Hubby dug by hand, we started it last year. Had to haul off each load of dirt. Then he bought the channel blocks laid those and filled with concrete. We did not add bottom drains he just wants to do retro bottom drains. The filters consist will be 55 gallon barrels. We are running several box filters on it now, 1 waterfall filter and 2 uv's. We will also be adding a bog filter system to it as well as a trickle tower.