Originally posted by rong1:
The water will flow into the 1st chamber by gravity and thereafter from top to bottom to the other chambers. There will be a bottom drain in the pond and (hopefully) one each for each chamber (1st - brushes, 2nd coarse matting, 3rd smooth matting, 4th sand and 5th back to pond with the discharge chamber being the last. How do I build a skimmer? Any other suggestions/comments for this pond?

Many thanks.
I am building a concrete pond and am having a discharge chamber built. Will I need a pump in this chamber to pump water/sediments that has been discharged here? Will I also require a submersible pump for the pond to circulate the water in the pond?. The newly built pond is expected to be 12'x6'x4'. Any advice?

Many thanks

Originally posted by dttk:
Hi Rong, thanks for the additional info. There's still one more thing that I'm not very clear about. Do you mean that the bottom drain is connected to the discharge chamber which is isolated from the rest of the filter OR is part of the 1st chamber(settlement)? If it is isolated, then where is the water inlet into the 1st chamber? Do you have mid-water inlet? Based on the surface area of the pond, your filter should be at least 4ftx6ftx3.5ft deep and it should be located at the end away from the sewage pipe. But 6ft is rather too short a length. One suggestion is to have a "U" or "hair-pin" shaped filter. This would increase the length of filter to almost double. The total width would surely have to be more than 4ft in this case. 6ft would be nice(width of each chamber is 6/2 or 3ft). Remember that the water flow is up-down to one side(left or right), then backwards at the hair-pin curve, and to the other side where the last chamber is. You could incorporate the discharge chamber at one end. If you are not able to visualise this, I'll be happy to fax over a diagram for easy understanding. If possible do not place a pump in the pond as the outlet from filter should be sufficient to circulate water. Why not have 2 bottom drains instead of one since the length is 13ft.

Originally posted by dttk:
Hi Rong, thanks for the additional info. There's still one more thing that I'm not very clear about. Do you mean that the bottom drain is connected to the discharge chamber which is isolated from the rest of the filter OR is part of the 1st chamber(settlement)? If it is isolated, then where is the water inlet into the 1st chamber? Do you have mid-water inlet? Based on the surface area of the pond, your filter should be at least 4ftx6ftx3.5ft deep and it should be located at the end away from the sewage pipe. But 6ft is rather too short a length. One suggestion is to have a "U" or "hair-pin" shaped filter. This would increase the length of filter to almost double. The total width would surely have to be more than 4ft in this case. 6ft would be nice(width of each chamber is 6/2 or 3ft). Remember that the water flow is up-down to one side(left or right), then backwards at the hair-pin curve, and to the other side where the last chamber is. You could incorporate the discharge chamber at one end. If you are not able to visualise this, I'll be happy to fax over a diagram for easy understanding. If possible do not place a pump in the pond as the outlet from filter should be sufficient to circulate water. Why not have 2 bottom drains instead of one since the length is 13ft.