Bottom drain help

Hulley72 · 09-02-2012, 12:49 PM

Hi all

My step dad has an pond roughly 11000 litres and struggles to keep the water clear ,
He's decided to give it abit of a revamp this spring , I told him about retro bottom drains as its currently just pump fed .

So my question is folks , can a retro fit bottom drain be used with a hozelock Titan 5500 or will he need to buy another pump such as a superfish Eco ?

Thanks
Matt

efficiencyman · 09-02-2012, 11:58 PM

Hi Matt. The problem with retro bottom drains is that they suck in all the muck causing more frequent cleaning of the pump. The muck that does`nt block it, is mashed up by the impellor into fines that clogg the filter, this makes a lot of work for filter and Dad. Even if you were to add a Vortex prior to your filter the fines probably won`t settle on the vortex bottom as the flow rate will be to fast. This would be same using the Titan or an eco pump but at least the ECO pump would use about half the leccy

Hulley72 · 11-02-2012, 12:17 AM

Is it best to try and fit a strainer of some kind then prior to the pump ?

Doghouse Riley · 11-02-2012, 01:01 AM

Whichever way you do it I'm afraid you're going to end up with considerable "perpetual maintenance" one way or another.

efficiencyman · 11-02-2012, 01:13 AM

Oh, with less effort, agro, wet hands, cold hands, NO WAY - close a valve or 2, switch on an air pump for a few mins, flush out crap -- JOB DONE 10 mins a week !

Doghouse Riley · 11-02-2012, 01:18 AM

Or.... turn off the filter, put the standpipe in the sump.
Turn on the drain pump to clear the sump.
Pull the standpipe to purge the drain and connecting 4" pipe.
Replace the standpipe, pump the crud to waste.
Turn off the drain pump, pull the standpipe again and see the lovely clear water coming up from the drain.
Turn on the filter.
Go and make a cup of tea.

Never liked the idea of crud building up in the bottom drain.

efficiencyman · 11-02-2012, 01:49 AM

Hi Matt. Re. Strainer question - its not ideal, but if your pump feeding your filter their is usually pump casing/stainer fitted as on your Titan, then you have more work unclogging. The answer should be no - do it properly, do it once, fit a bottom drain, it stops the muck being puverised into fines that are more troublesome to collect.

ThomasArp · 11-02-2012, 02:59 AM

It is possible to setup at simple system with a house running from the pond and down into your filter system.
I'm doing this and it works great using a crap fontain water pump placed in the last camber of the filter system, but of cause before the tickle tower UV and pressure filter.
I'm cleaning out my gravity feed prefilter every 2. day. Mostly because it has a filters that takes very very small particles and I want them out of the system. Not so much because the filter gets clogged..
It all comes down to the size of the filter. The bigger, the less resistance and more water can pass through.

A problem is, that it does not look nice and is difficult to hide, especially if you have clear water.