ok, so I bought a house that had a small little pond by my front door entrance, went thru the whole process of putting in koi and having them die due to my lack of knowledge over airation\filtration etc etc. SO over the last 6 years I have pretty much had my ups and downs, but has all been a good learning experience. So over the last 2 years I have pretty much jacked up on a good submersible and 2 bio filters which honestly keep my water crystal clear. Dont have a uv light or anything like that, as my pond is never in direct sunlight, only ever use abit of pond clear now and then.

So I bought koi some 2 years ago and they have grown to quite a decent size now, and I have realised that the current pond is going to get abit small for them. So arriving back from holiday last week I decided to dig a hole and start building a bigger pond, so here is my old pond, and pics of progress so far on my new pond.

To be honest this started out as just an added house feature to make my house look "smarter" but after spending hours just watching them swim around I have soon realised how therapeutic this is and cannot wait to finish off my bigger pond. My koi might not be the nicest but I love them, they really give me joy and thats all I want from them!

My Current pond project

Started with the digging of the hole 08\07\2009
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then Started with reinforcement on the 10\07\2009
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Then started with the concrete sheel 13\07\2009
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Currently my shell looks like this, will be plastering on saturday, then waterproofing next week sometime.
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This is my current pond, when I transfer my fish to my new pond I will take better pics of them, doubt anyone will be able to tell me what koi I have, from my reading my 1 is a sanke. Don't know if anyone can tell from these pics
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My babies
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Any comments welcome

Well done, you seem to know your onions with the concrete handpacking.
Check with the experts i feel you should divert your gutter downpipe away from pond. Your current pond could serve you well as a future QT pond.

Yes, my gutter downpipe will be re routed, just pulled it out so as to get the concrete packing complete on that side.

Sorry for ignorance but what do you mean by future QT pond?

Thanks again for you reply!

One more thing, the dimensions of my new pond are roughly 4.2(L)x1.6(W)x1.3(D) what would the best plastering mix be and how many bags do you think I would need. The guys plastering have told me they will plaster with a 1cement to 2bags plastering sand, then when that is done after a week will seal bottom drain with sikalite and then paint with 2 layers of waterblok.

Please advise if this is suitable enough.

thanks again

Hi Cliff
Check this thread about Albie pond rebuild. The experts gives good advise on plastering and how to use salt in the plaster mixture to good effect.

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Hi Cliff

Ponds looking good

Not sure about waterblok but im planning to seal mine with coprox, you can also add coprox cement additive and salt to the plaster. 1 bag of cement sounds a bit much two two bags of plaster sand, normally you work in wheel barrows, have a look at the back of a bacg of cement they normall have it there.

As for the fish i would say the one defiantly looks likes a Sanke and orange and sliver and yellow and silver look like Doitsu Hariwake or Kikusui, the red one looks a Khaku yet with out a pattern.

Pond looks good what sorta filtration are you planning on running ??

Hi Cliff
General aspects about quarantine (QT)
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LJ,

I will take better pics of my koi in a bucket on the weekend for you to see,

As for my filtration that I'm doing. I've basically got a 50mm bottom drain which I will have flowing into a 25l Drum, now because I have basically put the pond right outside my sons room I dont want to run a pool pump because of the noise and secondly because I already have a 4000l an hour submersible and thats alot cheaper to run.

So the system I have in mind is the following.

50mm Bottom drain - 25l Drum which I will sink below pond level, this will house my submersible pump aswell where as the drum fills up the pump will then pump the water out thru a 20mm convert to 50mm pipe into an ultrazap 15l bio filter with uv then onto a water feature which I am still to build then back into the pond.

The idea I have to have a submersible is to have the drum act abit as a settlement chamber but with a pump in, I also have a spare sand filter dome at home so was even thinking of keeping the drum as a "settlment" feed from there into my sandfilter dome which instead of having sand in I will keep bio balls and orange bags with medium in, then from the dome feed that to the ultra zap then thru the UV back to the pond.

On my submersible it has an outlet on the front for suction which a 20mm pipe can be connected to, so just to make sure my flow from the bottom drain is strong I was thinking of just directing this 20 pipe into the 50mm pipe to increase the flow rate into the drum "settlement chanber"

What do you think?

I've also been reading Albie's post extensively so have a good idea on the plaster mix I need to use.

Last Q, so would you suggest I stay away from the waterblok, and what would be the best way to seal around my bottom drain??

thanks again

Hi Cliff

The 25ltr Drum seems a bit small not sure if the flowrate to the drum form the 50mm bottom drain will be able to keep up, normally the guys go with a 110mm pvc to a settlement chamber ??

