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  1. #1

    3500 gallon L shaped pond with two windows

    I've put the progress so far on another forum so forgive the copy and paste up until this point, but I really need a bit of advice so thought I'd join up on here in the hope that it's a bit livelier than the other one! Here goes;

    Basically all my koi are at my mum's still and have been for the past few years since I moved out. She's thinking about moving house in the near future so is keen to get the pond closed down and I don't have the spare cash at the moment so do the pond here after the house move, renovation, fish tank etc. so she's very kindly lending me the money temporarily to get the pond moved here so she can close the one down at her house. It means that the whole garden project might take a bit longer than I'd like, but the pond itself should be up and running within a month or so.
    We are going for an L shaped pond roughly 3.6m on the long edge and 1.8m on the shorter edges, 1.2m below ground and 0.6m raised with a window, giving a total volume of around 17500 litres. We started the project tonight so I thought I'd put up a few pics for anyone who may be interested :-)

    Well here's a few pics from tonight, but not up to date as I managed to break the screen of my brand new S4! :-(


    Before


    Tight access, but managed to get it in after knocking down a small part of the wall.


    Skip number 1


    Decking broken up ready for excavation.


    Some firewood for the winter!


    My niece and nephews helping out after school :-)


    We've done a good 5 hours of digging this evening after work and filled about 1/2 of the skip already. I'll try to get some more pictures tomorrow on my proper camera if I get time :-)



  2. #2
    We are excavating roughly 20 tons of earth, that skip can take a maximum of 16 (limited by weight not capacity, we can only fill it just over half full but it was the cheapest way of doing it other than a grab truck, but we don't want to damage the drive and access would have meant blocking the drive for a week or so with the pile of earth).

    We got quite a lot done last night, working til about 10:30pm. Pipework is on order as well as a new UV clarifier, and after talking to the window company yesterday I think plans have changed from a 4' window to a 6' window as it was only £120 more an 50% bigger :-)

    The pond will be about 4' below ground and 2' above ground. Here are the pics I just took this morning anyway!

    Day one progress :-)





  3. #3
    Here's the pics from Thursday - we rang the skip company at 8 and asked if they could take it away and give us a new skip and they said they would do the best they could to do it today, I really hope they come though otherwise we won't be able to do the base over the weekend! :-(










    We are down to 4' in some places but a lot of the bottom still needs to be leveled and go a bit deeper too to leave space for the concrete base, but we are getting there!

  4. #4

    Skip number two now already 1/3 full, although it hardly looks like we've done any more work!






    ************************************************** ***************

    Second skip now completely full (it's only supposed to be 2/3 full due to the weight of the soil) and the hole is pretty much done. Just need to tidy up the edges a bit and dig another small hole to drop the main filter into, but that's the digging almost finished anyway :-)




    The rebar and steel mesh for the base will be going in this evening or tomorrow, and the concrete will be poured on Wednesday.

  5. #5
    Rebar and mesh delivered. The hole has been tidied up and levelled and the mesh put in place on the base. We will be doing the rebar tomorrow and the concrete is coming on Wednesday afternoon :-)





  6. #6
    Now for the questions, if you guys can give me any advice!

    I know that the ideal rule is one bottom drain per one filter per one pump, but due to space and money, we are doing both bottom drains to the same filter (Nexus 300, which will be situated in the corner of the L, then pumped through an Ultrabead UB60, both of which we have already on the current pond.) I was thinking about using an overrated pump to get better flow from both drains, maybe 12,000lph or 15,000lph? We will also be running an Eazypod on the skimmer line with a 10,000lph sequence pump.
    Aside from the pump choice, I wanted a bit of advice on where you would advise on putting the returns. Bearing in mind that we will have some stepping stones just to the left of the left hand bottom drain, do you think we should have a return on that side to get some flow round there? I was thinking maybe have the skimmer on the wall that my friend's hand is on, and the return round the other side? What would you recommend for the return for the main pump though?

