Agree! Your drawings are so helpful. I keep getting back to it while sketching my future system. Do you have a final plan/drawing of the whole system? I would be very interested to see how you plumb the 3 pumps back into the filter, do they all merge together or they all go into a different bog + the waterfall? And where you use flexible and where you use rigid pipes, diameters, where and how you plug the water jets, etc. I would be more than happy to pay for it and I’m sure other as well :)
Great video, lot of useful information for diy pond build. Your videos deserve lot more views because they help regular people save money when building a pond .Your web site also! I am really glad I found your channel .
The T fitting is the most answer i needed kev, thank you so much . In my country, electrical blackout occured so frequently. 1 more subscriber for you, keep the good work .
I agree 100%, seaming is the most stressful thing to do on a pond. It terrifies me every time😬😆 I am so glad you have put in and explained a breather pipe in the wetland, they are essential and not too many builders explain this. Excellent video. Keep them coming.👌
Hey Kev, happy to see your progress on this pond! T fitting is a great solution, I plan to use it and make a bubbling rock in a bog (still planning my first pond build this summer, today I brought an EPDM liner).
You don’t need a T piece on the inlet to stop a back syphon you can simply drill a hole in pipe as long as it’s above the water level in the filter it will let air in and prevent a back syphon
Correct 👍. But with a T piece and valves you can regulate the flow into the bog filter. As you know it’s important that not too much flow moves through the bog.
Hi, great videos. I am not fully understanding the t piece here. Would the water that is supposed to go down to the bottom of the bog not exit early now because of the t piece? I would have thought that a check valve is always necessary.
The horizontal part of the t piece is reduced down to 20mm. The main line coming in is 50mm. If you are worried you can add a valve to regulate how much water comes out. However the flow out the horizontal is quite gentle compared to the flow going to the base of the filter. Possibly if the gravel became clogged you would see much more water shooting out the smaller horizontal pipe. But this is working great, the vast majority of the water moves up through the rock and pebble, if the power goes of the entire bog doesn’t drain back into the pond.
Love your series on the dream pond and I'm about to embark on my own build with your techniques in Western Australia. How are you running the pump power cables into your olive barrels? The olive barrels appear to have a threaded lid and uniseal for the plumbing flow out, but I cant understand how the power for the pump enters the olive barrel.
I drilled a little hole and fit the cord through. To stop debris going in through the hole I used aquarium filter pad to fill the space around the cord.
A big fan here! Sorry about my ignorance, I dont understand the water direction in your bog, is it a top-down or bottom-up? Judging by your pump arrow, water is being taking from the bottom by the pump. Where water returns? Another thing, waters from your pond and bog are disconnected? Thank you so much for your channel, a life-saver for my yet to be business
G’day Daniel. The water flows up through the bog. Down through the intake bay (where most of the pumps are located). There is one pump in this pond pulling water off the bottom of the pond. The bogs in this pond are seperate to the main pond and connected via small streams. The filters could be inside the pond if there wasn’t room outside the pond. Hope that makes sense and good luck 👍
I couldn’t an extension cord for the low volt side of the electrical. Well there were some but the fittings never aligned so I had to make my own. I need to extend the low volt side for a couple of reasons. 1. The nearest power supply was 22 metres away. 2. The transformer isn’t rated for outdoor use, so it needed to be housed inside the shed. Hope that makes sense 👍
Thank you so much for sharing. Really enjoying this serie. Your pond is beautiful. Does this pump allow connecting directly to a dc source (no need for the transformer) if you wanted, for example, to run it out of properly sized solar panels and battery bank ? If the filter is oversized for the pond volume (and no fish in the pond), you think we could manage to run it only 10 to 12hours a day instead of 24h ? Looking for a way to create this filter system on solar while off the grid, and convert it to the grid power once available in a few years. I also looked at David Pagan Butler bubble pump system that could run on lower wattage and might be easier on solar, but it looks like it need some vertical to create the water flow from the filter to the main area, and our pond will only be 60cm deep for regulation purposes... Anything deeper is considered a pool an need a fence. 60cm is not quite enough I think to create suffisiant flow from the planted zone. Would greatly appreciate your opinion. I'm from Canada, I doubt water being too hot will be a problem. Thanks again for putting this all together.
