I have one of those small free-standing garden waterfalls, which
you can see he

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/pond.jpg

What with the Japanese maple, the mother fern (slightly visible
under the maple, dangling over the pond), and the pandorea (on
the trellis above the pond), all sorts of stuff is constantly
falling into the water. Not surprisingly, some of it works its
way into the lower rear part of the pond where the pump is, and
gets sucked into the pump's intake blades. In particular, there are
some tiny stems (from the fern? the pandorea?) that are stiff
enough to get caught in the plastic blades instead of passing
through the pump, which brings the pump to a halt.

I've tried wrapping wire mesh around the bottom of the pump,
but the darned little stems still manage to get through. The
pump is wedged into the little cave as it is, so I can't use
anything that would create more height below the pump.

There may not be any solution to the problem, but I thought
I'd ask here in case I'm overlooking anything thin that would
allow water to pass through but not stems, leaves, flowers, etc.


Thanks!
Patty

There is a heavy black cloth that I bought from Home Depot to line my
french drain project that allows water to pass but nothing else. That
should solve your problem.

"Patty Winter" wrote in message
...
I have one of those small free-standing garden waterfalls, which
you can see he

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/pond.jpg

What with the Japanese maple, the mother fern (slightly visible
under the maple, dangling over the pond), and the pandorea (on
the trellis above the pond), all sorts of stuff is constantly
falling into the water. Not surprisingly, some of it works its
way into the lower rear part of the pond where the pump is, and
gets sucked into the pump's intake blades. In particular, there are
some tiny stems (from the fern? the pandorea?) that are stiff
enough to get caught in the plastic blades instead of passing
through the pump, which brings the pump to a halt.

I've tried wrapping wire mesh around the bottom of the pump,
but the darned little stems still manage to get through. The
pump is wedged into the little cave as it is, so I can't use
anything that would create more height below the pump.

Slip a piece of nylon stocking over your wire mesh. You'll have to clean it
often, though. Maybe even daily.

In article .com,
wrote:
There is a heavy black cloth that I bought from Home Depot to line my
french drain project that allows water to pass but nothing else. That
should solve your problem.

That sounds very encouraging. I would find that in the plumbing
department? "Heavy black cloth" sounds kind of like garden shade
cloth, but you're talking something used in plumbing rather than
something used over plants, right?

Thanks also to FW for the tip about using a stocking.


Patty

"Patty Winter" wrote in message
...


I've tried wrapping wire mesh around the bottom of the pump,
but the darned little stems still manage to get through. The
pump is wedged into the little cave as it is, so I can't use
anything that would create more height below the pump.

There may not be any solution to the problem, but I thought
I'd ask here in case I'm overlooking anything thin that would
allow water to pass through but not stems, leaves, flowers, etc.

I used panty hose.

A

"Rev "Fragile Warrior"" wrote in message
...

Slip a piece of nylon stocking over your wire mesh. You'll have to clean
it
often, though. Maybe even daily.



There is a device called a "filter sock" sold in fish supply stores simply
for this purpose. They are sold in varying degrees of weave so that the
cleaning schedule can be relaxed a tad bit.
Also- pool supply stores sell an adjustable net bag type thing ( to fit
Jerry-Vacs) that works very well for this purpose and is much cheaper that
specialty stores. I have several of them in place in my reef system and they
work extremely well.


--
Toni
South Florida USA
Zone 10b
http://ww.cearbhaill.com