Bill,
this site has pictures for a standard TT design
http://koi-uk.co.uk/trickle_tower.htm Adapt it to your 5 gallons bucket.
Gas exchange happens at the interface of water and air. The more rocks the water
trickle down on, the better the gas exchange would be. This means that the rocks
in a TT should only be coated with water, not being submersed. The more surface
area the rocks have, the better the gas exchange would be. This is why high
surface area bio balls and lava rocks are used in a TT.
Set the TT far away somewhere. Hide it if you prefer that way. Run a hose from
the spigot at the bottom of the TT to the pond, feed into it either above or
below the water.
Since your 200 gph pump is weak and has no prefilter, you need to design a
prefilter to cope with constant maintenance from pump clogging. Someone recently
mentioned clamping the pump between 2 water plant baskets as a prefilter. I used
only 1.
My 600 gallons pond is in SoCal. It's being aerated by a 180 gph pump feeding a
5 gallons bucket TT. It had no problems during 2 days heat wave last time.
Newbie Bill wrote:
I have tried to read up a little on your trickle tower but perhaps your
suggestions will answer quicker. First of all - "natural'. If I am
understanding the idea - how do you get a bucket of rocks, sticking up out
of your pond to look natural? I have my babbling brook effect pretty much
in the middle of the 'deep' end with the thought it will distribute a little
better. If the trickle filter is 'hidden' on the side will the aeration
dispurse as evenly? or is that a real consideration. I am obviously missing
something as well - newbie remember. The few things that I read sounded
like a trickle tower is essentially a bio filter. It makes sense if the
water is getting oxygen and then immediately falling on the rocks these bio
bugs would be well aerated as compared to other methods - but does this
actually create more oxygen available to the pond. Lastly? I have tried the
"gravel in the milk crate prefilter idea" and even that I found very
difficult to pull from the pond. Wouldnt this or any suggestion of filling
a 5 pound bucket with pea gravel be very heavy to put in and out of the
pond?
Thanks for you help!
Bill Brister