David,

You are right about the benefit of a settling tank/area and vortex!

Our lines are not quite direct into the veggie filters. The water goes
thru several steps, which include some settling and vortex motion:

1. The pump is down 7' in the bottom of the deep well (old septic
tank). It is in a 5 gal bucket with 1/2" holes all round. This guards
the pump as it is not supposed to have solids more than 1/2". The pump
bucket is on bricks, so it is 4" off the bottom of the septic tank.
That tank gets most of the pine needles etc. I scoop it out each
spring. In effect, it is our solid filter. Larger solids settle in it.
It is not, however, vortexed.

2. The lines go into 55 gal upflow barrels with strapping tape in mesh
bags above the vortexed (think angled entrance) entry lines. The few
solids getting to the barrels settle in the barrels and virtually no
solids of any size go on to the veggie filters.

3. The water exits the barrels into one of two veggie filter systems:

-The left system :

-passes through a 4' x 4' x 18" pond (again on an angle to promote some
circular, vortex motion). The pond is loaded with veggies.
-It then passes into a 4' x 8' x 18" veggie pond (angled entrance, again).
-At the end of the long pond, it falls down our U-shaped falls or our
adjustable-flow bypass pipe (less water over the falls means less
evaporation),
-Then through the small pond at the base of the falls, and
finally it reenters the main pond via an 8' stream (far from the deep well)

The right system:

-has two barrels that feed into opposite ends of
-a 4' x 8' x 18" pond (angled entrances for vortex circulation).
-After the pond, the water drops over our step falls and
-reenters the pond via an 8' stream (also far from the deep well).

The bottom of each pond is concave to gather muck, drains at the low points.

You can see the berm layout on our website.

The water takes 20 min to go through the right side and 45 on the left.
The result is really good sedimentation. The second pond on the left
has lots less sediment than the first pond.

In effect, the deep well is my mechanical sedimentation area for
everything larger than 1/2" and for lots of other stuff. The barrels
and ponds get the fine muck. They have solids only when their plants
die or pine needles and cones fall in. When I drain them, I sometimes
have to pull out the cones, etc.

Long response to a short point.

Be sure to post pics of your layout when you get it up and running.

Jim



David wrote:
Hi Jim,

I had forgotten that your piping goes directly from the sump into the
veggie filters. IMHO, a vortex settlement, or even a static
settlement tank, with bottom a bottom drain, between the sump and the
veggie filters would help this problem immensely. Further, for me
anyway, I am designing in mechanical filtration (brushes, matala,
etc.), and then bio-conversion (fluidized kaldness), between the
vortex and the veggie filter/stream. JMO, FWIW, YMMV....

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 07:22:57 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:


Greg,

Your comment plants a seed of insight for me. We have about 10 koi,
full grown and half a dozen goldfish. The main pond is 2900 gal and the
berm ponds another 1000. There is a significant amount of muck that
gets caught in the berm veggie filters. If they did not get it, the
pond would. It simply does not 'go away', tho it is easy to drain out
by opening the 2" bottom drains.

I wonder if successful 'rocking' depends on the filtering out of waste.

We have an open cement bottom in the main pond. The koi constantly stir
the muck and it goes down the drain and up into the veggie filters.
Only pine needles build up in the main pond...and they generally find
their way down to the drain area (an old septic tank with the pump 4"
off the bottom).

Jim

I was looking at the extended discussion of rocks-or-no-rocks. It is
amazing for its length and its civility on an issue with such diversity.

Good show, pond friends.

Jim

JGW wrote:
We're getting ready to build our new pond. The contractor wants to
line the walls and bottom with rocks, which he says will serve as a
great huge biofilter. I have read that it's impossible to keep the
pond clean with rocks on the bottom, and that they can trap hydrogen
sulfide gas.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

Joan
___________________

~ jan JJsPond.us wrote:
"Phyllis and Jim Hurley" wrote
Do we have any ponders who have a bunch of rocks on the bottom of their
ponds? Have any of them tried it 'bare bottomed'? They might be able to
comment on the relative difficulty of maintaining them.


