Hi Danny Boy !
Whatever you decide, do NOT put 2 bottom drains into 1 4inch pipe !!!
all that does is half your flow, pumping or purging.
What I do is have 2 bottom drains running in seperate pipes,
they both go into the same Vortex settlement chamber.
I intend to alter this asap !
with all that flow, some solids get into the next media chamber !
then pump, then Aquadyne 2.2b Bead filter.
SO what I intend to do is run each bottom drain totally seperately,
i.e. take one of the 4inch feed pipes directly into a Nexus 200 then another sequence pump ( already have 2 returns )
I will just leave present UV and present Elecro heater on 1 return as it is now.
Presently to purge, I shut one 4inch pipe off with slide valve at a time and leave pump going flat out, 15, 000 litres per hour through a single bottom drain,
this clears pipe and ALL pond bottom of debris in less than an hour
THEN I repeat for other bottom drain.
In my opinion feeding a nexus 200 with 2 bottom drains will not work,
you will either exceed the max. flow rate for the nexus,
OR you will NOT have enough flow to keep the 2 pipes clear and / or bottom of pond clear !
THEN you will end up having to do what I intend doing !
If I were starting afresh now, there would be no other way I would do it,
I would run TWO nexus 200 eazy FILTERS, SEPERATELY WITH A SEPERATE PUMP FOR EACH ! ......... NO Vortex / Sieve required.
The filtration specialist, who will be doing the job, with me just labouring,
has looked into it and BEEN to Evolution Aqua to discuss it with them, and this is the way for me, as I can't afford to scrap £1,390 Aquadyne, so may as well keep vortex and 2nd chamber too, and add nexus 200 easy and 2nd pump seperate.
Incidentally a nexus Sieve coupled to a nexus eazy does NOT work !!!!!
The Evolution Aqua technical guy has told me via e-mail and the filtration man to his face that to use both their products an additional pump has to be put on a "balance pipe " between the sieve and the 200Eazy !!!!!
AND that the correct flow to a nexus eazy is paramount ! not too little and not to much !!!!
My koi filtration specialist has a 12,000 gallon koi pond with 2 bottom drains each running into a nexus 300 eazy and each with its own pump and return pipe to the pond, his water is the cleanest I have ever seen !!!!!
ALL his Koi are 75cm plus !!! he feeds 1kg pellets plus treats per day !!!!
When I was at his house, he had just strimmed the grass around his pergola posts and looking through his viewing window for over 2 hours the ONLY debris I could see was a SINGLE blade of grassmoving towards a bottom drain
Incidentally his bottom drains are aerated !!! which adds to the pull of the drains to keep the bottom clean !!!
he wants me to make both my drain covers aerated with an 80litre per minute air pump ( to change existing ordinary kockney koi covers to aerated, Alternative Aquatics do the kit @ £80 per cover ! )
Hope Mrs's kitchen doing well ! hee !! hee !!!
Peter.
