sort of snake/auger could help in the future. Now that they U turn in the pipe has been straightened, the blocking may not happen again anyway, but it's just a thought.
No, I don't want to bother keeping the two 2" drains which only feed into another 2" pipe. I have too much distance to contend with. Of course I can get a big powerful pump and force the water thru but I'll pay for that each and every month. Besides, I want to do this right and put real pond drains into the floor anyway.