Never have, but sure know a lot that have and removed them after 1 - 2
years. ~ jan

I did not put in rocks because of what I read here. Every time I
cleaned it I thought "Boy, was *that* the right choice!"

A

I had to make this decision last week as the guys were finishing up my
pond rehab. They asked me if I wanted the bottom of the pond rocked
and of course, I said No. The size rock was 1 - 2 inches. This was the
size rock that was in my veggie filter - that was a devil to clean out
and remove the rocks.
I do think it looks better when the bottom is rocked using Large rocks
as opposed to using gravel. I'll revisit this subject when the weather
turns a lot cooler.

Here are some pictures of the rehabbed pond: (Not in final yet)
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118

Nedra in Missouri
zone 6

Jim,

Thanks for the expanded description. I understand/remember better
now.

Hmmm...

Seems to me that you've pretty well got the bases covered, and that
each component is pretty much doing its job. It sounds like the muck
in the VFs is mostly resulting from debris falling and being blown in,
and from the plants that naturally die off. Given that, I'm not sure
that you can do much more than you have already done. You certainly
aren't going to hang a debris net over the VFs.

With the bottom drains in each of the VF pools, for perodic flushing,
it appears to me that you have about reduced maintenance to the
minimum already. (And it really doesn't sound so bad anyway.)

But you have now set me to thinking, regarding my own design. For a
VF, I have been thinking in terms of a well-planted meandering stream
that ultimately flows into the ponds. This however will be subject to
the same concerns that we have just discussed. But it is rather
difficult to install bottom drains in a meandering stream. So when I
flush the VF, unlike with your design, everything then goes straight
into the ponds! Clearly, I need to put some thought into this issue
now...

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 15:48:15 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:

David,

You are right about the benefit of a settling tank/area and vortex!

Our lines are not quite direct into the veggie filters. The water goes
thru several steps, which include some settling and vortex motion:

1. The pump is down 7' in the bottom of the deep well (old septic
tank). It is in a 5 gal bucket with 1/2" holes all round. This guards
the pump as it is not supposed to have solids more than 1/2". The pump
bucket is on bricks, so it is 4" off the bottom of the septic tank.
That tank gets most of the pine needles etc. I scoop it out each
spring. In effect, it is our solid filter. Larger solids settle in it.
It is not, however, vortexed.

2. The lines go into 55 gal upflow barrels with strapping tape in mesh
bags above the vortexed (think angled entrance) entry lines. The few
solids getting to the barrels settle in the barrels and virtually no
solids of any size go on to the veggie filters.

3. The water exits the barrels into one of two veggie filter systems:

-The left system :

-passes through a 4' x 4' x 18" pond (again on an angle to promote some
circular, vortex motion). The pond is loaded with veggies.
-It then passes into a 4' x 8' x 18" veggie pond (angled entrance, again).
-At the end of the long pond, it falls down our U-shaped falls or our
adjustable-flow bypass pipe (less water over the falls means less
evaporation),
-Then through the small pond at the base of the falls, and
finally it reenters the main pond via an 8' stream (far from the deep well)

The right system:

-has two barrels that feed into opposite ends of
-a 4' x 8' x 18" pond (angled entrances for vortex circulation).
-After the pond, the water drops over our step falls and
-reenters the pond via an 8' stream (also far from the deep well).

The bottom of each pond is concave to gather muck, drains at the low points.

You can see the berm layout on our website.

The water takes 20 min to go through the right side and 45 on the left.
The result is really good sedimentation. The second pond on the left
has lots less sediment than the first pond.

In effect, the deep well is my mechanical sedimentation area for
everything larger than 1/2" and for lots of other stuff. The barrels
and ponds get the fine muck. They have solids only when their plants
die or pine needles and cones fall in. When I drain them, I sometimes
have to pull out the cones, etc.