The 4000 ltr/h pump will be needing around 60 litres a minute, not very confident the 50mm drain can supply that especially if your settlement is only going to be around 25ltr ?.

Also you don't seem to have mechanical filtration to remove solids before the bio filter, it normally goes settlement then mechanical then biological.Also keep in mind you will need to flush the settlement to remove an waste and solids - bit hard if it is under the ground ?

Im no expert when it come to this but thats just going from what i have read.

Cheers
Lee

As for the bottom drains you can use Prostruct 617ns from StonCor : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as recommended by Pieter, however i used pratley putty standard setting (used to seal crack in ponds) before i found heard about that product.

Cheers
Lee

Sorry....my bad, the drum I will be using is quite big, at least the size of one of those black dustbins, I''m not very good with sizes so suspect it will probably be at least 50litres???

I'm 6ft1 and when I stand next to it it comes well to my waste and is quite wide in diameter, as wide as a black bin, think the capacity on both must be the same.

I'm also alittle concerned about the flow rate, thats why on the submersible I have it has a 20mm suction outlet which i will direct into the 50mm bottom drain pip so as to creat additional suction. As for cleaning it, it wont be completely into the ground and will be using a suction pump to clean out debris on the bottom every now and then.

Still trying to get my head around the whole fitration scenario so that I dont have something that drives the kids up the wall at bedtime and that is totally electricity hungry and quite effective on the pond, will probably put in another submersible which I will connect to a skimmer on the top even tho I dont really have many leaves close by.

last thing, on your mechanical question, I will have the big drum submersed below pond level acting sort of as a settlement chanber, I then have a spare pool sand filter drum at home which instead of keeping sand in I will fill up with bio balls and plastic medium, then from that I will feed it into a ultra zap bio filter, then thru a uv then back into my pond.......wopuld that suffice????

Cliff wrote:

last thing, on your mechanical question, I will have the big drum submersed below pond level acting sort of as a settlement chanber, I then have a spare pool sand filter drum at home which instead of keeping sand in I will fill up with bio balls and plastic medium, then from that I will feed it into a ultra zap bio filter, then thru a uv then back into my pond.......wopuld that suffice????

I don't think you should be reducing the size of the pump pickups or outlets as its already not capable of turing the pond water volume (+-8000 liters ) over in an hour which is what you ideally want especially for for smaller ponds.

You could use the sand drum as a mechanical filter but you will still need a means to clean it regularly.could probably use a static k1 as a media(rather expensive though) but then would need to add a air pump to flush and clean it and a drain at the bottom.

I think maybe wait for one of the more experience guys running a setup like this to give more advice but things i would be worried about are the turn over rate and mechanical filtration and how you going to clean it.

Cheers
Lee

cool,thanks Lee.........from what I've been reading it should be:
1 x Wheel barrow cement
4 x wheel barrows plastering sand
1 x 25kg salt
1 x 1kg Coprox

Is that correct???

Also how many bags cement in total do you think my pond would use?????

Spoke to an agent at coprox and they advised that on my size pond I would need for plastering:
5 x bags 50kg cement
1 x cubic meter plastering sand
5 x 2.5kg coprox cement additive

The mix would be 1 bag cement, 3 wheelbarrows sand and 1 bag coprox

Now do I add salt to this, remember someone saying in Albie's post that 25kg to a mix is too much so I was thinking 5kg's of salt to the above mix........would that be ok??

Then on the Masonry Waterproofing side to paint the inside of this shell they were saying I would need 5 x 5kg bags of the masonry goods which is mixed on a 1:1......now the difficult thing for me to understand is it using 5 bags of this stuff which seems like a hectic lot. I was told to use waterblok on sealing the inside but see everyone here talks about coprox so would prfer that then, just 5 bags at R350 a bag seems a bit too much for my liking.

any advice appreciated!!!

Hi Cliff
You seem to have a good pond going, I would suggest that you do more research on filter and pipe size, a 50mm pipe is in general the smallest pipe I would use for water flow. Bottom drains 110mm. You should also consider adding air to your bottom drain. From and electricity costing point of view I would consider a gravity fed system which will enable you to place the pump after the filtration point and use a waterfall or similar pump that will only use between 200 - 250w depending on size, 1200lt - 1800lt p/h pump.

I suggest posting a sketch on how you intend to design your filter, with the help of the experts on this forum you can save you lots of money, doing it right the first time. There are many experts that can assist with your design. Pieter, Paul and Wayne is experts on using sand filters should that be your choice and you do not mind the electrical cost.

