OK - now I will attempt (for those who have asked) to describe how to build your own pond skimmer.

The whole concept is to put enough flotation in the form of extruded polystyrene foam glued to the sides of a wastebasket such as you will see in the diagram below. Then in the form of a decorative dock you need to place enough weight on top of the skimmer to keep it submerged.

The dock gets attached to the side of the pond by a swing arm and hinges. This is so the dock can rise and fall as the water level changes. You can adjust the level your dock floats in the pond by placing flotation blocks of polystyrene below or rocks/ornaments on top of the dock.

You may also need to play with the depth of cut on the intake so don't start out by going too deep. You want to make sure you are getting surface water not allowing the water to be drawn from below the surface of your pond.

What you will need to buy to build your own homemade pond skimmer is: A 3.5 gallon office style rectangular wastebasket, a 500 GPH (gallon per hour) pump (I used a submersible pondmaster mag drive pond pump) a lower volume submersable pond pump I used first did not draw water fast enough to draw enough surface water to actually act as a skimmer when I tried it, a sump pump hose discharge kit, a dollar store rectangular plastic straining basket which fits in to the top of the wastebasket but below the intake and finally some filter media. I used an old permanent washable furnace filter but you may be better off with some {quilt matting - See Notes just below} (I think I will be experimenting some more with the filter media)

In my own design I am currently having problems with larger floating particles getting down where they can interfere with the intake suction of the pump so the diagram reflects changes I am planning to make in the finished product. The Quilt matting was too dense and plugged up with algae, I have recently replaced it with a mesh bag full of plastic pot scrubbers (I think this idea will be a keeper)

Press on the diagram below to see a larger diagram of my Homemade Pond Skimmer once the image is up you can just press print as it is designed to fit on a single sheet of paper.

I hope this information has been useful to some of the many people who seem to be searching for homemade pond skimmers. Many of the suppliers at the right of this page offer suitable submersable pond pumps at very reasonable prices. Drop by and check them out!