Long response to a short point.

Be sure to post pics of your layout when you get it up and running.

Jim



David wrote:
Hi Jim,

I had forgotten that your piping goes directly from the sump into the
veggie filters. IMHO, a vortex settlement, or even a static
settlement tank, with bottom a bottom drain, between the sump and the
veggie filters would help this problem immensely. Further, for me
anyway, I am designing in mechanical filtration (brushes, matala,
etc.), and then bio-conversion (fluidized kaldness), between the
vortex and the veggie filter/stream. JMO, FWIW, YMMV....

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 07:22:57 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:


Greg,

Your comment plants a seed of insight for me. We have about 10 koi,
full grown and half a dozen goldfish. The main pond is 2900 gal and the
berm ponds another 1000. There is a significant amount of muck that
gets caught in the berm veggie filters. If they did not get it, the
pond would. It simply does not 'go away', tho it is easy to drain out
by opening the 2" bottom drains.

I wonder if successful 'rocking' depends on the filtering out of waste.

We have an open cement bottom in the main pond. The koi constantly stir
the muck and it goes down the drain and up into the veggie filters.
Only pine needles build up in the main pond...and they generally find
their way down to the drain area (an old septic tank with the pump 4"
off the bottom).

Jim

Nedra,

It looks very good. I know you will enjoy it.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html

"Nedra" wrote in message
oups.com...
I had to make this decision last week as the guys were finishing up my
pond rehab. They asked me if I wanted the bottom of the pond rocked
and of course, I said No. The size rock was 1 - 2 inches. This was the
size rock that was in my veggie filter - that was a devil to clean out
and remove the rocks.
I do think it looks better when the bottom is rocked using Large rocks
as opposed to using gravel. I'll revisit this subject when the weather
turns a lot cooler.

Here are some pictures of the rehabbed pond: (Not in final yet)
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118

Nedra in Missouri
zone 6

Nedra!!
Looks great!
Glad to see the pictures.

k :-)

Hi Nedra,

The redo looks great!

Jim

Nedra wrote:
I had to make this decision last week as the guys were finishing up my
pond rehab. They asked me if I wanted the bottom of the pond rocked
and of course, I said No. The size rock was 1 - 2 inches. This was the
size rock that was in my veggie filter - that was a devil to clean out
and remove the rocks.
I do think it looks better when the bottom is rocked using Large rocks
as opposed to using gravel. I'll revisit this subject when the weather
turns a lot cooler.

Here are some pictures of the rehabbed pond: (Not in final yet)
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118

Nedra in Missouri
zone 6

David,

Thanks for the reply. Here are the thoughts that fly by my mind as I
think about your post. No cents worth for free. Take or leave them as
it suits you.

I have been thinking (no jokes please) and it seems to me that you might
be able to put a pool at the base of your stream and include a
substantial 2" or 3" drain pipe in the bottom of it. That would let you
cut off the flow from the pond, hose off the stream and flush the junk
out the base-of-the-stream pool...as long as it could drain faster than
you are introducing the flush water.

Your meandering stream could be an interesting VF. It would need slow
enough pockets to collect muck. I could see a tension between the
slowness needed to deposit debris and the speed needed for effective
flush. Of course, ponds with drains would help that and leave you only
with the stream beds to flush.

As I think about it, 'well-planted' enough to grab muck might be hard to
flush. Floating plants have the benefit of filtering the water but
allowing the muck to settle. I'm not sure how to pull that off in a
stream. As it succeedded in catching muck, it might become a bog or
develop channels.

We have a fawcet on the pump line that allows us to flush with pond
water. Doing it means reducing the flow to our berm ponds. The valve
system makes that easy. I just reduce flow til I have a sufficient
pressure on the hose.

