# HOme Made Pond.



## ALFA WOLF (May 24, 2005)

K i Have aBig Cement Box lookign thing. I was thinking of Digging a hole. Puttign it in scrubbign the :shock: out of it let it stay for a while add drops. stuff iek that BUT does anyone know haw to make a homemade filter for cheap.


----------



## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

yes!

ok, the smallest i would make is with a 5 gallon bucket. but you can go larger, like building it in a large rubbermaid container, or any large plastic container with a lid. i don't have time to type out the instructions, so i'll just get you a link.

what we did for our pond is we took a 5 gallon bucket (you can use a rubbermaid container too if you need more filtration) and we took a 4" piece of PVC pipe cut to the height of the bucket plus another foot or so. we then cut a hole in the middle of the bucket lid to fit the PVC pipe down the center. for the filtration medium, we used furnace filter. it's blue and comes in large sheets, looks like a bunch of wires and fibers all woven together. we cut triangular slits in the bottom of the PVC pipe (inside the bucket) and used a sturdy saucer (for a plant pot) turned upside-down also with a hole in the center for the pipe and with several holes punched in it. the filter material is cut into disks with holes in the center for the pipe.

construction. drill one hole in the side of the bucket as close to the bottom as you can. this will be a drain that will be plugged with a cork or other stopper most of the year. 

drill another hole a couple inches from the top of the bucket. this is for out-flow. 

place the saucer with holes in it upside-down in the bottom of the bucket. place 4" round PVC into the hole cut in the saucer. remember, this end of the PVC should have slits cut in it to allow water to pass through. 
like this. pretend it's the pipe

|----|
|----|
|_/\_|

layer the filter material into the bucket. if you think you need more filtration, you can fill the top couple inches with polyester quilt batting or fiberfill.

use 1" flexible tubing and fit it into the hole you drilled at the top of the bucket. this is your out-flow into the pond. you can use PVC glue to attach it. this might take some creativity to figure out.

drill another hole (or just cut a notch like you did at the bottom) at the top of the PVC to allow another tube to pass through. this does not have to be water tight. push the tube a few inches into the large PVC pipe, but not all the way to the bottom. use a pipe cap to seal the end of the PVC pipe. this is the intake for the filter and the tube should run to the pump. 

ok, so the water goes from the pump, up the tube, splashes against the inside of the PVC pipe, airating the water. it then goes to the bottom of the filter and is pushed UP through the filter material and out the tube at the top of the bucket, back into your pond. 

and that is how our filter was made.


----------



## John (Apr 19, 2005)

Cool! I've been looking for good ways to make home-made filters, and it seems that with a little creativity it is pretty easy and cheap.

So how much did the pump cost, what kind of pump would work, etc. Or is this a stupid question? I'm sort of clueless when it comes to pumps.


----------



## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

first you need to figure out how many gallons the pond is, as that will determin the price and type of pump. you just need a rough estimate, it doesn't need to be exact. here is a formula for figuring it out

Length x width x depth x 7.4805 = gallons

once you figure out the volume, choose a pump that can pump roughly 1.3x the amount of water in the pond per hour. (If the pond is 100 gallons, get a pump that can pump about 130 gallons per hour, etc. always round UP. pumps are the same as filters, overkill is good.)

as for the type of pump, you'd just have to look around. we have a pondmaster in our 150 gallon pond. it's a 200 gallon pump. when we build a bigger pond as the fish are outgrowing it, it will be a 1000 gallon/h sump pump my mom found at a garage sale. the pond will probably end up being about 800 gallons.

our 200 gallon pond master pump was about $40-$50


----------



## ALFA WOLF (May 24, 2005)

u dopied and pated that from abother post but thn xill be trying the homemade one seems easy ill ask if i have any problems.


----------



## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

i copied it from one of my own posts. i'm not going to retype all that when i can just go to another thread where i already typed it out once and paste it in here.


----------



## ALFA WOLF (May 24, 2005)

abotu the filter do i have to plug it in cause i sorta dont understand lol sry.


----------



## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

the hole you drill towards the bottom is a drain. it has to be there beause during the winter, you will completely disconnect the filter from the pond (by-pass it) and drain the filter, otherwise it will freeze solid. but it has to have a plug in it for the rest of the year so all your water doesn't just get pumped all over the ground.


----------

