Thread: Alburglar's DIY fry setup and grow on pond and filter.

Well it's still leaking past this return so, it's either somewhere in the pipework for the bottom two returns, or I reckon suspect No1 has got to be the bottom drain as it's only sealed with CT1 to the bottom sheet of fibreglass.

I think I'll drain it down to the top of the other lower returns and watch what happens from there...
I already have some microseal T20, which preps PVC to adhere to fibreglass. So I may just drain it, order some resin and fibreglass the bottom drain in properly....

Keeping a close eye on this. I've drained the water down below the bottom returns and now it's a waiting game to see if it's the bottom drain or not...
... hopefully it doesn't rain...

So, whilst we play the waiting game. I made up some brackets and poked them up the tube so I could bolt the remaining uprights in. Once they were in position I concreted them in.

On the glass it was easy to see, but lower down its hard to tell. Has this dropped since this morning?
Hopefully it won't rain overnight and then we will know for sure.

Good luck. It only rains when you don't want it to

...bottom drain hasn't dropped a millimeter...

Well if I'm gonna be on my hands and knees in here I thought Giving it a clean out would make it more appealing.

I pulled the guards out and I don't know if you can see but I can see the water level at the back of the pipes and so nothing is leaking below that level.

must be infuriating mate after all that hard graft....

i'd get a set of drain bags and/or bungs fill the pipework with water and drop a manometer on them and positvely test it.
that way you'll either find the culprit, or be able to rule them out, without digging them all up...

I'm gonna make a snorkel to plug in to the outlets, where the guards were. That way I can fill the snorkels up with water and see which one drops, rather than fill the whole pond up. I'll also have the level of the leak, which will help identify where, in the pipe run it is. I was just finding it hard to get hold of any 2" pressure from local dealers, but I've found some to collect tomorrow.

Are we taking bets on which one is the culprit?
I'll just be happy if it's not both.
More waiting now for the sealant to go off...

Which ever it is I hope it's a really easy fix for you.

This sort of thing always scares the shit out of me when I am considering filter systems. We all know gravity fed is a better system but pump fed can be less troublesome when it comes to where you can get leaks in the parts of the system you have to fit yourself. My thinking is, if you've got a sealed container that holds water perfectly well and then you cut a hole in it at the lowest point and then seal it, where's the worst place it can leak? The bit where you've cut into the lowest point. And usually that is buried and almost impossible to get to once the pond is finished. Every time I cut anything through the side of the pond I'm thinking, at least the worst place it can leak down to is the bottom of this hole I'm cutting! It's because I never have any luck with glueing things so never trust anything I can't make it seal unless it has a mechanical connection.

Yeah, this is my first try at gravity and I thought all those things. I hope I don't live to regret ignoring my gut...

Originally Posted by Alburglar

Yeah, this is my first try at gravity and I thought all those things. I hope I don't live to regret ignoring my gut...

So was my QT system and the only reason I even considered doing the QT system as gravity was all the pipework was accessible. I didn't have to solvent weld anything just used flexi rubber boots everywhere.

I would have considered gravity on current new build but I wanted the pond sunk too far into the ground to be able to have the filters low enough to work so decided to go with what I know.

I hope you get to the bottom of your current leak very soon so you can get it all up and running.

Fingers and toes crossed for you

Any news or updates yet?

Nothing leaking from this height. So I'm just waiting for some rubber straight connectors to turn up then I'll extend the snorkel to full pond height just to make sure. So current theory is the bottom drain pipe work must be leaking above the height of the lower returns which means it's just below the concrete slab in the filter room.
I've just purchased a plumbers 4" pressure testing kit with bungs and guages etc, from ebay, for £25 so we'll see. I'll probably buy the 2" bungs too and test everything to death before any water goes back in the pond.

I feel for you. All that fibreglassing and now a leak! Hope you sort it asap.

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

A possible culprit:

I had smeared a load of CT1 inside the bottom drain where the pipe meets the BD. It just pulled out whole, very easily. Rubbish stuff, wasn't stuck to anything! Hopefully the black CT1 is somehow better, as I've used that everywhere!
I cleaned it out thoroughly, whacked some more pipe weld around and after that went off, I smeared a load of HA6 around the pipe in the same way I did the CT1.

Hopefully that's you sorted now