Not another duck pond post

[farnk]

I lied, it's another duck pond post.

I have nine ducks (Six mallards, three pekins) and I'm always looking for ways to better my pond functionality. I've been running my current pond for about four months now, and ducks for about eight months. Before the pond I tried out the kiddy pool approach most people seem to go, and absolutely detested it. My "pond" is a 300 gallon trough from tractor supply that I buried into the ground, attached to it I have radial flow settler as a desperate attempt to eliminate some of the suspended solids (it's sort of works, the issues is that when they go through to pump they get chopped up into finer solids) before overflowing into a "bog in a barrel" biofilter which overflows back into the pond. The pump itself is run off a 100aH 12v battery which is charged during the day via solar. I want to upgrade this eventually to have a second battery so that I can feel confident that my pump will run overnight without depleting the battery before the sun comes up (I don't use my LOAD port on the solar charge controller, instead I have a fuse box and cutoff switches.)

Anyways, the point of this is to ask if anyone might have suggestions on better pumps (I don't have the option of 110/120v pumps as my pond is too far from the house), or alternative pond setups for water circulation, and to ask how can I determine how safe my pond water is? I haven't had issues with ducks becoming sick or anything, but the water is always dirty looking, it doesn't smell but with the limited amount of testing I've done it does have higher than desired ammonia levels (although not enough to stink like sulfur/rotten eggs) and I intend to eventually address this by expanding the entire system to add plants that'll soak up the nitrates and ammonia.

Here is the pump I am using currently, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0898QYRNT/. I have used the much more expensive RULE pumps before this and have burned both of them out. The first one I'm not sure why it burnt out, but the second one was because I was experimenting with not using a mesh bag and hoping my bucket with holes I sit it in would filter prevent any feathers from going through which it did, except for string algae which built up over a couple of days, and when I turned my pump on the next morning the intake was plugged with string algae and it burnt itself out trying to start.

Here are some pictures of my setup, please don't mind the mess, the entire area is a constant work in progress. I need to level the ground and I think put mulch down, and get some more bricks to build up around the rest of the pond itself. The puddles are green because my pond's pump was out for a week and I just emptied the entire thing two days ago.

 

[cheezenkwackers]

Have you considered duckponics? You could use plants to remove many of the nitrogen compounds. You pump to grow beds and let gravity take the clean water back. There have been some old posts on here with people trying it.

 

[farnk]

Have you considered duckponics? You could use plants to remove many of the nitrogen compounds. You pump to grow beds and let gravity take the clean water back. There have been some old posts on here with people trying it.

Yep, it's something I want to venture into. My plan is to have a couple beds along the fence you can see there, which still needs to have it's topboards cut and put on, and then feed back into the bio filter. But something I need to do before that also is put together a fine solids filter after the radial settler, and before the beds/bog filter. Because when they pass through the pump they get obliterated into super small solids and don't completely settle out before overflowing into the bog filter. Which is why I'm going to have to dig up all the rock here in the next week or so and clean that bog filter out (and also redesign how it distributes water intake, to make for a more even flow up)

Something else I kind of wanted to do, but I think will require moving the radial settler up in height, is to have a sort of "gutter" run of some drain PVC with holes in it that can hold grow cups along the top boards for things like flowers or herbs. I'm just wary about having a barrel up that high, it's a lot of weight and would need to be secured carefully.

I will definitely look for those posts.

So far a lot of my understanding in this area has come from a youtube channel called "Ozponds" https://www.youtube.com/c/Ozponds/videos

 

[raingarden]

A diaphram pump will not grind up the suspended solids as much as your centrifugal builge pump.
https://www.amazon.com/Seaflo-100PSI-Self-priming-Diaphragm-Pump/dp/B0166UBJX4/ref=sr_1_29?crid=9EWTO8YH98W&keywords=12+volt+pump&qid=1647768836&s=hi&sprefix=12+volt+pump,tools,329&sr=1-29

Look into Kaldnes fluidized bed filters. They are much better at trapping solids than the rocks. Also, the Kaldnes media floats so when it comes time to clean the media it can be easily stirred or agitated to release all the trapped debris and flush it away. Get ready for some sticker shock because the Kaldnes media is pricey.

