Looking for a good shop vac to clean pond.

Anyone using a shop vac with an external outlet
so that the tank never fills up and water exits via an outlet or hose?

Any good models out there?

TIA and Merry X-mass! ;-)

I am not aware of any shop vacs that will not fill up with water. The one
that I have has a pump to pump the water out of the cannister, but it will
not keep up with the suction of water by the vac. The Oase pond vac has a
neat feature of a timer on the switch, such that when it fills up, it then
discharges for a given amount of time and then restarts. It uses a backflow
preventer in the discharge line to allow the tank to be in vacuum mode
during running and discharge mode when stopped.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html

"matrix j" wrote in message
...
Anyone using a shop vac with an external outlet
so that the tank never fills up and water exits via an outlet or hose?

Any good models out there?

TIA and Merry X-mass! ;-)

Been waiting for some one to ask this question.

I bought a 16 gallon pumpvac ShopVac thinking it would discharge as I
cleaned the pond.
The pump cannot keep up with the vacume and has next to no lift. The pump
also stopped working the the third time I tried to use it, vacume works
fine. Don't waste your money on the pump feature. Buy the 20 gallon vac
instead.

Here is what I did to salvage mine.
Go to the sump pump section of your hardware/home improvement store and buy
a 2 inch check valve. About $15

The included rubber fittings should be a perfect fit for the bottom drain.
Attach to the drain with the included clamp and make sure the trap flapper
is positioned correctly.

Prop your vac up on blocks so it is about a foot off the ground and place 4
inch sewer pipe over the check valve outlet that is now attached to the vac
drain to direct the pond yuck to a different location.

The vac will fill in about 30 seconds and then shut off and the trap will
open and empty the tank in about 5 seconds.

Now all you need is someone to stand by the vac and restart it after it is
empty.

Works real slick unless you suck up a lot of large leaves.

http://home.mchsi.com/~jrock642/pondw1.html
Nothing from this year but my pond has looked great in the past.

JRock


"matrix j" wrote in message
...
Anyone using a shop vac with an external outlet
so that the tank never fills up and water exits via an outlet or hose?

Any good models out there?

TIA and Merry X-mass! ;-)