GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Bottom Drains

09-05-2005, 03:47 PM

wrote:

~ jan JJsPond. us wrote:

And just how do you think they've managed all these year with
bottom drains in swimming pools that are of the liner type?

They were installed by professional crews that are properly trained.
Not by someone who wants a pond in their backyard and buys the
components and tries to build one themselves. You can only cut a hole
in a perfectly good liner ONCE. Not a practice I would advise to just
anyone. If you screw it up the project is done.

Not so. Seam tape works great. Plus, EPDM makes for better seals than
swimming pool PVC anyway.

Not rocking a pond is a creepy sterile environment.

Do you even _have_ a pond? Once you've got the plants established, and a
good coat of fuzzy algae on the liner, you can't tell whether there's rocks
or not. It's not at all creepy, and about as far from sterile as you can
get.

Without rocks, with a bottom drain, there is no needed for
such muscle
straining work in the spring or winter. The work is only
dealing with the filter.

It is very easy to put your fish in a kiddie pool for a few hours while
you drain your pond, rent a power washer (or buy one they are not that
expensive) and spray the rocks and gravel, then suck out the muck. A
very easy task that just needs to be done in the spring anyway.

I'm sorry, but you're barking mad! (1) It's really not a good idea to
stress your fish in the spring, when their immune systems are at their
worst. (2) However easy you think it is, it's a lot more work than
cleaning out a filter - my pond: 5000 gallons; my filter: 200 (and no
important fish). (3) I've never have the kind of muck in my pond that
requires such trouble, anyway.

I am not an employed marketing rep. I am a person who builds websites
and just happened to build one for my family members. Last I checked my
freedom to exchange topical information was still intact.

Whatever your title, you're acting as a marketing rep, and spreading bad
advice to boot.

If your goal is to have NO pond structure maintenance
then you are on track. But you sacrifice the natural look of a gravel
and rocked in pond.

I never built a pond so that I could look at its bottom. It's the stuff
between there and the water surface that's worth looking at.
--
derek