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| I have 4" PVC laying on top of my liner and coming up over the liner to my external pump (the pump and the pipe coming over the liner are hidden by a deck). My DIY bottom drains are too high off of the liner. I am looking at bottom drains that will go on the 4" PVC and are made for retrofitting applications. The only 2 I've found so far are Tetra's vacuum drain and Aqua Art's retro drain. Are either of these 2 better than the other? Are there any others that I should look at?
TIA,
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| AquaArt's 4" retro drain is your best bet. The 2" tetra drain won't flow enough water unless you are hooking a pump directly to them. |
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| I 've also read that Aquaart's is best. That being said I couldn't afford it this year due to change in employment so made mine out of a 14" salad bowl. I used the elbow from the 4 inch pipe (street elbow) to trace the opening then cut it out with an exacto knife. Pushed the pipe through into a 4" coupler and glued. The edge of the hole rests on the elbow so I siliconed around the edge just to make sure no water going through there. On the bottom edge of the pipe I cut 4 sections out about 3/8" high and left 4-2" sections of bowl rim for the bowl to rest on. When I started it up the bowl was lifting so I put rocks on two of the legs to hold it down. It works okay but I don't get a large radius circle clean like would with the aquaart. I think part of the reason the aquaart works so well is it sits down low and maybe because it draws from the side. Also has large "feet" for weighing it down as I think unless you add some weight to it all retrofit drains have a tendency to lift. If you google retrofit drains I saw one diy salad bowl version where the guy had put concrete in the bowl to weigh it down. If your drain is coming up over the liner do you have problems getting it to work? Air in the line? Somewhere on this site Mike gives instructions on how to elimate that problem. In my climate and pond this drain works okay. In yours most people seem to use the "real" drain. I tried that but the line froze even with Mike's instructions for getting the water out of the line in winter. Could be because our frost line is 4 ft. Good luck with your project. If $ not issue I'd go with the Aquaart. |
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- Posted by cweathersby NE TX 7b/8a (My Page) on Tue, Jun 8, 10 at 14:26
| I do not have problems getting the 4" lines leading up to the pump to work, even though they go up over the liner. I have check valves on the lines leaving the pump, so that might help. Also, I have the Skippy biofilter drain line hooked up with a valve to the inlet of the pump. When I need to prime the pump to turn it on I can open the valve from the Skippy drain line. That keeps water in the priming pot for long enough for the pump to really start pulling- at which point I open the valves to the bottom drains. After doing internet searches all morning I went ahead and ordered 2 large Aqua Art bottom drains. I may end up buying a small one also, because I have a 2" line hooked to the 4" bottom drain lines. It's capped off now and was originally put there to connect to the skimmer. It pulled the water too fast out of the skimmer and not fast enough out of the bottom drains so I capped it off and put the skimmer on it's own line - with a valve - that Ts into the pump. I hope these bottom drains work. I really REALLY want some clearer water. The fish don't seem to mind it but I do. Especially when they are hiding- like they are now - because there was another snake in there last week. I haven't seen a fish in over a week. Gr. |
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- Posted by pondbucket 5 - 6, KS (My Page) on Tue, Jun 8, 10 at 15:49
| Nancym1956 had an innovative use for toilet flanges (see link below). |
Here is a link that might be useful: NancyM1956 (see her messages towards the bottom of the page).
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| Aqua Art |
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- Posted by nancym1956 (My Page) on Wed, Jun 9, 10 at 13:14
| I made my own, but if I was going to buy one, I'd buy the Aqua Art because of its low profile. |
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