Remember good filtration allows you time to enjoy Koi and more importantly happy and healthy Koi

this is the idea I have behind my filtration, please advise pro's!!

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Yes this will not work for a gravity fed filter. I am sure you would not like the following, but is looks like you have enough space around the corner for a underground over under block filter.

Your filter design seems to be on the small side for 8000lts. I will at least look at a 100-200 lt underground settlement chamber with a standpipe flush system for the waste and regular water changes and then use a suction pipe to pump from the middle of this chamber to the rest of the filtration.

Hi Cliff
It seems that all the experts are between the sheets or up close and personal in front of a fire tonight to fight the cold.

The difference in water volume from your small to new pond will require a bigger filtration set-up to keep water clean and healthy.
For the above ground filter system you should seriously consider a sand filter and I would also look to increase the water flow ex pond by adding another suction (63 or 75mm mid water point) before plastering. The flow from your 50mm bottom drain will not be enough in my opinion with 8000ltrs of water.

I hope the experts chip in soon to share their experience with you, my experience is very limited.

A link with pond build info.

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Seems i'm quite the doos when it comes to drum sizes etc.

The drum I will be using as a settlement is 200lt, the resource I am buying the drum from also has a 200Lt mechanical\bio filter (the one with the trickle pipe onto sponge thru bio balls etc)

He advised that I wont be able to do gravity fed as the UV\Ultra Zap works on pressure so there wouldn't be enough pressure if I put the Mechanical on Bio filter first. So he has suggested I put the 200lt drum with submersible in, I then push this thru the UV light (15w) and then from the UV light feed it thru the 200lt mechanical\bio filter combo box and back into the pond from there.

I'm slowly learning, but think this may be a better setup as he has advised this will work and that these filters are definitely big enough for my size pond.

So a recap:

50mm Bottom Drain - 200lt Settlement chamber drum which submersible pump - UV light - 200lt mechanical\bio\trickle filter - Pond

He has also checked my pump and advised that the size pump I have will turn the water over within 2 hours which he says is correct.

Hi cliff,

You ideally need a 4 or 5 chamber gravity fed system where you could still utilise your submersible pump.

Instead of using drums, while you are building why not just build concrete chambers. They say your settlement chamber should be 5% of your pond size so use that as an indication. I would estimate around 400 litres.

The next chamber will still need to be some sort of mechanical filtration followed by 2 chambers of biological. You can then place the submersible in the final chamber. Because of the low wattage of the pump, you could use aeration in the bio chambers which would not only benefit the good bacteria there but add quite alot of air into the pond for your fish. Anything between 40 to 60 l/m air pump would be good. The piston ones are noisy though so an investment into a diaphragm one is advisable as it is outside you kids bedrooms.

Each chamber needs a bottom outlet to flush it so just remember that when you are building. The stand pipe as bobby mentioned is essential in the settlement chamber.

Think about using an upflow type system for your filtration. There are various media option (one of which is matala) but Marius posted a few diagrams in some of my posts when I was asking questions about a cost effective pond setup.

As the experts say, never undersize your filtration, rather oversize. So rather go for 110mm bottom drain into the settlement chamber.

Cliff wrote:

He advised that I wont be able to do gravity fed as the UV\Ultra Zap works on pressure so there wouldn't be enough pressure if I put the Mechanical on Bio filter first.

The UV light can be placed after the pump, so i'm not sure what pressure he is referring to.

The bio filters from ultrazap do work on pressure but they can be used on gravity if you pump into them. There are alos gravity fed bio filters with built in uv's but these need to be placed above pond level.

I am using a 25litre ultrazap biofilter which then goes through a uv back into my quarantine pond. A submersible pump pumps the water in the ultrazap filter. The filter needs to be above the pond obviously.

Hi cam0.....thanks for the info, unfortunately the bottom drain is already in and it's a 50mm............

For now with cash flow restraints I will have to go with 200lt drum with submersible in, from there pump into uv, from uv then into mechanical\bio filter then back to pond.

Maybe ever from 200lt drum - submersible - ultra zap 25l - UV - Mechanical\bio Filter - pond

Then in the interim I will look for a .25 spek pump (if thats correct) and sand filter - and look into how noisy this pump is and see if I can build a sound proof box there then set this up. This I will have to do and I will have to buy these items month by month and then do that setup.