I also have a 1 1/2" pipe that allows me to have the pump dump directly
back into the pond. The benefit of that is that I can cut all flow to
the berm and still circulate water in the pond.




David wrote:
Jim,

Thanks for the expanded description. I understand/remember better
now.

Hmmm...

Seems to me that you've pretty well got the bases covered, and that
each component is pretty much doing its job. It sounds like the muck
in the VFs is mostly resulting from debris falling and being blown in,
and from the plants that naturally die off. Given that, I'm not sure
that you can do much more than you have already done. You certainly
aren't going to hang a debris net over the VFs.

With the bottom drains in each of the VF pools, for perodic flushing,
it appears to me that you have about reduced maintenance to the
minimum already. (And it really doesn't sound so bad anyway.)

But you have now set me to thinking, regarding my own design. For a
VF, I have been thinking in terms of a well-planted meandering stream
that ultimately flows into the ponds. This however will be subject to
the same concerns that we have just discussed. But it is rather
difficult to install bottom drains in a meandering stream. So when I
flush the VF, unlike with your design, everything then goes straight
into the ponds! Clearly, I need to put some thought into this issue
now...

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 15:48:15 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:


David,

You are right about the benefit of a settling tank/area and vortex!

Our lines are not quite direct into the veggie filters. The water goes
thru several steps, which include some settling and vortex motion:

1. The pump is down 7' in the bottom of the deep well (old septic
tank). It is in a 5 gal bucket with 1/2" holes all round. This guards
the pump as it is not supposed to have solids more than 1/2". The pump
bucket is on bricks, so it is 4" off the bottom of the septic tank.
That tank gets most of the pine needles etc. I scoop it out each
spring. In effect, it is our solid filter. Larger solids settle in it.
It is not, however, vortexed.

2. The lines go into 55 gal upflow barrels with strapping tape in mesh
bags above the vortexed (think angled entrance) entry lines. The few
solids getting to the barrels settle in the barrels and virtually no
solids of any size go on to the veggie filters.

3. The water exits the barrels into one of two veggie filter systems:

-The left system :

-passes through a 4' x 4' x 18" pond (again on an angle to promote some
circular, vortex motion). The pond is loaded with veggies.
-It then passes into a 4' x 8' x 18" veggie pond (angled entrance, again).
-At the end of the long pond, it falls down our U-shaped falls or our
adjustable-flow bypass pipe (less water over the falls means less
evaporation),
-Then through the small pond at the base of the falls, and
finally it reenters the main pond via an 8' stream (far from the deep well)

The right system:

-has two barrels that feed into opposite ends of
-a 4' x 8' x 18" pond (angled entrances for vortex circulation).
-After the pond, the water drops over our step falls and
-reenters the pond via an 8' stream (also far from the deep well).

The bottom of each pond is concave to gather muck, drains at the low points.

You can see the berm layout on our website.

The water takes 20 min to go through the right side and 45 on the left.
The result is really good sedimentation. The second pond on the left
has lots less sediment than the first pond.

In effect, the deep well is my mechanical sedimentation area for
everything larger than 1/2" and for lots of other stuff. The barrels
and ponds get the fine muck. They have solids only when their plants
die or pine needles and cones fall in. When I drain them, I sometimes
have to pull out the cones, etc.

Long response to a short point.

Be sure to post pics of your layout when you get it up and running.

Jim



David wrote:

Hi Jim,

I had forgotten that your piping goes directly from the sump into the
veggie filters. IMHO, a vortex settlement, or even a static
settlement tank, with bottom a bottom drain, between the sump and the
veggie filters would help this problem immensely. Further, for me
anyway, I am designing in mechanical filtration (brushes, matala,
etc.), and then bio-conversion (fluidized kaldness), between the
vortex and the veggie filter/stream. JMO, FWIW, YMMV....

