Where ever you are draining your pond bottom drain to will be at the same water level as your pond and by removing water from this pre filter the law of gravity is pulling water from the pond through the bottom drain line to fill the pre filter back up.
Bottom drain gravity fed pond filter setup.
Put the bottom drain and all the pipework in place to check all the measurements before gluing.
You then have a pipe from the ponds bottom drain sloping downwards underneath the filter then up and into the top of the filter.
There are many different options where you can gravity flow your bottom drain to.
There is a waterfall 2 venturis v 2 bottom pushes bp a surface skimmer sk and 2 bottom drains bd in the pond.
There is an additional chamber the dry sumpattached to the filter.
All chambers except ch4 have 3in.
Over a 1000 gallon pond powered with 55 watts and 25 watts waterpumps.
The main filter consists of 5 chambers ch1 to ch5.
If a straight shot is not possible use 45 degree elbows to raise or turn the pipe rather than 90 s.
The fewer bends the better.
Constructing a gravity fed bottom drain pond filtration system the theory is fairly simple really you basically have two areas of water the pond and the filter whose water levels need be parallel.