    We are hoping to put a stainless steel cascade waterfall on the edge up against the fence - I was thinking about splitting the return flow and directing half through the waterfall on that side and maybe the other half into the side that my friend is facing, but also having another Y splitter by the waterfall so in the winter we can turn it off and direct the flow through the same wall instead. Do you think this might work?

  7. #7
    I would consider putting spindrifters on your bottom drains they really do help to keep the bottom clean and eliminate dead spots.

  8. #8
    Unfortunately it's too late as the concrete is being delivered tomorrow lunchtime!

  9. #9
    The rebar and mesh is finished and the bottom drain pipework in place ready for the concrete pour tomorrow afternoon. Brickie is coming Thursday evening to start the walls :-)



    Quick question though - if we are glassing the pond, where does the concrete need to come up to on the bottom drain? Flush with the the top or bottom of the rim around the top?

  10. #10
    concrete on mine was level with the top of the rim and rendering higeher by about 20mm and bowled down back to level with the top

    the fibreglasser can work wonders at the end.

    on the flow question the nexus is rated up to 2800 gallon an hour flow i think, 13000 litres an hour.

    the bead will put another 3m restriction in the line plus any from the pipework before and after the nexus e.g if the UV is on this line. this means you might consider a pump that can flow 13,000 litres an hour at 4m head. this would mean more running cost. i think a sequence 18000s is supposed to do about 10,000 l/hr at this head but not a low cost pump.

  11. #11
    What about this pump? 13000lph at 2.4m head, slightly cheaper than the sequence and a tiny bit less power too

    Performance Pro 18000 Pond Pump - Performance Pro Pond Pumps

  12. #12
    Alternative Aquatics Performance Pro Pump

    you'll be doing well to get 9000 litres at 4m. if memory serves from when in installed a bead for a friend the manual said 2m when clean 3m when dirty plus any other restrictions.

    what wattage pump were you wanting.

  13. #13
    I don't have a wattage in mind, it's basically down to price of the pump vs running costs! I'm almost tempted to get a cheap one just to do us for a year or so and then sell it on and buy a better quality one for the long term, mainly due to the budget constraints at the moment.

  14. #14
    The concrete base has been poured today and the brickie is starting the walls tomorrow so we will be making quick progress again for a few days, but the windows and fiberglassing are going to hold things up a bit. We're now putting in two windows, one is 6' long and 2' high along the front wall of the pond facing the house, and the other will be 4' long and 2' high facing the decking on the right hand side. The other sides will either be covered by the decking or facing the fence or garage, so no point in having windows!
    Here is the progress from this afternoon anyway, I left work to help barrow the concrete around the back but had to go back to work again before it was all smoothed off etc.



  15. #15
    you're gonna have lots of fun cleaning the windows of that size. but it's going to give you such a great dimension to the pond.
    Looking forward to seeing the pics.
    Great work so far.

  16. #16
    Nice and smooth ready for the brickie to start this evening :-)

  17. #17
    Also the plans have changed again for the windows, but they have now been finalised and the order sent to the factory. The main window is still 6' x 2' but the smaller one (which we originally wanted 3' but were told that it would be the same price as 4' so decided to go bigger!) is going to be too big for that wall at 4' so we've reduced it to 3' 2". Should still be a good size though :-) I've also just ordered another load of 1.5" pressure pipe and fittings to start doing the returns etc. I've decided on running the nexus and UB60 on the main pump and splitting the return into two, one on the wall closest to the house pointing towards the bottom drain at the back near the fence, and one on the other long wall by the garage pointing towards the other bottom drain, but at different heights so the flows don't go into each other.
    The skimmer line will be on its own loop, drawing water in from the inside corner of the L and then going back to the pond via the waterfall by the fence, or in the winter through an underwater return in the same location.

  18. #18
    You might find it better and in order to aid flow to do your pipework and returns in 2" pipe.

  19. #19
    Already got the 1.5" pipe and fittings coming tomorrow! The pump uses 1.5" pipe as does the UV so it probably wouldn't make a huge difference (I hope!)


    Walls started :-)

  20. #20


    Bit more progress tonight :-)

 

 
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