I’m not sure if the pump can be connected directly to solar panels (I haven’t personally tried it) although I can’t see why not, it is dc after all. In regards to only running the filter part time again it’s not something I’ve personally tried. I would say some filtration is better than no filtration. Something that might help you is a false bottom. I recently created a no pump pond in a wine barrel. The false bottom allows water to move through the substrate very slowly. The aim is to create anoxic conditions, which are incredibly effective at processing nitrogen. The results I’m experiencing in this pond are fantastic! Certainly something I would look into if I was in your situation.
On this dream pond build I wanted the bogs to also be ponds. So there is 60cm of water over the top of the pebble. Most people opt for just a few inches, or even no water over the pebble.
Hi Kev, I've been going over your bog filter videos to get some ideas before plumbing one of my own. From the diagram, it looks as if this one has a void space but no culvert pipe or other piping to distribute the water. Is that correct? If so, I'm wondering if you've got any feedback now (one year on) regarding how well this works compared to your other bog that does have a culvert pipe in it. Really enjoying your channel!
Congrats on the progress. Looks great. The tee fitting ahead of entering the bog is a good idea even if you have a check valve at the pump. Better to have two cheap and easy insurance plans than one for such an important part of the system. Did you just put a cap on the branch side of the tee and drill a hole in it? I'm plumbing jets in my pond right now and am unsure what size pipe to use at the outlet. How did you decide what size to use?
Thanks mate👍. You can thank John Adams at modern design aquascape for that T piece idea, I saw it in one of his videos. When I saw it I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before. I’ve had aquaponic systems where we use a bell siphon to fill and flood the grow bed. Anyways this is much simpler. So the T piece I used is 50mm on the 2 sides and the beach is 25mm. I didn’t cap it or anything. At the moment I’m happy with the flow moving to the bottom of the bog and the flow coming out the branch. I will most likely put a valve on so I can regulate how much water spreads over the top of the bog as long as I’m getting the majority to the bottom I’m happy at this stage. And that’s basically how I plan on plumbing the jets. I will have the main 50mm line coming from the pump and I’ll beach it out into 25mm lines. I’m guessing (at this stage) I’ll then reduce the outlet at the jet to common garden hose size which is 12mm here and I’ll also add a valve again so I have full control over how much water comes out at each jet point. That’s how I see it playing out in my head anyways. Hope that helps 👍
Okay I think I understand thanks. With this set up in regards to the Bog and waste bucket; the way to clean out the waste barrel is with a sump pump correct? There is no clean out valve such as when using the barrel as the bog. This set up the bog is not the barrel. Am I correct about the sump pump? Then with the elevation of the bog water will flow back into the pond.
@@Ozponds dev I think you mentioned winters. I live in utah elevation 4500 feet gets very cold. We keep our pond from completing freezing by running the aerator all winter. I am not sure we could keep a bog from freezing and when it does we will loose all that good bacteria? Any suggestions. It is a shame. I guess in the spring we could jump start it with purchasing bacteria? The was bucket would freeze and crack I think. I found an 18 gallon water barrel we are planning to use. I am not sure how to manage that because water will be in it come the freeze. It may be possible to keep it going if we increased the flow in the bog. Slow moving it would freeze solid. We often get below zero. 🙃
I think I’d use a strong pipe to create the clean out. You’ll need it big enough to fit a clean out pump down. If you had a pond vac you could use a smaller diameter clean out pipe (that’s what I’m using in my latest pond). In regards to the bacteria, yes you would just kick start the system again in the spring.
@@Ozponds I’m sorry now I am really confused. Using a liner as the bog and barrel for waste how would you use a pipe to clean out or empty the waste bucket for the winter? I thought a sump pump or shop vac. 18 gal waste barrel for about 300 gal bog. With our limited space. Not sure where a pipe for the waste barrel comes into the picture. I’m sorry I’m just trying to understand before I go to all the labor and expense and really do appreciate your help. Could a sump pump just be placed in the barrel directly when needed. I picture your comment as a large diameter pipe inside the waste barrel then place the sump pump in that?
