Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Seining pictures of my pond I'm draining down

True but the length of the inflow as stayed the same with no increase in incline. Now the outtake hose goes up hill vs parallel to the ground. That's making the pump work harder to move the water to the discharge end.

I've wondered if a person had 2 pumps of the same gph and hose size, if they could hook them up on the same hose. Say one at the bottom of the pond pumping up half way to the other one, and that one pumping the rest of the way out of the pond. I wonder how much quicker it'd drain the pond.

The same could be done with 2 electric pumps.......

Don't know but I will be moving the pump to the birm on the highway side momentarily which will have the out take hose level and them dropping to the ditch.

Here's a couple of photos showing how much the out take hose has to go uphill and is obviously putting pressure on the pump.






In the following photo notice there is virtually no head with the intake hose.




Here's a few boulders my pond builder excavated while digging the pond. Now exposed. Just think the last glacier brought them down from who knows where. And they were much bigger when they started their journey.

Cecil, where are those boulders in the pond? That makes it rough seining..... I thought your pond bottom was smooth.

I have always heard what esshup has said. It's better to have the pump as close to the water with a short intake hose. Its easier to push than pull.

I assume that by putting the pump at the berm you will have to add more suction hose AND it will have to pull it higher, but with a shorter outflow hose? This will be an interesting on-hand experiment to see if it gets better or worse.

And as a lot of said so far, thanks for the very detailed process you are going thru. Very interesting and much appreciated.

Yeah but that was the side I seined.

I forgot about the boulders.

I'm going to go out and take more pictures. Moving the pump to the highway side of the birm is working great. No pushing needed uphill on the outlet hose as it's parallel to the ground and just dumps in the ditch. I did move the pump unto the pier to get closer to the deepest hole but no go on that. Just too much head and wouldn't draw the water.

I've got about 20 gills in a hole swimming around trying to figure out what to do. I'll be back with pis momentarily.

The final location of the trash pump:



The outflow into the ditch.



Guess who came to diner this morning?



Three small bluegills trapped in a leftover pool:



Glare it too bad and the sun clouding over that the 20 or so big gills near the boulders won't show up in a picture. They're also panicking a little as the water goes down and stirring up the bottom reducing visibility.

I hope this isn't too off-topic, or a hijack. But, it involves a pond that I believe is probably similar to Cecil's ponds.

This pond was built a year ago. It collected a lot of leaves last fall, that seem to have collected around the edges. A lot of algae is now growing in the semi-suspended leaves. It is a 1/4 acre pond, with near-constant flow-through about 10 months per year. It was designed to be drained with a siphon or semi-trash pump. It has steep sides and a wide flat bottom designed to be be seined.

I'm far from ready to drain and seine it. It needs another year.

I'm thinking about putting my 2-inch semi-trash pump on a trailer, and going around the edge of this pond sucking up leaves and algae. Kind of like the truck that sucks the sludge out of my septic tank, but on a somewhat smaller scale. I'd remove the filter on the intake hose.

I guess the real questions is, how bad are leaves and algae for a semi-trash pump?

Ken,

I'm thinking not bad as they are designed to pass things up to a certain size. However I don't really know for sure. If you do it let me know how it works.

My back aches and I'm tired this evening. Just got in about 45 minutes ago. Wouldn't you know it the pond didn't pump down where I wanted it until just after dark! However a head lamp and a net attached to a long piece of PVC did the trick as I picked up fish that exposed their backs in the low standing water. Actually scooping them up with my hand and putting them in the net worked better trying to net them. Moved about 30 more large perch that way and 25 more large bluegill. No more smallies that I could see.

Now I just have to move them out of one of the tanks in I have sitting on the bottom in the morning. Fortunately since both tanks won't sink I'll just allow them to come up with the water level before removing them.

Highway department may be out as soon as tomorrow to dig the ditch as my power company left a flag and markers saying no power line in the ditch in from of the neighbors house. Finished pumping just in time then! I put everything away and the ditch will be just moist by tomorrow. Like I said I'm not doing anything wrong pumping into the ditch but still don't want to attract any attention.

