Boscovius's Pond and Introduction.

[Boscovius]

Hello everyone. My name is Thomas, but most of the internet knows me as Boscovius. I came to this forum in search of information about the air lift system as I intend to break ground on a natural swim pond next summer. I have learned much from David Pagan Butler as it was his work that taught me about the natural swimming pool and the bubble lift pump. Also, I have taken notes from koi pond enthusiasts where I learned about the possibility of using an upflow bog filter to purify my pool water. In essence, for my pond I will create a largish airlift pump that will have the capacity to suction off detritus from the bottom of the deepest part of the pool. This water will then be dumped into a basin with walls just a couple inches above water level. The water will then pass through a filter medium, such as polyfil, in order to trap the solids for later removal. The water then moves through the bottom of the basin, through non-perforated flexible corrugated drainage pipe to the bottom of the regeneration zone where it branches off into sections of perforated flexible corrugated drainage pipe. The ends of these pipes are capped. The drainage pipe is buried in larger, fist sized stones, then subsequent layers of smaller stones, all done in an effort to prevent smaller stones from falling into the gaps, ultimately culminating in a layer of pea gravel. My thinking is that the water from the airlift pump will dump into the basin and gravity feed to the bottom of the regeneration zone where it will then be released from the perforations in the pipe and work its way up through the gravel bed towards the surface. The fact that the airlift is pulling water from the deepest part of the pool should prevent it from becoming a stagnant zone and ensure complete water turnover.

In addition, I have an idea for making a airlift driven floating pond skimmer from five gallon buckets, pvc pipe and fittings. (110 mm pipe and fittings don't seem to be a thing here in the U.S. so I'll just have to adapt what I have to work with.) I really enjoy watching the skimmers that lie just beneath the surface and hope to be able to replicate the kind of performance I have seen on youtube on a larger scale. More on this later.

Sorry no pictures or drawings to show. Perhaps at a later date.

Kind regards.

Thomas

Edit: September 15, 2022.

Made fantastic progress on the airlift pump using U.S. style PVC pipe and fittings. I've knocked most of an airlift pump and a 5 gallon bucket skimmer together. Still a bit of work to do yet. I have a 102 watt Vivosun air compressor to try it out with. Not great reviews on that but it was available.
Also, it's getting late in the season and my children's pool is a bit of a mess. Trying to get the water cleared up and the pool cleaned so I can test this contraption out and see if it works, how well it works, and if there is anything expedient I can do to make it work better before I put all this stuff away for the winter.