Hey Kev, just went down a rabbit hole on anoxic filtration. Have you ever looked into this? It's similar, construction-wise to a bog, but much more serviceable as all the media goes into baskets. I'd never heard of it before, but apparently is frequently used in the UK and Europe. Common in Australia?
Thank you Kev for all the great info on your channel. Can you tell us you opinion about the pump in the video after a few months? Also do you have any idea about the head loss in a bog filter? I am building a pond with 2 bog gardens 2 square meters area in total and I am aiming for 1000-1200l/h but I don't know what head loss to expect from the gravel.
Love em! So far so good. I just recorded a video about them but it won’t be out for a few weeks yet. I’m a bit ahead of schedule. There should be no head loss due to the gravel at least not until it’s due for a clean out. The water should flow freely through. If you notice a reduction in water leaving the bog it’s time for a clean out. But if you give it a good flush once a year you should be laughing 👍. Anyway hope that helps you out.
Great tips, I may have missed something in your videos, but I wonder do you use UV lights in your pond systems?? Havent heard you mentioned them....if you do use them, have a you got a video on it? Cheers
I don’t use them. UV lights are great for eliminating green water....but the water is green because the biological balance is off. By adding more biological filtration such as a bog filter the green water will disappear naturally. Hope that helps 👍
Hi mate, love yr videos. Just wondering what size pump you were using there. Im trying to design a water feature and im trying to get some idea of scale. Thanks from NSW...
G’day Harry. These are the jebao dc adjustable pumps (there’s a link in description), the pumps I’m running are the 15000 litre model. I have 4 running the entire pond but only one to each filter, one running jets and one running the stream. They are all dialled back. The pumps running the bogs are operating at around 10,000 litres per hour. Hope that helps 👍
I’m just a hobbyist but it seems when referring to nitrosomonas and nirtobacter which are the ones we find in aquatic systems we say nitrifying bacteria. With the end product being nitrate (still a form of nitrogen). Where as DEnitrifying bacteria refers to a more terrestrial or land based process. A quick google search seams to confirm this. Not to say that google is always right. It just seems to me that by saying nitrifying bacteria if people search that up they are going to find the products and information that relates to aquatic systems. Again I’m not a scientist just trying to provide helpful information for the average person. I’m more than happy to be corrected 👍
What about with the supplied barb fittings? You should be able to find a flexible pipe that will fit on. I found these pumps come with a ridiculous amount of fittings (I throw most of them out).
@Ozponds yeah mine came with 2 of everything. I want to use the largest which is 1 and 1/4 finally found a right angle rubber intercooler hose that will work to get flow from my pump vault which is all I was having issue with. Minus the rain making my wetland filter a lot bigger than I have excavated. Haha. Shit happens
Great video, the combination of the drafts (theory) and the video footage (reality) is key to really understand how it works and how to do it, thanks.
No problem mate. Glad it all helps 👍
Agree! Your drawings are so helpful. I keep getting back to it while sketching my future system. Do you have a final plan/drawing of the whole system? I would be very interested to see how you plumb the 3 pumps back into the filter, do they all merge together or they all go into a different bog + the waterfall? And where you use flexible and where you use rigid pipes, diameters, where and how you plug the water jets, etc. I would be more than happy to pay for it and I’m sure other as well :)
Great video, lot of useful information for diy pond build. Your videos deserve lot more views because they help regular people save money when building a pond .Your web site also! I am really glad I found your channel .
Thanks. I want everyone to be able to experience the joys of a pond. Regardless of their budget. Spread the word 👍
The T fitting is the most answer i needed kev, thank you so much . In my country, electrical blackout occured so frequently. 1 more subscriber for you, keep the good work .
Thanks mate. Happy to help 👍
I agree 100%, seaming is the most stressful thing to do on a pond.
