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Pond vac with Settling Chamber
I'm thinking of using my pondmaster 3500 as a vacuum to get the gunk off the
bottom of my pond. I don't use a bottom drain for fear that if something goes wrong with the external plumbing and I'm not around, the pond will drain. Instead, I have the pump connected to two inlets -- first, an OASE no niche skimmer and second to a drain about 18 inches off the bottom. As a result, lots of stuff has settled on the bottom, particularly the deepest part. My leaf vac gets the larger solids, but the mulm goes right through the bag. I want something I can use for my once a year cleaning to get up the mulm and leaves. I installed a T in the line from the skimmer that I can attach to a vac hose. I can then shut off the skimmer and drain using a ball valves. Doing this, everything will pull through the vac hose on the T. I was told by the folks who sold me the pump that the impeller is very strong and can handle most of the gunk and stuff on the bottom and even chew through the partially decomposed leaves. However, to avoid pulling too much directly through the pump, I as thinking of creating an air tight settlement chamber as follows: Take a large airtight plastic bucket, much like bulk drywall mud or sidwalk melt is sold in. Add two bulkhead fittings to opposite sides of the container. On one of these I would attach a 90 bend directly down the side to about 6 or 8 inches off the bottom, add another 90 so it would point along the side parallel to the bottom. Now water entering this path would be swirled into the tank. This would be the end to which the working end of the vac would be attached. The exit line would traverse from the second bulkhead fitting to the middle of the container, then a 90 degree bend down a few inches and place a strainer on the end. This way, it will be several inches off the bottom and centered in the container, thus out of the swirl. This would be attached to my T inlet toward the pump. On the outlet side of the pump I have a similar T which I would drain into an inflatable pool to get the dirty water out for final settlement before adding it back to the pond. This would keep the filter from being overwhelmed. Has anyone tried this or something similar? Other ideas welcome. Remydog |
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