When In Doubt - Improvise!

"Improvise" is definitely the buzz word around here at the moment whilst trying to plumb all the filter equipment into the filter house. Everything looked fine on paper and in our heads however in reality it's proving to be a different matter.

The plan initially (and what we've been working to) is for the pipework from the bottom drain to feed into the filter house to the right hand side, then flow from right to left through a vortex, then a Nexus 200, through the pump, then the bead filter, through the UV unit and then back into the pond via two returns. On paper and during planning this seemed absolutely fine with enough room to achieve this. In our heads and on paper that is!

The reality of actually achieving this hit home yesterday after finally locating all the equipment into the filter house for a dry run. Although there's enough room physically, when you start adding in the pipework and valves plus taking into consideration the actual positioning of the inlets and outlets on each piece of equipment, the issues start.

What seemed hours of man handling and re-positioning of filter equipment etc (not to mention the headaches caused by all the thinking) we concluded that the original configuration just wasn't feasible, not if we were to retain and use all the equipment in our original plan, therefore a new schematic was required.

After more man handling and maneuvering we finally arrived at a new configuration which actually worked in the available space and utilising all the equipment still whilst at the same time making it a lot easier to connect the various inlets & outlets. This is achieved basically by swapping the equipment around so that the flow runs from left to right, instead of from the right to the left. Water from the bottom drain still enters the filter house on the right as this can't be moved, but is then sent the full length of the filter house via a 4" pipe.

It then enters the vortex which is situated at the left end of the filter house and proceeds to flow from left to right through the Nexus 200, through the pump and then into the bead filter which is located at the right end of the filter house. From here the flow then starts its journey back, now flowing from right to left through the UV unit and finally to the pond returns.

This system is a lot more convoluted than our original plan but will work nevertheless, it simply means the water has to travel further and around a few more bends than first anticipated.