It terrifies me every time😬😆
I am so glad you have put in and explained a breather pipe in the wetland, they are essential and not too many builders explain this. Excellent video. Keep them coming.👌
Thanks so much Mel. I really appreciate the support 👍
Looks awesome you should be really happy with what you’ve achieved so far keep the videos coming 👍
Thanks Sam. It’s getting there now. 👍
Thank you
😊👍
You're nice. Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas Claude 👍
Great video
Glad you enjoyed it 👍
Hey Kev, happy to see your progress on this pond! T fitting is a great solution, I plan to use it and make a bubbling rock in a bog (still planning my first pond build this summer, today I brought an EPDM liner).
That’s awesome Oleg! I’m sure you’re going to make a beautiful pond 👍
Thanks for the videos..following closely. Lots of information. Cheers.
You’re welcome. The aim of these videos is to help like minded people 👍
You don’t need a T piece on the inlet to stop a back syphon you can simply drill a hole in pipe as long as it’s above the water level in the filter it will let air in and prevent a back syphon
Correct 👍. But with a T piece and valves you can regulate the flow into the bog filter. As you know it’s important that not too much flow moves through the bog.
Hi, great videos. I am not fully understanding the t piece here. Would the water that is supposed to go down to the bottom of the bog not exit early now because of the t piece? I would have thought that a check valve is always necessary.
The horizontal part of the t piece is reduced down to 20mm. The main line coming in is 50mm. If you are worried you can add a valve to regulate how much water comes out. However the flow out the horizontal is quite gentle compared to the flow going to the base of the filter. Possibly if the gravel became clogged you would see much more water shooting out the smaller horizontal pipe. But this is working great, the vast majority of the water moves up through the rock and pebble, if the power goes of the entire bog doesn’t drain back into the pond.
Watched a few videos bud subbed proper awesome work
Very useful, thank you for the very informational vedio.
Thanks mate 👍
Love your series on the dream pond and I'm about to embark on my own build with your techniques in Western Australia. How are you running the pump power cables into your olive barrels? The olive barrels appear to have a threaded lid and uniseal for the plumbing flow out, but I cant understand how the power for the pump enters the olive barrel.
I drilled a little hole and fit the cord through. To stop debris going in through the hole I used aquarium filter pad to fill the space around the cord.
A big fan here! Sorry about my ignorance, I dont understand the water direction in your bog, is it a top-down or bottom-up? Judging by your pump arrow, water is being taking from the bottom by the pump. Where water returns? Another thing, waters from your pond and bog are disconnected? Thank you so much for your channel, a life-saver for my yet to be business
G’day Daniel. The water flows up through the bog. Down through the intake bay (where most of the pumps are located). There is one pump in this pond pulling water off the bottom of the pond. The bogs in this pond are seperate to the main pond and connected via small streams. The filters could be inside the pond if there wasn’t room outside the pond. Hope that makes sense and good luck 👍
I've got one question though, why did you have to cut the wire and re-wire it by the way? I'm still confused. Thanks.
I couldn’t an extension cord for the low volt side of the electrical. Well there were some but the fittings never aligned so I had to make my own. I need to extend the low volt side for a couple of reasons.
1. The nearest power supply was 22 metres away.
2. The transformer isn’t rated for outdoor use, so it needed to be housed inside the shed.
Hope that makes sense 👍
Thank you so much for sharing. Really enjoying this serie. Your pond is beautiful. Does this pump allow connecting directly to a dc source (no need for the transformer) if you wanted, for example, to run it out of properly sized solar panels and battery bank ? If the filter is oversized for the pond volume (and no fish in the pond), you think we could manage to run it only 10 to 12hours a day instead of 24h ? Looking for a way to create this filter system on solar while off the grid, and convert it to the grid power once available in a few years. I also looked at David Pagan Butler bubble pump system that could run on lower wattage and might be easier on solar, but it looks like it need some vertical to create the water flow from the filter to the main area, and our pond will only be 60cm deep for regulation purposes... Anything deeper is considered a pool an need a fence. 60cm is not quite enough I think to create suffisiant flow from the planted zone. Would greatly appreciate your opinion. I'm from Canada, I doubt water being too hot will be a problem. Thanks again for putting this all together.