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 07:22:57 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:



Greg,

Your comment plants a seed of insight for me. We have about 10 koi,
full grown and half a dozen goldfish. The main pond is 2900 gal and the
berm ponds another 1000. There is a significant amount of muck that
gets caught in the berm veggie filters. If they did not get it, the
pond would. It simply does not 'go away', tho it is easy to drain out
by opening the 2" bottom drains.

I wonder if successful 'rocking' depends on the filtering out of waste.

We have an open cement bottom in the main pond. The koi constantly stir
the muck and it goes down the drain and up into the veggie filters.
Only pine needles build up in the main pond...and they generally find
their way down to the drain area (an old septic tank with the pump 4"
off the bottom).

Jim

kathy wrote:

Nedra!!
Looks great!
Glad to see the pictures.

k :-)



Nedra,
NICE!!!!
W. Dale

A huge thank you to Rich, Jim and Kathy for the lovely compliments!
It's always Grand to hear such nice things :-)

Here is the link in case anyone missed it - -
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118

Nedra

Why - - thank you very much, Dale!
Nedra

Jim,

Big apologies for not responding more quickly! I've had to rebuild my
computer, and have completely lost touch with everything and
everybody!

I think all of your suggestions are excellent. In fact, I had been
thinking along the same lines -- of drainable pool(s) along the
stream. But especially the one at the base of the stream, before it
enters the main ponds with the fish.

The idea of being able to divert pond water under pressure is already
in there, but this thread has opened up new ideas for application. In
addition to being able to flush the biofilter/converter with pond
water, it can be equally useful for flushing the VF, and for powering
the rock-scrubbing wand described earlier.

Of course all of this, or at least the VF, would have to be done in
small steps over time, or all the water in the pond would be quickly
consumed!

But you are right about the tension between "a VF stream being either
too slow to flush or too fast to collect". So maybe it comes back
again, instead, to having several flushable VF pools interspersed in
the stream. Which, of course, is essentially what you have
(successfully) chosen to do with your berm pools!

Nice thought-provoking discussion.

David

On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 18:31:16 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:

David,

Thanks for the reply. Here are the thoughts that fly by my mind as I
think about your post. No cents worth for free. Take or leave them as
it suits you.

I have been thinking (no jokes please) and it seems to me that you might
be able to put a pool at the base of your stream and include a
substantial 2" or 3" drain pipe in the bottom of it. That would let you
cut off the flow from the pond, hose off the stream and flush the junk
out the base-of-the-stream pool...as long as it could drain faster than
you are introducing the flush water.

Your meandering stream could be an interesting VF. It would need slow
enough pockets to collect muck. I could see a tension between the
slowness needed to deposit debris and the speed needed for effective
flush. Of course, ponds with drains would help that and leave you only
with the stream beds to flush.

As I think about it, 'well-planted' enough to grab muck might be hard to
flush. Floating plants have the benefit of filtering the water but
allowing the muck to settle. I'm not sure how to pull that off in a
stream. As it succeedded in catching muck, it might become a bog or
develop channels.

We have a fawcet on the pump line that allows us to flush with pond
water. Doing it means reducing the flow to our berm ponds. The valve
system makes that easy. I just reduce flow til I have a sufficient
pressure on the hose.

I also have a 1 1/2" pipe that allows me to have the pump dump directly
back into the pond. The benefit of that is that I can cut all flow to
the berm and still circulate water in the pond.




David wrote:
Jim,

Thanks for the expanded description. I understand/remember better
now.

Hmmm...

Seems to me that you've pretty well got the bases covered, and that
each component is pretty much doing its job. It sounds like the muck
in the VFs is mostly resulting from debris falling and being blown in,
and from the plants that naturally die off. Given that, I'm not sure
that you can do much more than you have already done. You certainly
aren't going to hang a debris net over the VFs.

With the bottom drains in each of the VF pools, for perodic flushing,
it appears to me that you have about reduced maintenance to the
minimum already. (And it really doesn't sound so bad anyway.)

