- Dec 15, 2018
- 11
- 13
- 81
Hey everyone!
I am almost ready to take the plunge (hopefully not literally!) with my new duck/goose pond, and I'd love some feedback on my plans. It's for 3 geese and 5 Muscovy ducks. I'm in southern England so hopefully with a bit of protection the pipes won't freeze. The basic idea is a swirl filter to collect solids, with some biological media, connected to a grow bed for duckponics and further biological filtration. Here's what I have in mind:
The pond will be about 1000-2000L (not sure how deep we want to dig). The pump is a Laguna Max Flow 5000 with a 32mm pipe leading to the filter, which is a ~200L water butt. Water falls down the central column (probably 5cm pipe?) into 2 arms that distribute the water so it swirls, allowing sludge to collect in the cone (not sure how to make the cone), which can be drained as needed. The main body of the filter contains 100L K1 and K3 media for biological filtration (kept out of the sludge by a plastic grate). Cleanish water (few solids, probably still high in nitrates) runs out the 5cm outlet to the bottom of a 1m wide, 40cm deep grow bed. In the grow bed we have alfagrog and clay media resting on another plastic grate. The plants consume the nitrates, and clean water returns to the pond via a wider pipe. I'm thinking of standing the filter and the grow bed on old pallets so I can access them from underneath.
Also, I'm thinking the pond will be mostly surrounded by a ~60cm wall, with a sloping beach access at one side via a paved path. The reason for this is to minimise the splashing and transfer of mud and bedding between the pond and the rest of the coop. Normally my birds free range, but presumably there will be winter bird flu flockdowns for some years to come, so I really want to design a system that can cope with them being confined.
Sooo.... will this work? Is it a bad idea to put a wall around the pond? And I'm not sure how critical the flow rates are for systems like this? My hope is that it will be fairly robust and the only routine maintenance is removing the sludge from the filter, and clearing feathers and junk from around the pump before it clogs. Any advice/tips/suggestions would be very much appreciated - I've never done anything like this before! Thank you!
I am almost ready to take the plunge (hopefully not literally!) with my new duck/goose pond, and I'd love some feedback on my plans. It's for 3 geese and 5 Muscovy ducks. I'm in southern England so hopefully with a bit of protection the pipes won't freeze. The basic idea is a swirl filter to collect solids, with some biological media, connected to a grow bed for duckponics and further biological filtration. Here's what I have in mind:
The pond will be about 1000-2000L (not sure how deep we want to dig). The pump is a Laguna Max Flow 5000 with a 32mm pipe leading to the filter, which is a ~200L water butt. Water falls down the central column (probably 5cm pipe?) into 2 arms that distribute the water so it swirls, allowing sludge to collect in the cone (not sure how to make the cone), which can be drained as needed. The main body of the filter contains 100L K1 and K3 media for biological filtration (kept out of the sludge by a plastic grate). Cleanish water (few solids, probably still high in nitrates) runs out the 5cm outlet to the bottom of a 1m wide, 40cm deep grow bed. In the grow bed we have alfagrog and clay media resting on another plastic grate. The plants consume the nitrates, and clean water returns to the pond via a wider pipe. I'm thinking of standing the filter and the grow bed on old pallets so I can access them from underneath.
Also, I'm thinking the pond will be mostly surrounded by a ~60cm wall, with a sloping beach access at one side via a paved path. The reason for this is to minimise the splashing and transfer of mud and bedding between the pond and the rest of the coop. Normally my birds free range, but presumably there will be winter bird flu flockdowns for some years to come, so I really want to design a system that can cope with them being confined.
Sooo.... will this work? Is it a bad idea to put a wall around the pond? And I'm not sure how critical the flow rates are for systems like this? My hope is that it will be fairly robust and the only routine maintenance is removing the sludge from the filter, and clearing feathers and junk from around the pump before it clogs. Any advice/tips/suggestions would be very much appreciated - I've never done anything like this before! Thank you!
