In the archive there seems to be varying opinion about the
effectiveness of the wet-vacs that also have a pump. The opinions go
from pure joy to so-so. I have a wet vac but was thinking about
upgrading or adapting my wet-vac to use while the pond is full. I
would like to use it to clean bi-monthly or perhaps more as I am not
using a skimmer. I also have another pond with no filtration that mucks
up quite a bit. I have just been doing annual drain and clean, but a
wet-vac solution sounds intriguing.

Do the pumps work any faster than gravity ?

How long can one of the pumping units work while pumping before
filling?

Any conversions of a
typical wet-vac to pond cleaner?

It would be nice to fertilize different parts of the garden with the
attached hose. Anyone got this system working well?

Re a pond vacuum, I believe most if not all of the common wet and dry vac's with a pump suck water faster than the pump can dispose of the incoming water so the vacuum chamber gradually fills, I suppose you could couple an external pond pump to the vacuum chamber but there would be a bit of jiggery pokery involved in setting that up to work efficiently. You can also increase the size of the vacuum chamber, do a web search for "Floyd's pand vac" thats uses a 55gal barrel in the suction line. From what I hear the Oase pondvac Mk II automatically stops sucking and starts pumping when the vacuum chamber is full and then automatically switches back to sucking.
Some people, myself included, have made their own vac using a water pump or in my case a pond pump.
In my first attempt I put the pump inside a barrel, there is an inlet and an outlet to/from the barrel and the incoming flow is strained through a net bag tied around the inlet, to stop stones etc getting into the pump and to offer some chance of survival to any animal life sucked up. The problem with this is you have to get power to the pump, it is simpler to use an external pump out side the barrel. The outlet from the barrel connects to the inlet of the pump. It IS NOT self priming and the barrel has to be reinforced to with stand the crush. The nature of my reinforcing makes my barrel VERY heavy, too heavy to be easily moved so I made a MkII vacuum chamber with 4" sewer pipe. The pipe is strong enough to withstand the crush un aided but the bore was too small to be practical as the net bag fills to quickly and seals the bore. Mk III will be 6 or 8" sewer pipe if I can find end caps etc. If I can make such a vacuum camber then I can put the vacuum chamber and pump in the pond which should hopefully make it self priming. I spent a very frustrating day yesterday vacuuming my pond with the barrel head. To clear the obstruction I had to let air into the system which meant it had to be reprimed etc etc. There may have been a leaky suction joint which didnt help matters. When it was working it worked well and in a non congested pond it does a grand job.

On 12 May 2005 06:48:12 -0700, "nortyler" wrote:

In the archive there seems to be varying opinion about the
effectiveness of the wet-vacs that also have a pump. The opinions go
from pure joy to so-so. I have a wet vac but was thinking about
upgrading or adapting my wet-vac to use while the pond is full. I
would like to use it to clean bi-monthly or perhaps more as I am not
using a skimmer. I also have another pond with no filtration that mucks
up quite a bit. I have just been doing annual drain and clean, but a
wet-vac solution sounds intriguing.

Do the pumps work any faster than gravity ?

How long can one of the pumping units work while pumping before
filling?

Any conversions of a
typical wet-vac to pond cleaner?

It would be nice to fertilize different parts of the garden with the
attached hose. Anyone got this system working well?

I have the ShopVac 16 gallong pumping vacuum from Lowes - $100. It
does fill faster than it can pump but the delay is not long. I can
attach a smaller diameter hose from another vacuum which slows the
vacuuming and allows for cleaning the bottom without worrying about
the fish getting sucked in. (When using the larger hose, I attach a
plastic mesh to the nozzle to save the fish).

The tank can be emptied without pumping by opening a plug - still
much easier than lifting the full tank to dump.

I would buy this again fwtw.

nortyler wrote:

In the archive there seems to be varying opinion about the
effectiveness of the wet-vacs that also have a pump. The opinions go
from pure joy to so-so. I have a wet vac but was thinking about
upgrading or adapting my wet-vac to use while the pond is full. I
would like to use it to clean bi-monthly or perhaps more as I am not
using a skimmer. I also have another pond with no filtration that mucks
up quite a bit. I have just been doing annual drain and clean, but a
wet-vac solution sounds intriguing.

Do the pumps work any faster than gravity ?

How long can one of the pumping units work while pumping before
filling?

Any conversions of a
typical wet-vac to pond cleaner?

It would be nice to fertilize different parts of the garden with the
attached hose. Anyone got this system working well?

A couple years ago I came across an article on building a "Muck Mop"
I built one at the time but I dont have the instructions any more.
Basically rather than suck water out of your pump it uses the output of
your pump to form a jet to draw a larger volume of water up through a
4-6" diameter collar along with what ever is on the bottom. At the top
of the collar you attach a lawn mower bag or old stocking that traps all
the material. It works quite well although I fear my description is
lacking.

On Sat, 14 May 2005 10:24:23 -0400, Disciple
wrote:

On Fri, 13 May 2005 07:54:07 -0400, Carolyn wrote:

On 12 May 2005 06:48:12 -0700, "nortyler" wrote:

In the archive there seems to be varying opinion about the
effectiveness of the wet-vacs that also have a pump. The opinions go
from pure joy to so-so. I have a wet vac but was thinking about
upgrading or adapting my wet-vac to use while the pond is full. I
would like to use it to clean bi-monthly or perhaps more as I am not
using a skimmer. I also have another pond with no filtration that mucks
up quite a bit. I have just been doing annual drain and clean, but a
wet-vac solution sounds intriguing.

Do the pumps work any faster than gravity ?

How long can one of the pumping units work while pumping before
filling?

Any conversions of a
typical wet-vac to pond cleaner?

It would be nice to fertilize different parts of the garden with the
attached hose. Anyone got this system working well?

I have the ShopVac 16 gallong pumping vacuum from Lowes - $100. It
does fill faster than it can pump but the delay is not long. I can
attach a smaller diameter hose from another vacuum which slows the
vacuuming and allows for cleaning the bottom without worrying about
the fish getting sucked in. (When using the larger hose, I attach a
plastic mesh to the nozzle to save the fish).

The tank can be emptied without pumping by opening a plug - still
much easier than lifting the full tank to dump.

I would buy this again fwtw.

Carolyn, how old is your ShopVac? The reason I ask is I have a similar one
that's 5 years old, and the output connections have developed a leak. I
haven't taken it apart yet, but I suspect the problem is with the tubing
between the pump and the hose connector.

Just got it this spring - only 3 uses - so far so good.