But you have now set me to thinking, regarding my own design. For a
VF, I have been thinking in terms of a well-planted meandering stream
that ultimately flows into the ponds. This however will be subject to
the same concerns that we have just discussed. But it is rather
difficult to install bottom drains in a meandering stream. So when I
flush the VF, unlike with your design, everything then goes straight
into the ponds! Clearly, I need to put some thought into this issue
now...

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 15:48:15 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:


David,

You are right about the benefit of a settling tank/area and vortex!

Our lines are not quite direct into the veggie filters. The water goes
thru several steps, which include some settling and vortex motion:

1. The pump is down 7' in the bottom of the deep well (old septic
tank). It is in a 5 gal bucket with 1/2" holes all round. This guards
the pump as it is not supposed to have solids more than 1/2". The pump
bucket is on bricks, so it is 4" off the bottom of the septic tank.
That tank gets most of the pine needles etc. I scoop it out each
spring. In effect, it is our solid filter. Larger solids settle in it.
It is not, however, vortexed.

2. The lines go into 55 gal upflow barrels with strapping tape in mesh
bags above the vortexed (think angled entrance) entry lines. The few
solids getting to the barrels settle in the barrels and virtually no
solids of any size go on to the veggie filters.

3. The water exits the barrels into one of two veggie filter systems:

-The left system :

-passes through a 4' x 4' x 18" pond (again on an angle to promote some
circular, vortex motion). The pond is loaded with veggies.
-It then passes into a 4' x 8' x 18" veggie pond (angled entrance, again).
-At the end of the long pond, it falls down our U-shaped falls or our
adjustable-flow bypass pipe (less water over the falls means less
evaporation),
-Then through the small pond at the base of the falls, and
finally it reenters the main pond via an 8' stream (far from the deep well)

The right system:

-has two barrels that feed into opposite ends of
-a 4' x 8' x 18" pond (angled entrances for vortex circulation).
-After the pond, the water drops over our step falls and
-reenters the pond via an 8' stream (also far from the deep well).

The bottom of each pond is concave to gather muck, drains at the low points.

You can see the berm layout on our website.

The water takes 20 min to go through the right side and 45 on the left.
The result is really good sedimentation. The second pond on the left
has lots less sediment than the first pond.

In effect, the deep well is my mechanical sedimentation area for
everything larger than 1/2" and for lots of other stuff. The barrels
and ponds get the fine muck. They have solids only when their plants
die or pine needles and cones fall in. When I drain them, I sometimes
have to pull out the cones, etc.

Long response to a short point.

Be sure to post pics of your layout when you get it up and running.

Jim



David wrote:

Hi Jim,

I had forgotten that your piping goes directly from the sump into the
veggie filters. IMHO, a vortex settlement, or even a static
settlement tank, with bottom a bottom drain, between the sump and the
veggie filters would help this problem immensely. Further, for me
anyway, I am designing in mechanical filtration (brushes, matala,
etc.), and then bio-conversion (fluidized kaldness), between the
vortex and the veggie filter/stream. JMO, FWIW, YMMV....

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 07:22:57 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:




Your comment plants a seed of insight for me. We have about 10 koi,
full grown and half a dozen goldfish. The main pond is 2900 gal and the
berm ponds another 1000. There is a significant amount of muck that
gets caught in the berm veggie filters. If they did not get it, the
pond would. It simply does not 'go away', tho it is easy to drain out
by opening the 2" bottom drains.

I wonder if successful 'rocking' depends on the filtering out of waste.

We have an open cement bottom in the main pond. The koi constantly stir
the muck and it goes down the drain and up into the veggie filters.
Only pine needles build up in the main pond...and they generally find
their way down to the drain area (an old septic tank with the pump 4"
off the bottom).

Jim

David,

I have had crashes too. I have that and hate the recovery period too.

Thanks for the reply. It is fun. A wonderful and practical
intellectual exercise.