Is a .25 spek pump expensive to run??/......what the cost to run this thing for an entire month compared to a submersible pump

From the following website:

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Every pond pump driven by electricity is fitted with a motor. The motor is normally rated in watts or kilowatts. This is a measure of the amount of energy the motor can generate at absolute maximum and at 100% efficiency.
In every practical situation however it is impossible to get this amount of energy out of the motor and to transfer it directly to the water that is being circulated. In fact the amount of energy or power that's lost between switching the pump on and finally getting water to flow over the waterfall is enormous.
In some cases you have a degree of control over how well you sue the power generated and in others no control at all. For example the heat lost by the motor getting hot is totally beyond your control. What you can control and in fact must do so to get the best from your garden pond and waterfall pump is as follows ...
Length of pipe from pump to waterfall inlet
Diameter of pipe from pump all the way through the pumping system
The number and type of fittings in the pipe-work
Bends and other restrictions in the tubing and pipe-work runs.
The type of pipe or tubing used in the system
Then use of valves to regulate flow rate
I've seen many installations where the size of pipe from a pump is far too small in terms of pipe diameter. I've also seen many cases where pipes are kinked because a rock has fallen onto the pipe or the pipe has been bent to go around a corner.
Bends, sudden direction changes (eg T pieces), small diameter pipe all restrict water flow through pipes and as such try to avoid anything that interrupts smooth water flow through the pipe from the pump to the waterfall. Think about this for a moment and find let me describe an analogy ...
Let's say you're running down the street to catch a bus which you just saw cross the intersection ahead of you and disappear into the street at right angles to the one you're running down. To be able to turn the corner you have to slow down and then speed up again if you going to catch the bus and this takes energy. This is the same in a water system. If you make the water go round a bend energy is lost. You can think of the water as slowing down and then having to speed up again. This is a waste. The sharper the bend the more energy or power is lost.
The correct term is that the pressure drop through the pipe is increased and in any system increase in pressure drop translates into reduced pump flow.
Algae inside the pipe also creates restrictions so try to avoid using transparent piping (sunlight allows algae to grow so transparent pipe helps this process. Black piping is best.
Inevitably in almost all situations there is a need for fittings and bent pipes. Just make sure you don't overdo it.
To make allowance for this loss of energy add 20% to the head or height you want to pump. For example let's say yoru waterfall inlet is 2 metres and you want to pump 1000 litres per hour over it (about 450 gallons per hour) then choose a pond pump that will deliver 1000 litres per hour NOT at 2 metres (6.5 feet) head but at 2.4 metres head (8 feet) ... in this way we've allowed for 0.4 metres ( 1.5 feet) of head to be wasted in piping or tubing systems.
Remember ...
Make sure you get the widest diameter pipe that will fit your pump and that it's length is as short as possible. For most pond pump situations do not use pipe less than 1 inch (25mm) in diameter unless you can't avoid it (for example in very small fountain pumps)
Paying attention to these 2 factors will save you electricity costs (and with oil at present prices we need to save as much energy as we can)
MAXIMUM HEAD
The height at which flow from any pump STOPS ... eg if this figure is 4 feet then at a height anywhere between 0 and 3.99 feet there will be some water flow although it will get significantly less as the height increases and approaches 4ft. However at 4 ft there will be NO water flow at all. Many people believe wrongly believe they will get 1000 gallons max flow from a pump at its maximum head of say 4ft
MAXIMUM FLOW
This happen at the level of the pond surface and is the flow with no pipe attached to the pump. The fact that the pump is sitting at bottom of the pond does not make any difference.
The electrical energy from a pump's motor is shared between flow (actually mass) of water and the height (head) to which it must be pumped. What this means in simple terms is that you cannot have both more flow AND more pressure form the same pump. You must choose ... do you want more flow or more head (pressure). And you can choose somewhere between zero and maximum flow and zero and maximum head.
In practice you need to remove or lower the impact of any restrictions to flow. You therefore will get better pump performance if you do the following ...
Use widest diameter pipe for your waterfall pump
Use shortest possible pipe length to go from the pump exit to the inlet of your waterfall.
Do not kink the pipe.
Do not squash the pipe under rocks
Do not use more valves than necessary. Reduce T pieces and/or Y pieces and/or sharp bends to a minimum.
Prevent build-up of algae inside the pipe by using NON-transparent piping. Black ribbed pipe is best in fish pond environments
When you use stepped connectors cut off the smaller diameter steps. Use the maximum step diameter you can.
To totally and accurately specify a pump you need to know 3 things
1. Volume of water flow required
2. Height to which this flow must be pumped
3. Head (or friction loss) loss due to restrictions in pipe and fittings.
This last component is complex to calculate and this is where you should use my calculator. In a normal situation if you add 20% to the height you want to pump this will normally be safe. You would use this new number .... Actual Height + 20% .... to specify the pump.