I hooked the check valve up tonight and tossed in the pump. In a few minutes
I had an empty VF and an overflowing pond. It appears the VF input pipe that
is attached to the bottom drain is too high, so the water was flowing back
into the pond. With the check valve, the backflow was stopped, but there was
no feed into the VF. So I decided to drain the pond partially. I started
that, and began excavating the pipe from the bottom drain to the VF. This is
when bad got worse. As I moved the pipe, the connection came off, and the
bottom drain began dumping water into the trench. *sigh*

So now I have the pond half drained.
The VF liner lifted up.
The main feed pipe from BD to VF disconnected.
The trench with the pipe full of water.

I am this close | | to filling the damn thing in and quitting.

What do I need to do to fix this?

Do I need to raise the pond up? Is it enough to get both ends of the feed
pipe below the water level? Is that enough? Can I leave both ponds as it and
just lower the pipe? I am so frustrated. I should have just given up on the
BD idea, and tossed the pump in the main pond.

BV.