You are very right about the use of water to flush. Uses pond water up.
We have found that we can in fact use the hose a lot of time as our
3,900 gal volume can absorb a lot of tap water without being bothered
much. The tap water goes in relatively slowly and gets mixed well.

A part of our layout that I love is the effective filtering of muck
without screens that need to be cleaned regularly. Yearly sure beats
weekly!

As our koi have grown, the self-cleaning of the main pool has increased.
They are very effective stirers! The muck in the pools has also
increased (big fish, big stir, big waste).

Jim

David wrote:
Jim,

Big apologies for not responding more quickly! I've had to rebuild my
computer, and have completely lost touch with everything and
everybody!

I think all of your suggestions are excellent. In fact, I had been
thinking along the same lines -- of drainable pool(s) along the
stream. But especially the one at the base of the stream, before it
enters the main ponds with the fish.

The idea of being able to divert pond water under pressure is already
in there, but this thread has opened up new ideas for application. In
addition to being able to flush the biofilter/converter with pond
water, it can be equally useful for flushing the VF, and for powering
the rock-scrubbing wand described earlier.

Of course all of this, or at least the VF, would have to be done in
small steps over time, or all the water in the pond would be quickly
consumed!

But you are right about the tension between "a VF stream being either
too slow to flush or too fast to collect". So maybe it comes back
again, instead, to having several flushable VF pools interspersed in
the stream. Which, of course, is essentially what you have
(successfully) chosen to do with your berm pools!

Nice thought-provoking discussion.

David

On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 18:31:16 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:


David,

Thanks for the reply. Here are the thoughts that fly by my mind as I
think about your post. No cents worth for free. Take or leave them as
it suits you.

I have been thinking (no jokes please) and it seems to me that you might
be able to put a pool at the base of your stream and include a
substantial 2" or 3" drain pipe in the bottom of it. That would let you
cut off the flow from the pond, hose off the stream and flush the junk
out the base-of-the-stream pool...as long as it could drain faster than
you are introducing the flush water.

Your meandering stream could be an interesting VF. It would need slow
enough pockets to collect muck. I could see a tension between the
slowness needed to deposit debris and the speed needed for effective
flush. Of course, ponds with drains would help that and leave you only
with the stream beds to flush.

As I think about it, 'well-planted' enough to grab muck might be hard to
flush. Floating plants have the benefit of filtering the water but
allowing the muck to settle. I'm not sure how to pull that off in a
stream. As it succeedded in catching muck, it might become a bog or
develop channels.

We have a fawcet on the pump line that allows us to flush with pond
water. Doing it means reducing the flow to our berm ponds. The valve
system makes that easy. I just reduce flow til I have a sufficient
pressure on the hose.

I also have a 1 1/2" pipe that allows me to have the pump dump directly
back into the pond. The benefit of that is that I can cut all flow to
the berm and still circulate water in the pond.




David wrote:

Jim,

Thanks for the expanded description. I understand/remember better
now.

Hmmm...

Seems to me that you've pretty well got the bases covered, and that
each component is pretty much doing its job. It sounds like the muck
in the VFs is mostly resulting from debris falling and being blown in,
and from the plants that naturally die off. Given that, I'm not sure
that you can do much more than you have already done. You certainly
aren't going to hang a debris net over the VFs.

With the bottom drains in each of the VF pools, for perodic flushing,
it appears to me that you have about reduced maintenance to the
minimum already. (And it really doesn't sound so bad anyway.)

But you have now set me to thinking, regarding my own design. For a
VF, I have been thinking in terms of a well-planted meandering stream
that ultimately flows into the ponds. This however will be subject to
the same concerns that we have just discussed. But it is rather
difficult to install bottom drains in a meandering stream. So when I
flush the VF, unlike with your design, everything then goes straight
into the ponds! Clearly, I need to put some thought into this issue
now...

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 15:48:15 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:



David,

You are right about the benefit of a settling tank/area and vortex!

