This is the Skimmer. Water flows into the skimmer and
the net mounted on the left 2/3's of the barrel catches any
floating debris such as leaves, sticks or dead fish (ha).
The orange float works like the float inside the tank on
a household toilet. It is connected to the irrigation water
well line and maintains a constant level of water in the
pond. With a water well there is not a problem with
needing to dissipate the chlorine that one would need to
do if using city water.
A bottom drain allows for flushing all the gunk out of
the skimmer that was not trapped in the net.
A 3" PVC water pipe connects the skimmer to the Vortex filter.
..
.
This is called a "vortex" filter. The water enters the 3" 45 elbow
gravity fed from the pond and forces the water to circulate. The
heavier material falls to the bottom and the water exits through the
vertical pipe and out the side. A small pump is attached to the side
pipe and pumps the water up to the biological filter on top of the hill.
Note: the cross piece at the bottom is capped and
provides the "legs" for the pipe structure.
This pump house consist of two pumps.
1) a 1,800 GPH mag pump pumps the water from the
vortex filter up to the biological filter. With
the head calculated
the volume is cut down to about 1,000 GPH.
2) a 4,116 GPH external Wave pump with priming pot/leaf skimmer
pump from the pond skimmer to the small pond. This
provides
the volume of water needed for the water falls and stream.
A
check valve is located inside the pond skimmer to prevent
it from
losing its prime.
There is a master switch to cut power to both pumps located
inside the pump box and the entire circuit in connected to a GFI
breaker at the house.
This is the biological filter.
The Trickle Tower, on the left, is the final phase in the biological filtration process.
Basically it creates an oxygen rich environment to grow 'super bugs'
that
clean up the ammonia and nitrites better than any conventional bio-filter.
There are a large number of designs, mine is a very simple unit that
I am
a witness to the wonders it has performed. I would not have a
pond
without one. Koi keepers and others throughout are beginning
to see the
benefits of the TT and the market is exploding. Mine is a very
simple unit
and the only cost was a re-design of one of my barrel filters from
a bottom
up filter to a top down and not allowing the lava rock to be submerged.
Like others have proclaimed, 'gin clear water' ALL the time.
I don't see
the pea soup anymore.
And this is the inside of the Trickle Tower filter.
This is the bottom of both the bio-filter and the Trickle Tower.
The plastic grate provides a base for the filter media to set on
and not plug up the inlet pipe (on the left side) or the bottom drain.
The cross member provides the "legs" to keep the grate
about 8 inches off the bottom of the barrel.
For the bio-filter, the water exit can barely be seen at the top right of the picture.
Thus, this is a bottom fed filter. Water enters the bottom and exits
the top.
The TT is a top fed filter, the water enters the top spray bar and exits the bottom side
as seen on the left.
The filter media in the bio-filter, added after this picture was taken, is approximately 1,300
feet of plastic strapping material. This provides lots of surface area
for the
bacteria to grow on.
The TT contains 6 bags of lava rock, rinsed thoroughly.
.........
This is what was used for the bottom drains for each pond.
It is a pair of toilet seal rings and rubber wax rings. I added 2 more
brass bolts to aid the seal. A 3" hole was cut
in the rubber liner and the rubber seat sandwiched the
hole and was bolted tight. This provided a way so fish poop and gunk and other debris
could be "flushed" from the bottom of the pond.
I then topped the openning off with an upside down dark color cereal bowl.
I will update this site after spring gets here and we can add some
plants and flowers!