Help wanted: Pump CONSTANTLY clogs

"scs0" wrote in message
ups.com...
My pump constantly clogs up. In fact just today I hooked up a new pre-
screen to the filter and the damn pump was choking within an hour of
hooking the new thing up. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, this
pump constantly clogs up.

It sounds like a few problems. First what is clogging the intake? Leaves?
Partly rotted pond plants? Slime algae?

Use the protector that comes with the pump: it clogs.
Use the protector that comes with the pump and place the entire thing
into a large container wrapped in porch screening: it clogs.
Suck the water through a filter with filter media: it clogs
Suck the water through a filter without media: it floats
Add rocks to the empty pre-filter: Live Oak leaves squeeze through the
cracks and clog the filter.

The leaves should be netted out before you start your pump in spring.
Window screen is too fine if there's a lot of debris in your pond. What
works for us is to use two of those black plant baskets wired rim to rim
like a big clam - with the pump inside. Cut a hole in the bottom of one for
the hose and electrical cord to emerge. These will not clog for a long,
long time unless, as I said your pond is full of debris. If your pond had a
load of partly rotted plant debris and leaves you may want to just go ahead
and drain it down, clean out the mass of trash and start again. Other
people may suggest other ways to deal with it.

Clog, clog, clog. Day after day, month after month, year after year.
I'm sick of it. All I ever do with my pond is repair that damn
clogged pump.


I'd like to know what the hell I need to do to put on the front of
this thing to keep it from clogging up, but I'd really like to know
why I am apparently the only person on the planet that has this
problem. No matter what pond supply store I look at they never have
any reasonable pre-screens for pumps. Most don't have anything at
all! Apparently this is not a big deal for people, but it's an
incredibly huge deal for me. This problem has resulted in fish deaths
on me in the past when the damn pump stopped in the middle of a hot
August night.


I also need ideas for what to do with my problem of having
incompatible equipment. Every damn pond thing that I own uses a
different sized tube, and even my filter uses one size on the input
and another size on the outflows. This is also driving me nuts
because I always have to do this stupid little dance to get things to
connect to each other.

I go through the same old stupid little dance getting things to fit. It's
one of those irritations of life....

Thanks for any ideas, including ideas for a new pump that pumps at
least 3000GPH and doesn't cost a fortune to run let me know.

Right now I have Microlift 02 releaser in my pond because I've given
up on getting this nonsense to work.


--
RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

The leaves should be netted out before you start your pump in spring.
Window screen is too fine if there's a lot of debris in your pond. What
works for us is to use two of those black plant baskets wired rim to rim
like a big clam - with the pump inside. Cut a hole in the bottom of one for
the hose and electrical cord to emerge. These will not clog for a long,
long time unless, as I said your pond is full of debris. If your pond had a
load of partly rotted plant debris and leaves you may want to just go ahead
and drain it down, clean out the mass of trash and start again. Other
people may suggest other ways to deal with it.

I live in Florida so this pump runs year-round. I actually haven't
had that many problems this winter and I'm very thankful for that.
February was extremely cold down here and fixing these pump problems
always requires getting into the water. I was thankful I only had to
do it once or twice that month.

The problem got worse recently and I think it was influenced by the
Live Oak in neighbor's yard. These trees are covered year-round with
small oval leaves about an inch in length. They kept sneaking through
my latest pre-filter screening and jammed up my impeller. I think
these trees shed a lot on the spring, but this one looks to have lots
of yellow in it. I wonder if it's dying.

Other debris isn't that bad because I have moved away from putting
every pond plant known to man in the pond and have instead limited
myself to just a few. Hornwort used to be a ******! But I have a
poweful pump and anything that's in there will eventually get pulled
towards that pump.

On 11 Mar 2007 20:52:09 -0700, "scs0" wrote:

The problem got worse recently and I think it was influenced by the
Live Oak in neighbor's yard. These trees are covered year-round with
small oval leaves about an inch in length. They kept sneaking through
my latest pre-filter screening and jammed up my impeller. I think
these trees shed a lot on the spring, but this one looks to have lots
of yellow in it. I wonder if it's dying.

Dying? No such luck, some along the gulf coast are 500 years old,
this is just the time of year it sheds and takes on new growth. I
have a live oak next door to me, in Middle Georgia, and I'm
considering giving up my iris bed that it has grown over. It will be
much easier to cope with the bed as lawn or juniper that I can spray
over with Image to kill off the multitude of small trees that come up
in it every year.

My pond is on the opposite side of the house, but the live oak leaves
are a pain in the gutter until they stop falling.

