I'm planning my pond for installation this year. I want to avoid the artificial looking waterfall mound thing used as a filter. My plan is to have an overflowing urn set up as a biofilter, which will flow into a boggy area surrounding it, then down a 30' stream into a pond (about 2000 gallons, if I can dig that much :unsure: ).

I was looking at Skippy's web site, and his general rule of thumb is to have the filter at least 3.5% of the size of the pond, which in my case would be 70 gallons. The urn/filter is about 50 gallons. With that, the bog, and the stream, do you think I'd have enough filtration?

Planning a pond is so much fun! Skippy says only 3.5% of the pond's volume as a filter? I've read some suggestions that say more like 25%! I think that may be more than you need though (mostly for overcrowded ponds). My 1800 gallon pond has a 50 gallon biofilter I think. I think your urn should be large enough. The long waterfall will provide lots of biological filtration. It will take some work to be sure the water goes where you want it to and not outside of the liner zone. It is vital that you don't have any water going off course. It never hurts to have more filtration than you think you need. Your "boggy area," depending on its size and what's in it would also be part of the filtration.

Good luck!

LindaB, If your bog is set up correctly(recomended size is usually 10% of the pond size) with a average fish load you should be fine. Do you plan on including a skimmer in the pond? One thing to remember with a stream of that length it will contain quite a bit of water,once in operation, which means when shut down all the water will run into the pond and overflow it. Just be aware you will have to add water when starting it up again.

FM3

FM3,
Yes, I already have a skimmer on order, an Ovation skimmer from EcoPond. I like their design--it sucks some from the bottom as well as skims the top, and it doesn't need a hole in the liner--and price, only $142 for up to 8000gph capacity. Also have ordered a Pondmaster Pro Hy-Drive 4800 pump--found it for $194. Nothing like the cart before the horse :), but the bargains were there now and I wasn't sure they'd be there later. I can get the liner in two days from BestNest. Waiting a few paychecks for that one. Then all that's left is the wiring, PVC pipes, stone, and much labor. Oh, and a bridge that I have to make over the stream so we can get the lawn tractor into the fenced back yard.

I want to design the stream to be a series of small, shallow ponds with little waterfalls, so the whole stream doesn't drain if the pump is off. May take some fiddling and fancy engineering, but I think I can do it. I'll also have marginals in/around the stream.

The bog will cover an area about 3'x8', so if it's 6" deep, that won't be 10% of the volume of the pond, but if you meant 10% of the surface area, it will be. I think the stream and stream plants will help.

I'm planning on 4 or 5 goldfish right now.

Sounds like a sound plan to me. Did you talk to Chris at Pond Eco. Nice Guy! I'm also planning to buy my skimmer and filters from Pond Eco. They also include the media with their filters which makes their price even better. The opening for drawing water from the bottom of the pond you were talking about , in the skimmer, is 1 !/2" and I was concerned it would suck my fish in so I purchased a 2" plastic suction strainer from Webb's water gardens for 11.95 which I will attach to a short section of flexible pipe to draw water from the bottom of the pond. I like the pump you picked out very easy on the electric bill (magnetic drive). Do you know what your total head is because these pumps lose a lot volume at relatively low head values. I also purchased a liner from Best nest I was surprised how good their prices are on epdm liner and since I'm only 50 miles away the shipping was very low. Be sure you order your liner extra wide for the stream. Streams are notorious for leaking so don't cut the extra off when you think you have it all set up because you will have to make adjustments later on. Hope that helps.

FM3

FM3,
Yeah, PondEco, not EcoPond. No I didn't talk personally, but I got a response within 4 hours from emailed questions. I also saw them on "Gardening by the Yard" on HGTV and saw the skimmer in operation there.

Head is 5 or 6 feet, plus some for the 30+ ft return pipes, and the filter. PMHD4800's data sheet says it pumps 2350gph at 10ft, so I think it should be sufficient for 2000 gallons.

So far this is working great on paper. Hope it works the same in the yard. :lol:
Linda

Yea missed the HGTV program. Oversize the return line to reduce your head, but I think by your description your run will be more like 50 ft. They always recommend to go with a larger pump and restrict the flow on the output side if needed. Easypro makes one 6700 gal per hour @zero head/520 watts. cost is 283.00 @ ponds4less.com. if your interested.

FM3