I’m not sure if the pump can be connected directly to solar panels (I haven’t personally tried it) although I can’t see why not, it is dc after all. In regards to only running the filter part time again it’s not something I’ve personally tried. I would say some filtration is better than no filtration. Something that might help you is a false bottom. I recently created a no pump pond in a wine barrel. The false bottom allows water to move through the substrate very slowly. The aim is to create anoxic conditions, which are incredibly effective at processing nitrogen. The results I’m experiencing in this pond are fantastic! Certainly something I would look into if I was in your situation.
How deep is your bog filter? I've heard people say no more than 30cm using only pea gravel, but this one looks quite a bit deeper.
At least 60cm of rock and pebble over the void area. Then I’ve got about 60cm over water over the top of that. So at least 1.2m deep on these bogs.
@@Ozponds Can you explain "60cm over water over top of that"? Not quite sure I follow you on that.
On this dream pond build I wanted the bogs to also be ponds. So there is 60cm of water over the top of the pebble. Most people opt for just a few inches, or even no water over the pebble.
@@Ozponds Gotcha, thanks for your replies.
Hi Kev, I've been going over your bog filter videos to get some ideas before plumbing one of my own. From the diagram, it looks as if this one has a void space but no culvert pipe or other piping to distribute the water. Is that correct? If so, I'm wondering if you've got any feedback now (one year on) regarding how well this works compared to your other bog that does have a culvert pipe in it.
Really enjoying your channel!
No this one has a culvert pipe. Just no aquablox. Still doing really well. Just did an update vid.
@@Ozponds Great! Thanks for the update!
Congrats on the progress. Looks great.
The tee fitting ahead of entering the bog is a good idea even if you have a check valve at the pump. Better to have two cheap and easy insurance plans than one for such an important part of the system. Did you just put a cap on the branch side of the tee and drill a hole in it?
I'm plumbing jets in my pond right now and am unsure what size pipe to use at the outlet. How did you decide what size to use?
Thanks mate👍. You can thank John Adams at modern design aquascape for that T piece idea, I saw it in one of his videos. When I saw it I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before. I’ve had aquaponic systems where we use a bell siphon to fill and flood the grow bed. Anyways this is much simpler. So the T piece I used is 50mm on the 2 sides and the beach is 25mm. I didn’t cap it or anything. At the moment I’m happy with the flow moving to the bottom of the bog and the flow coming out the branch. I will most likely put a valve on so I can regulate how much water spreads over the top of the bog as long as I’m getting the majority to the bottom I’m happy at this stage. And that’s basically how I plan on plumbing the jets. I will have the main 50mm line coming from the pump and I’ll beach it out into 25mm lines. I’m guessing (at this stage) I’ll then reduce the outlet at the jet to common garden hose size which is 12mm here and I’ll also add a valve again so I have full control over how much water comes out at each jet point. That’s how I see it playing out in my head anyways. Hope that helps 👍
Okay I think I understand thanks. With this set up in regards to the Bog and waste bucket; the way to clean out the waste barrel is with a sump pump correct? There is no clean out valve such as when using the barrel as the bog. This set up the bog is not the barrel. Am I correct about the sump pump? Then with the elevation of the bog water will flow back into the pond.
Yes all correct. Now you’ve got it 👍
@@Ozponds dev I think you mentioned winters. I live in utah elevation 4500 feet gets very cold.
We keep our pond from completing freezing by running the aerator all winter. I am not sure we could keep a bog from freezing and when it does we will loose all that good bacteria? Any suggestions. It is a shame. I guess in the spring we could jump start it with purchasing bacteria? The was bucket would freeze and crack I think. I found an 18 gallon water barrel we are planning to use. I am not sure how to manage that because water will be in it come the freeze. It may be possible to keep it going if we increased the flow in the bog. Slow moving it would freeze solid. We often get below zero. 🙃
I think I’d use a strong pipe to create the clean out. You’ll need it big enough to fit a clean out pump down. If you had a pond vac you could use a smaller diameter clean out pipe (that’s what I’m using in my latest pond). In regards to the bacteria, yes you would just kick start the system again in the spring.