Regards,

Hal

I just think yoo need a better strainer or prefilter. I have pump
intakes in a natural mud bottom pond which is surounded by trees etc
and have no problems with clogging....What I use is a cylindrical mesh
screen that is approx4" in diam, and it extends up from the bottom to
the top of the water level. Its virtually impossible or at least not
very quickly anyhow to suck in junk that will clog it all up at one
time........

The material I use is in 44" long pineces and adapts easily to
standard PVC pipe and fittings...........so it not hard to adapt to
most any pump.....I get it out of Florida, from Aquatic Eco
Systems......

I live in Alabama myself and my pumps all run 24/7 on various preforms
and 3 mud bottom ponds and clogging just is not a problem with this
cylindrical screen. Look up item number RT444 on AES website. It fits
4" pvc. YOu can use various PVC fitting s to adapt to your pump and
think "Vertical install" not horizontal.......Its possible and well
advised to create a standpipe inside the perforated tube, so you do
not pull directly on the bottom.......I keep mine aprox 6" off pond
bottom to keep from pulling in trash. No filter sponges or other
filter media is needed, and these 4" diam perforated tubes have holes
inthem approx 3/16" in size which should be plenty fine to prevent
junk from entering and damageing the pump.


http://www.aquaticeco.com
Item # RT444
Page 430 of Master Catalog.

1-877-347-4788
Give em a call they have lots of stuff for ponds much cheaper than
tyopical pond supply and water garden stores.
Bags and balls of screening etc is fine, but your stlil pulling water
directly off tre bottom, and it doe snot take much to cover over a
pump intake.


-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Several things come to mind that may help. Do you use a pond net to
reduce the leaves in the pond? Are you using a skimmer to stop the
waste from reaching the pump? Is it possible to use an out of pond
pump? Using a very strong air pump is very important to keep the pond
oxygen levels up all year long. Using ML O2 is a good start. I have
several articles on pumps on Richdeer3pondsupplies.com ( copy and
paste)

I rarely have to clean my pump even with 2 elms overhead. I have the
pump in the bottom of a plastic flower pot with a old round dehydrator
screen on top. It also water to flow in and the filter media doesn't
clog. Matala filter mats do not clog or channel like other filters.
They can be cut to fit any filter and come in 4 densities. Filter
brushes are a good option too.

The reason that the intake hose is smaller then the discharge size is
that restricting the outflow can over load the pump motor. I have
solved the multi sized hose problem by going to the farm supply store
and buying bulk plastic tubing and cutting it the size. Heating any
hose in hot water will straighten it out and make it fit over even
the snuggest fit. Algae can be cleaned out of hoses with hydrogen
peroxide left in several hours.

Good luck and email me if you have any questions or need help finding
a product that will work for you. Gail at http://www.Richdeer3pondsupplies.com
email or call 641-750-3062

ah., dude......every pump I ever read the directions on stated to
"reduce" OUTFLOW to reduce output do not reduce intake
..........Normally intakes are larger than outlets. Its worse to starve
a pump for water than to reduce outflow and create back
pressure.......A typical centrifugal pump is more than capable of
handling backpressure from reduced outflow.



On 12 Mar 2007 23:56:50 -0700, "richdeer3pondsupplies.com"
wrote:

Several things come to mind that may help. Do you use a pond net to
reduce the leaves in the pond? Are you using a skimmer to stop the
waste from reaching the pump? Is it possible to use an out of pond
pump? Using a very strong air pump is very important to keep the pond
oxygen levels up all year long. Using ML O2 is a good start. I have
several articles on pumps on Richdeer3pondsupplies.com ( copy and
paste)

I rarely have to clean my pump even with 2 elms overhead. I have the
pump in the bottom of a plastic flower pot with a old round dehydrator
screen on top. It also water to flow in and the filter media doesn't
clog. Matala filter mats do not clog or channel like other filters.
They can be cut to fit any filter and come in 4 densities. Filter
brushes are a good option too.

The reason that the intake hose is smaller then the discharge size is
that restricting the outflow can over load the pump motor. I have
solved the multi sized hose problem by going to the farm supply store
and buying bulk plastic tubing and cutting it the size. Heating any
hose in hot water will straighten it out and make it fit over even
the snuggest fit. Algae can be cleaned out of hoses with hydrogen
peroxide left in several hours.

Good luck and email me if you have any questions or need help finding
a product that will work for you. Gail at http://www.Richdeer3pondsupplies.com
email or call 641-750-3062




-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!