d

I'm doing that as we speak, I bought the 2 inch clear water pump from harbor frieght it works good just keep the screen off . My pond fills fast and I only have 2 days a week to work on it. If you had more time and the water you could do a half acre pond in a week. My pond is 70% mucked out hope to be done tommorow. I am being really picky about getting it all out though.

d

You have to keep churning it up but yes.

Queenkat,

Here is a couple past post on trash pumps I found helpful. I plan on starting using one to get the muck out of my pond next summer and have been doing a little research. The biggest issue is where to put it.

If your pond does not refill quickly Cody's way may not work as well for you as it is for him. From what I read so far I'm currently planning on getting a 3" diaphragm trash pump. But that may change as I do more reasearch before next year.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=310785#Post310785

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=311837

You're better off getting/using a semi-trash pump. It can handle an occasional solid (small rock, twig, etc.) and it won't damage the pump. They are more expensive, but will last longer. Look at Northern Tool for them too. Get one with a Honda motor - much more bullet proof than the others. Search here for "trash pump" and see what comes up.

d

Queenkat,

I plan to get a full trash pump which will handle the solids better. I will then either pump it into dewatering bags or build up hay bales to capture the solids. It will be pumped uphill from the pond and the water will flow back to the pond with the solids being captured. You will not be able to only pump out muck, a large percentage will be water or it won't flow through the hose.

Within a couple weeks I will be putting a boat in my pond and finding out how much muck I do have. That will give me a good idea how I will get it out. Due to the springs that flow in I don’t see draining the pond and using heavy equipment as an option. But if the muck averages 36” thick in my two acre pond that will be 12” thick spread over the 6 acre pasture adjacent to the pond. I may have to rethink my plan.

d

The muck has to be fluid enough to flow, and that takes mixing it with water. I'll be interested to see what the quote is from Mucksuckers.

d

Here is a source for the bags - http://www.erosionpollution.com/Dewatering-Bag.html

d

Search for "dewatering bag price". Plenty of hits

On the site Jeff gave above they have a special for the 5'x5' bags. $69.99 + shipping. Look on the Right side of the page Jeff links to.

EDIT: Oops, same one I linked to above.


Also have you seen this thread.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=310992

Near the end it has some estimates, $27K for a 3.5 acre BOW. Much larger than your. It also suggest yours can be done in one day.

d

d

I am going to figure out exactly how much muck I have. I saw where esshup had posted a easy way to determine this, using a bucket lid & pole. As soon as my husband gets home, I am sending him out there to get me a muck depth. Then, I will be better able to plan a strategy. Hopefully, it is done raining for a while so I can get started.

d

The muck is usually deepest in the deepest part of the pond. I'm sure the dewatering bags will handle it, but I don't know how many bags you will need.

Just saw this thread so it's time for an update on our lake. I thought the issue we had in our 3 1/2 acre lake was muck build up, it's not....it's dirt washed in from storm sewers. Since this BOW is for flood control I had a meeting with our board with suggestions to clean out my cove, looking for money in other words to do the work myself with trash pump and dewatering bags, I had figured about $2500 would clean up some of the build up by my boat and improve the lake in general. When I pointed out 2 new islands developing our president wanted to see, so we went to see. He knew immediately what the problem was, because that's why we had the lake drained down and cleaned out 11 years ago, at a cost of $80,000.

Well, we get the MUD engineer to come out and he brings his contractor, the same guy that did the work 11 years ago. They agreed with us and had a contractor in mind that can do the work on just my cove and the over flow area (2/3's of what was done 11 years ago) and they got a bid. $79,900.

Because the bid was over $50,000 the job had to be posted for bids...we're now past that point and work begins next week to clean out the mess. I will post photos.

Bottom line, if anyone is seeking bids for lake clean outs, stand by for heavy rolls. We were told they estimated 200 dump trucks of material will be removed in these 2 small areas.

d

Equipment is expensive, diesel fuel costs and you have to have an operator that knows what they are doing. It's not an entry level job, and equipment costs are not in the $1,000's, they are in the $100,000's.

If it's a middlin' sized job, it's easy to have half a million dollars just in equipment on the site.

Yep. The company that won the bid is:

Dredgit.com

I'm looking forward to seeing this job!

d

Buy the warranty

QK, Dave's right on point about semi-trash pump warranties. I've used my various pump warranties 3 times in the last year, and NT never gave me one bit of hassle.

Would also add that the bigger the pump, the bigger the solids it should pass with no issues. Lot's of options for the 3" pump, and that was the sweet spot for me.

d