Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Temporary Siphon down overflow tube?

Hello all, I'm a first time poster here. A friend with a new pond came over this winter to go ice fishing, and recently came back to loan a couple of copies of Pond Boss to me to check out. Never knew that the magazine, or this site existed.

I am in Illinois, with a 4-5 acre pond 25-30 feet deep at the deepest, about 12-15 feet deep in most of the areas in the middle that I have looked at with a Vexilar. I typically have a problem in mid to late summer with what I believe is chara in the shallow areas of the pond. I do dye it in the spring, so I don't have too much problems in the deeper areas. In the shallows there is a fair amount of muck. I've read that one of the best things I can do is to draw down the water level to expose the muck to the air so it can dry out and break down (I'm assuming it is mostly organic - it does stink). Does anyone follow this procedure - does it work??

I've been reading about using a siphon to drain down the water level. At this point, I am not interested in a permanent siphon system, but would like to see if anyone has ever fabricated some kind of siphon out of cheap materials that is relatively small. I was thinking about a combo of short runs of 4" PVC and having the outflow of the siphon go down the overflow tube. Has anyone tried something like this? Is it possible to do?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Welcome to the forum cmow!!!!!

The non-paid greeters need to be fired sagain for missing your post!!!..just kidding of course.

If you already know the physics of siphons, they work very well for what you want at an excellent price. The hardest part is starting the siphon. Personally, I cap the outlet end with a test plug and use a vacuum pump to fill the pipes. Others have used trash pumps and even buckets of water. All methods use a tee at the high point in the plumbing to accomlish this.

From experience, I can tell you the schedule 20 S & D pipe will collapse violently when the water lift exceeds 12 feet.

CMOW: Welcome to the forum. I typed up a more organized response shortly after you posted. Don't know what happened to it... I must have forgot to hit submit... Anyway... I've used siphons of 4 sizes: garden hose, 2 inch PVC, 4 inch PVC, and 8 inch PVC. I've started them numerous ways. I've never used a vacuum pump. That would probably work well... My recommendations based soley upon what has worked best for me so far... Garden hose size (just put a hose cap on one end, fill the rest and drag over dam). 2 and 4 inch PVC, put all the pipe together, get one of those rubber pipe plugs (many hardware stores have them) that attach to the end of your water hose and swells to fill the end of your pipe, insert it into bottom end of pipe, turn on faucet or start water pump, allow time for water to fill pipe completely, then turn off water source, plug contracts, falls out, siphon starts. That works well and you don't need a t so save that expense and effort. For 8", I have a 2 inch t at the top, I put a rubber ball from Walmart in downstream end and put a strap around pipe and another across end to hold ball in, hook garden hose on pump, insert into t with hose pushed down towards the downstream end and start pump. After pipe is full, I close valve on T (or could screw on cap if don't have valve) and undue straps so ball expells and siphon starts.

The key to a siphon is having enough pipe and drop on the downhill side (within the closed siphon) to pull the water from the pond side up and over the dam. As I envision your situation, I'm thinking you might be able to get by with a long 2" intake type flexible hose (like for water pumps) going through the overflow tube; but I don't know the tube angle or drop involved. If not much, would take a lot of pipe to get depth (outflow end needs lower than depth you wish to drain pond to). I'm also not sure how you would unblock end of hose. You could use the overflow if ran pipe all the way through. That may be a good option with 4" PVC.

I'm not an expert; but my guess on the muck is that you'll still have the muck when it refills. And muck takes a long time to dry out. If finances permitted, I'd be tempted to drain it down and then use trackhoe or something to remove as much muck as possible.

Welcome to the forum. It's a good place and I've received a lot of help here over the years. : - )