Our lines are not quite direct into the veggie filters. The water goes
thru several steps, which include some settling and vortex motion:

1. The pump is down 7' in the bottom of the deep well (old septic
tank). It is in a 5 gal bucket with 1/2" holes all round. This guards
the pump as it is not supposed to have solids more than 1/2". The pump
bucket is on bricks, so it is 4" off the bottom of the septic tank.
That tank gets most of the pine needles etc. I scoop it out each
spring. In effect, it is our solid filter. Larger solids settle in it.
It is not, however, vortexed.

2. The lines go into 55 gal upflow barrels with strapping tape in mesh
bags above the vortexed (think angled entrance) entry lines. The few
solids getting to the barrels settle in the barrels and virtually no
solids of any size go on to the veggie filters.

3. The water exits the barrels into one of two veggie filter systems:

-The left system :

-passes through a 4' x 4' x 18" pond (again on an angle to promote some
circular, vortex motion). The pond is loaded with veggies.
-It then passes into a 4' x 8' x 18" veggie pond (angled entrance, again).
-At the end of the long pond, it falls down our U-shaped falls or our
adjustable-flow bypass pipe (less water over the falls means less
evaporation),
-Then through the small pond at the base of the falls, and
finally it reenters the main pond via an 8' stream (far from the deep well)

The right system:

-has two barrels that feed into opposite ends of
-a 4' x 8' x 18" pond (angled entrances for vortex circulation).
-After the pond, the water drops over our step falls and
-reenters the pond via an 8' stream (also far from the deep well).

The bottom of each pond is concave to gather muck, drains at the low points.

You can see the berm layout on our website.

The water takes 20 min to go through the right side and 45 on the left.
The result is really good sedimentation. The second pond on the left
has lots less sediment than the first pond.

In effect, the deep well is my mechanical sedimentation area for
everything larger than 1/2" and for lots of other stuff. The barrels
and ponds get the fine muck. They have solids only when their plants
die or pine needles and cones fall in. When I drain them, I sometimes
have to pull out the cones, etc.

Long response to a short point.

Be sure to post pics of your layout when you get it up and running.

Jim



David wrote:


Hi Jim,

I had forgotten that your piping goes directly from the sump into the
veggie filters. IMHO, a vortex settlement, or even a static
settlement tank, with bottom a bottom drain, between the sump and the
veggie filters would help this problem immensely. Further, for me
anyway, I am designing in mechanical filtration (brushes, matala,
etc.), and then bio-conversion (fluidized kaldness), between the
vortex and the veggie filter/stream. JMO, FWIW, YMMV....

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 07:22:57 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:





Your comment plants a seed of insight for me. We have about 10 koi,
full grown and half a dozen goldfish. The main pond is 2900 gal and the
berm ponds another 1000. There is a significant amount of muck that
gets caught in the berm veggie filters. If they did not get it, the
pond would. It simply does not 'go away', tho it is easy to drain out
by opening the 2" bottom drains.

I wonder if successful 'rocking' depends on the filtering out of waste.

We have an open cement bottom in the main pond. The koi constantly stir
the muck and it goes down the drain and up into the veggie filters.
Only pine needles build up in the main pond...and they generally find
their way down to the drain area (an old septic tank with the pump 4"
off the bottom).

Jim

On 8 Aug 2005 10:40:58 -0700, "Nedra" wrote:

Here are some pictures of the rehabbed pond: (Not in final yet)
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118
Nedra in Missouri

I'm a little late to the party, but Nedra, that is the best
hide-the-skimmer job I have ever seen! I wish I had seen it 2-3 months ago
when my sister was asking advice about putting in her new ponds. I had her
go with the no-nitch because the side skimmers can be hard to hide. I'd say
your helpers did something ingenious for pond building there. Very
impressive and gives an awe of mystery to that area. Well done! ~ jan

~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~