hi im VERY new to this hobbie, i have literally just stubled across this site and i had a few questions....
1st a bit of backround info... i have a garden pond at the moment (approx 5ftx6ftx5ft deep possible smaller) with a some koi in there, but after reading quite a bit on this site and a couple others i have quickly realised my pond and filtration system is in need of some serious work. So in a couple of months i plan to completely rebuild a new pond in a different area of my garden to make it stand out, and also provide a worthy home for my fish. I am a builder by trade so will be going all the work (digging, concreting, building etc etc) by myself. Im confident with all the technical knowledge that goes into that side of things... but where im really stuck is when it comes to the filtration system. Is there some kind of FAQ which explains it all, or sites that give lots of information (i have no problem with reading pages and pages, so long as im learning something new)
heres a couple of things i dont realy understand ..(sorry if i have got any technical info or names wrong)
1)bottom drains - as i understand it, these send the water to the filter system...do the bottom drains have a motor in them that pumps the water to the filters? My current set up is a pump thing in the pond, which pumps water up a pipe to a filter, which expels it down out dawn a water fall via gravity.
Also in some diagrams of bottom drains i see pipes leading elsewhere... is this to the main drains? and are they opened by valves when you want to get rid of some water with minimial effort for a water change? A problem i can see with this is that my bottom drains would be 6ft underground and about 30 ft from the main drain so this is simply not an option... im guessing this isnt a problem and just means i would have to empty the pond manualy? But then does that defeat the object of bottom drains, and would it be alot easier/cheaper to go with something like i have at the moment (which would be a pump at the bottom center of the benched pond, pumping the water up to the filter system through a pipe connecting the two?)
i didnt realise this post would become this long so i will leave it here for the moment while i think of anything else i think is worth adding.... i guess my main question is would a bottom drain be worth it for me considering my situation, or am i overlooking some other use for them?
thanks in advance for any replies
adam
Posted on Mar 30, 2009, 6:57 PM from IP address 79.73.48.207