A skimmer, especially a power skimmer is in my opinion a must to have when building a pond.
These are very difficult to fit at a later date so if you are building or modifying a pond I would recommend fitting one at that time. It is not necessary to purchase the pump and the pipework at that time, but the skimmer box needs to be installed.

I had built my pond nineteen years ago, and was faced with the problem of both a large birch tree and a 12ft high privet hedge close to my pond.
My pond had a butyl rubber liner, but it also has a thick concrete collar both above and below the liner so it was not possible to install a power skimmer in the normal way without a lot of work and disturbance to the fish.
In one corner of my pond there is a large overhanging juniper which gives shade to the fish. This was an ideal place to install the skimmer in the pond without it being too conspicuous.

I used an Amphibious P1400 pump from Blagdons which claims to pump 1650 gph. The photograph shows the way that the pump is connected to the skimmer using 1.25 ins diam high pressure piping. This unit is then suspended in the water so that one quarter of the opening of the skimmer is above the water level.
Where the discharge pipe goes out of the photo an elbow is fitted so that the pipe rises to the surface, and then another elbow and a short length of pipe is fitted and an "Airmaster" venturi is connected to this.

This works well and in the morning when it is switched on it very quickly clears any debris off the surface. It not only removes large debris that you could remove with a net, but also removes very small pieces suspended in the water, bubbles etc, and gives a much better appearance to the pond surface.

My pond like many others in this area often suffers from blanket weed, and at certain times of the year there is a lot of small particles suspended in the water, and quite a lot of this passes into the skimmer as mentioned above.
The filter basket which is in these skimmers is very course, and is only designed to hold back large debris which could damage a swimming pool pump. This filter does eventually get blocked with blanket weed.
The small particles pass through the pump without causing any harm, but the pump then acts as a liquidiser and puts some of it back in the pond. When these conditions are present I usually remove the discharge pipe, and connect a 1.25 ins flexible hose. This is then run around the back of the rockery and up to the waterfall. Over the open part of the pipe I fit a fine nylon net and this then traps most of the smaller debris that would otherwise be returned to the pond, and it is surprising how much can be collected in 24 hours.
It is also possible to fit a cloth filter, or better still a stainless steel filter, into the skimmer basket. The only problem with this is that unless it is cleaned very regularly then the pump can be starved of water and cause extensive damage to itself.

Questions & Answers.

Q. Could you possibly give me the spec of the parts you used for connecting your skimmer to a blagdon pump please?

A.The pipe fittings for the Blagdon pump as used above are all pressure piping.
The suction fitting can be 1.5 inch socket or elbow, or it can be a 1.25 inch BSP male thread.
The discharge side of the pump is 1.25ins BSP male fitting which takes a female socket of the same size.
You could use other pipework as long as it had threaded connections.
This applies to the P1400 & the P1800 but the smaller sizes have smaller fittings.
It should be noted that the P1400 & P1800 (number denotes gph) can be used submerged, or free standing outside, but the replacement pumps P8000 & P9000 (number denotes lph) must be fully submerged.