finally! the pond is *just* overtop the intake bay inlet and flow has reversed to its proper skimming mode. have pump 1 on low and slow. There is just enough water coming in now for the level ti only drop very slowly.

am I sitting on the edge of the pond at dark at midnight watching the water rise ever so slowly so that I can go ?

yes 😂

edit: it's 1AM. Just turned off the water. Both pumps are at 90% power and the water level appears stable. I'm going to go out on a limb and call it a night and hope there is water in the right places in the morning.

who am I kidding. of course there will be. It's even awesome at night.

This was a good day!! 😁 👍

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another inch uo... two to go...

look at the little sprayer I "made". It is angle 45° at the far end of the pond to push floating stuff around the corner toward the other side and the intake. Part of the "self skimming" system.

The water is just coming underneath it now. When it is full the little water jets should be just below or just above the surface of the water, I think just below.

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The last "major" infrastructure kind of things I need to do are:

1) add to more sprayers along the long edge spraying toward the inside edge. Easy peasy. I have the T connectors, I just need to drill two holes in two caps and point them into the pond.

2) I'll be removing some of the gravel from the bog filter. I filled it more full than needed. We’ll start planting stuff in it now, so we'll have a few areas with different water depths suited to different plants from barely on the surface to maybe as deep as 2-6 inches.

3) the foaming and slight adjustments to the stream

4) lots and lots of edge and landscaping and planting work all around the pond. Main goal in the coming days and weeks will be to finish off dealing with the pile of dirt in the back and get everything to a nice level ready for figuring out paths and then top soil and seeding. Really wish I had been able to do it early in the spring but... this is the way it is.

5) oh, and there is an electrical trench to dig! Because who doesn't want to dig a trench in 35ºC weather!

the pond is barely 4 inches below the level of the intake bay! Can't go to bed yet. I'll wait for it to be full enough to turn off the tap water and just leave the pumps on low.

I believe I started filling the bog filter around 9:30. And I've basically had it going full ever since, so we're looking at a solid 16 hours to fill the whole system. Thankfully this will hopefully never have to happen again, at least from dead empty. It's bad for the bog filter once it starts to grow things for it to be dry for more than a few hours so aside from a flush once or twice a year, that hole will always have water to the top.

I will probably only empty the main pond maybe once a year... if I'm lucky, not even that often.

The intake bay i'll empty a little more often, maybe once every spring, summer and fall as that's where all the debris will gather.

No matter what. It's good. Very good. :)

Time to go check if it's made it to the top yet!
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Stream when the second pump got into the action. I tried a few combinations of pump 1 and 2 at different power settings but none of them sent enough water back down the diversion stream to make up for what was lost so I wasn't able to keep pump 1 on while filling.

It's definitely going to have nice flow when both pumps are at 99%!

The unicorn is happy.

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GUYS ITS ALMOST FULL!!

Not sure it'll be full before I go to bed, which means I'll have to shut it all down overnight... but it's soooo close!

I've detected a few issues but nothing is a showstopper. I *will* have to empty the pond done far enough to foam in the waterfall. Most of the flow is definitely coming out the bottom, so if I ever want maximum effect, that will be the only way.

There is a low point on the inside wall of the diversion stream (between the stream and the pond, so not losing water out of the system). I'm not at all surprised, I thought it was Ok, but also could tell it was the lowest point, but that's not a hard fix.

I clearly over-thought/over-built the diversion stream. I was too focused/paranoid about the tree and I've made it much wider than I needed. I can tight that up.

I'm super happy that the second pump is running great. Which means it's pulling from the bottom of the pond and recirculating part to the bog filter and part to the sprayer line along the top near side, and the bubblers on the bottom.

The 2nd pump is going full power right now (99%/170W) as the pond fills. I thought I might be able to have both pumps running on low and still fill the pond, but too much of it goes into the pond to replenish the intake bay as quickly as pump.1 empties it. These really are impressive pumps!

I'll stay up as late as I can manage to try to get it full. It's been filling since about 11:30AM not including the bog filter. So that’s nearly 12 hours now.

If you want to see what I am watching, you can tune into the webcam (it has sound) on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90s20oOVQjY

Otherwise, enjoy the progress shots. I can't quite express my satisfaction with it so far!! :+)

Note I did some flat stone work around the front above the waterfall.and folded under some of the liner to expose the ground and make things a little neater.

It's coming along!

Next post will have another video with more water in the stream and waterfall after I turned on the 2nd pump!

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first water! (meant to post this this afternoon by my #selfhost died somewhere along the way... so now we catch up!)

the pump at its lowest setting (25%) pumps faster than the water can fill so this is start and stop situation as the intake bay slowly fills when i turn the pond off and drops as it pumps for awhile... and fills and drops. But it is good for seeing how everything is flowing. So far no escapes or bad signs. #poolpond #backyardProject #diy #plumbing