@@Ozponds I’m sorry now I am really confused. Using a liner as the bog and barrel for waste how would you use a pipe to clean out or empty the waste bucket for the winter? I thought a sump pump or shop vac. 18 gal waste barrel for about 300 gal bog. With our limited space. Not sure where a pipe for the waste barrel comes into the picture. I’m sorry I’m just trying to understand before I go to all the labor and expense and really do appreciate your help. Could a sump pump just be placed in the barrel directly when needed. I picture your comment as a large diameter pipe inside the waste barrel then place the sump pump in that?
I would replace the barrel with a large strong pipe. I thought you were worried about the barrel cracking in a freeze. Now I’m confused.
Hey Kev, just went down a rabbit hole on anoxic filtration. Have you ever looked into this? It's similar, construction-wise to a bog, but much more serviceable as all the media goes into baskets. I'd never heard of it before, but apparently is frequently used in the UK and Europe. Common in Australia?
Never heard of it...looks like I’m headed down the rabbit hole too 😉👍
Are these pumps still working good for you
No problems at all so far 👍
Thank you Kev for all the great info on your channel. Can you tell us you opinion about the pump in the video after a few months? Also do you have any idea about the head loss in a bog filter?
I am building a pond with 2 bog gardens 2 square meters area in total and I am aiming for 1000-1200l/h but I don't know what head loss to expect from the gravel.
Love em! So far so good. I just recorded a video about them but it won’t be out for a few weeks yet. I’m a bit ahead of schedule. There should be no head loss due to the gravel at least not until it’s due for a clean out. The water should flow freely through. If you notice a reduction in water leaving the bog it’s time for a clean out. But if you give it a good flush once a year you should be laughing 👍. Anyway hope that helps you out.
@@Ozponds The only info I had prior to your answer was about gravel porosity being between 40 and 50%. Your answers helps a lot. Thank you very much.
Great tips, I may have missed something in your videos, but I wonder do you use UV lights in your pond systems?? Havent heard you mentioned them....if you do use them, have a you got a video on it? Cheers
I don’t use them. UV lights are great for eliminating green water....but the water is green because the biological balance is off. By adding more biological filtration such as a bog filter the green water will disappear naturally. Hope that helps 👍
I been reading about keeping koi fish in Victoria, could you shed some lights from experience, do we need a permit to keep koi fish in Victoria?
Yes you do need a permit for Koi in Victoria. I personally have never kept koi.
Hi mate, love yr videos. Just wondering what size pump you were using there. Im trying to design a water feature and im trying to get some idea of scale. Thanks from NSW...
G’day Harry. These are the jebao dc adjustable pumps (there’s a link in description), the pumps I’m running are the 15000 litre model. I have 4 running the entire pond but only one to each filter, one running jets and one running the stream. They are all dialled back. The pumps running the bogs are operating at around 10,000 litres per hour. Hope that helps 👍
@@Ozponds helps heaps thanks! Love your passion for water features! Its good karma. Keep up the good work :-)
Thanks mate 👍
How long was the cord originally?
They are quite short. 1.5 maybe 1.8 metres.
How is the pump holding up?
So far really happy. I’ve now bought 3.
Sorry I just hear you say it so many times it’s really DEnitrifying bacteria
I’m just a hobbyist but it seems when referring to nitrosomonas and nirtobacter which are the ones we find in aquatic systems we say nitrifying bacteria. With the end product being nitrate (still a form of nitrogen). Where as DEnitrifying bacteria refers to a more terrestrial or land based process. A quick google search seams to confirm this. Not to say that google is always right. It just seems to me that by saying nitrifying bacteria if people search that up they are going to find the products and information that relates to aquatic systems. Again I’m not a scientist just trying to provide helpful information for the average person. I’m more than happy to be corrected 👍
I have a jeboa 6500 and the outlet fitting on it is impossible to find something with the same thread
What about with the supplied barb fittings? You should be able to find a flexible pipe that will fit on. I found these pumps come with a ridiculous amount of fittings (I throw most of them out).
@Ozponds yeah mine came with 2 of everything. I want to use the largest which is 1 and 1/4 finally found a right angle rubber intercooler hose that will work to get flow from my pump vault which is all I was having issue with. Minus the rain making my wetland filter a lot bigger than I have excavated. Haha. Shit happens
😂 indeed it does! Glad your all sorted now 👍