We have a quackaponics system. Stuff grows OK, but there is no way the plants can keep up with the duck waste. When you do a mass balance calculation you find that a LOT of rapidly growing plants will be needed to assimilate the amount of nutrients entering the system as duck food. We're talking thousands of square feet of turf. Algae (green water) absorbs a lot of nutrient and as the algae cells die and are replaced they clump together and will be briefly captured by the filter as they decompose.

Keeping the water clean is a difficult problem that duck keepers have been struggling with forever. The only easy solution is to replace the water, but that may not be nice to the environment.

 

[farnk]

A diaphram pump will not grind up the suspended solids as much as your centrifugal builge pump.
https://www.amazon.com/Seaflo-100PSI-Self-priming-Diaphragm-Pump/dp/B0166UBJX4/ref=sr_1_29?crid=9EWTO8YH98W&keywords=12+volt+pump&qid=1647768836&s=hi&sprefix=12+volt+pump,tools,329&sr=1-29

Look into Kaldnes fluidized bed filters. They are much better at trapping solids than the rocks. Also, the Kaldnes media floats so when it comes time to clean the media it can be easily stirred or agitated to release all the trapped debris and flush it away. Get ready for some sticker shock because the Kaldnes media is pricey.

We have a quackaponics system. Stuff grows OK, but there is no way the plants can keep up with the duck waste. When you do a mass balance calculation you find that a LOT of rapidly growing plants will be needed to assimilate the amount of nutrients entering the system as duck food. We're talking thousands of square feet of turf. Algae (green water) absorbs a lot of nutrient and as the algae cells die and are replaced they clump together and will be briefly captured by the filter as they decompose.

Keeping the water clean is a difficult problem that duck keepers have been struggling with forever. The only easy solution is to replace the water, but that may not be nice to the environment.

Kaldnes is also referred to as K1 media right? That was something I had considered early on before learning about the bog in a barrel setup, and you're right about the price, that was what drove me off of it.

What is the noise level like with one of those pumps, 12v 5Amp would run about 13 hours I think on a single charge for a 100ah 12v battery or about there which isn't terrible, it would sustain over night. What concerns me though is the 78GPH.

 

[rjmyooper]

One thing I see is the drain, or spigot, that doesn't drain away from the area with a hose. Unless it's deliberate to wash away the poop.
I've been researching this a lot, and mine will be a double pond, upper pond draining into a lower pond that drains into a septic field which will hold a pump to return the cleaned water. I just happen to have a natural slope behind my house.

 

[farnk]

One thing I see is the drain, or spigot, that doesn't drain away from the area with a hose. Unless it's deliberate to wash away the poop.
I've been researching this a lot, and mine will be a double pond, upper pond draining into a lower pond that drains into a septic field which will hold a pump to return the cleaned water. I just happen to have a natural slope behind my house.

I haven't installed any hoses yet, I want to make/find an attachment that sockets in or freely spins, so that I do not have to wind an entire hose everytime I want to attach it. Sort of like attaching irrigation water/wheel lines for farming but on a smaller scale. Curerntly I just drain out into a bucket when I flush my system.

 

[farnk]

So in light of my third (fourth? I've lost count!) pump burning out. I've accepted that these bilge pumps aren't the thing that I am looking for. I believe I might just invest into a pure sine wave inverter and go the 110/120v route.

The pump I am looking at is this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FJV5MWP/ref=emc_b_5_t?th=1

It's listed at 0.8A, 100W. I don't really remember my math that well so if anyone can correct me I would appreciate it, but I believe that comes out to about 16 hours run time on one 100Ah 12v battery charge factoring in 80% DoD?

Does anyone have any suggestions for decent budget PSW Inverters?

 

[rjmyooper]

Here is the pump I bought recently. There is a chance that it's bigger than I needed, but I thought it was a good deal, so I jumped on it. I'm going to go slightly bigger with the pond design. I also bought a very large filter, which will be after the drain field to catch any smaller particulates that make it through. I think I may have to shut the whole system down every Winter because the heating cost my exceed what it's worth.

 

[rjmyooper]

Do you think Rid-X would be beneficial or harmful to the Ducks? Since I will have a septic type drain field, I would add it maybe once a year to break down some of the crap.
BTW, I sent them an inquiry and I'm waiting for a response.