Bottom Drains - Nice Article From a Website

Incorrect. A wax toilet base seal has only momentary water flow through
it when you flush the toilet. There is thousands of pounds of water
weight (pressure) sitting on top of the seal, constantly expanding and
shrinking as the temperature changes in your pond. This expansion and
contraction will result in a leak in the bottom drain fitting to pond
liner connection over time and make your life complicated.

And just how do you think they've managed all these year with bottom drains
in swimming pools that are of the liner type?

This is not true. Even with a perfectly operating bottom drain you WILL
get an accumulation of muck and debris. That is unless you have NO
gravel or rocks on the pond liner bottom.

That's why it is recommended by the AKCA and many of us here (Google for
Rocks or Not) for not rocking a pond.

However, most people have rocks and gravel

Now this is where you are just plain inexperienced. Most people do not have
rocks, and many who did, don't have them now.

You need to perform spring and fall
maintenance. (Start-up and Winterization)

Without rocks, with a bottom drain, there is no needed for such muscle
straining work in the spring or winter. The work is only dealing with the
filter.

1. I am not a marketing rep. I am a 55 year old retired engineer from
the Federal Aviation Administration. I built the website for my
daughter and son-in-law at www.pondkoi.com.

You are representing a company (family owned) that deals in ponds, are you
not?

Regardless that your son-in-law doesn't work for Aquascape now, this design
is #1 because of great marketing and people seeing the beauty and not
realizing the high maintenance needed. My club informs people that they
MUST do the yearly recommended maintenance as they'll soon have a cesspool
with this design. If draining and power washing their pond yearly isn't
appealing, come on over to the AKCA way of doing it. They've been doing and
giving advice far, far longer than the Aquascape design has been in play.

One thing I will say about AS, they have assimilated a lot more people into
ponders, and this is a very good thing.

Congratulations on your first grandchild. I'm hoping my recently
married son will wait awhile (no matter how much I'd like one), as he's in
the Army, based at Ft.Hood and has already done a year in Iraq. ~ jan

~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~