Next is rotenone for the remaining fish. And I hope to nuke the pond with hydrated lime also.

Then it's time to run the well through the trout pond and overflow to this pond to fill it up.

I'll bet you were muddier than I got seining your pond!

I got stuck and fell a few times and my face looked like a chimney sweep. I'll be so glad when the pond is full again and the female perch and male bluegills are moved back. No more draining or seining of this pond!

How much gas would you figure it took to drain the pond?

I'll let you know soon as I need to add up the receipts and enter them in my business computer program. Somewhere between $100.00 and $200.00 if I had to guess. Volume moved was close to a million gallons.

Cecil:

Don't be in a hurry to get the pond full. Make sure all the stragglers are dead first!

True but at the same time 350 1.5 lb. yellow perch and 75 approximately 1 lb. bluegills, and 31 1 to 2 lb. smallmouths in a 1/10th acre pond will cause ammonia to creep up as temperatures rise. So far no ammonia is showing up in tests thought. The cool weather is helping me out.

I will be thorough as there is no way I'm doing this again and I would be so bummed if I didn't get them all. You can be sure I will be sorting like I'm OCD when I put fish back!

I just got everything set up this morning to move fish out of the white tank to the holding pond and a line of thunderstorm/showers came through. Fortunately the radar is showing it's short lived. I don't mind getting wet but lightning scares me especially if I'm the highest point around.

Here are more pics.

The pond drained down as much as possible from right to left:

As you can see I suck at trying to do photos to fit in a panoramic view.











Shot at a slightly deeper hole that held most of the larger fish:



Looking down into the tank that holds the fish I need to move. I didn't use the blue tank.



My feathered friend was back and probably flew away heavy where there are a bunch of trapped small fish.



My handy sump pump before being lowered into the white holding tank before it drains down the tank as I remove the fish. A ladder to go up at down the pier is not pictured but sure beats walking through the mud!

Cecil, thanks for all the pictures. Seeing what you're going thru makes me realize that proper design of a pond that is to be used for fish production is paramount!

I also see the rock to the left of the pier is what I had the seine hung up on.

2 people would make that job so much easier...... At least you don't have to go to the gym today! Is Eva still getting her daily exercise?

What kind of sump pump is that? I have a welbuilt. It's rated for 21 gpm.

Yeah a fish production pond in my mind would be rectangular, not too deep or too steep of sides, sloping to one end, and most of all a drain that can be opened on the deepest end to drain without pumping. A concrete basin in the deep end to catch the fish would be really helpful with concrete stairs going down to it. Add to that a way to add fresh water into the concrete basin and you're good to go!



Yeah well we can't make it easy now can we?





True but then again when you do things by yourself enough you find creative ways to get the job done. I'm sure you can relate.



She's not getting it every day but almost every day. Once I start filling the pond again I can get on a regular schedule again which means long walks to exercise the dog and for to continue to lose weight.

Cecil, the drain, basin and steps are a good idea if the land topography allows. From walking on concrete boat ramps, I'm thinking the steps might be slick too, but you could always drain the pond,and power wash the steps befor using them.

You've seen my place. Any idea how to accomplish it when the ground looks like a pool table?

I don't know what the brand is but I picked it up at Menards. Be careful around water with these things!

Gotta go. The rain quit and the fish need to be moved out of that tank before the ammonia spikes. I've supplied my two high schools with ammonia neutralizer but have none for myself!

Funny how prophetic my advice was on using sump pumps and to be careful. For reasons I don't know I had electricity in the tank with the fish as I was pumping it out and removing fish via the sump pump. No extension cord connections were in the water. Put my hand in the water to pick up the fish and felt current. Not tremendous but enough to be uncomfortable. Metal ladder though and partially metal pier. I was wearing rubber boots which may have helped me?

No more sump pumps in the ponds. From now on it will be a gas powered pump. Fish aren't worth dying over.

I would think there may be something you could do to the concrete to eliminate slickness? I wonder what the state and federal hatcheries I've seen pictures of this do?



You'd have to build up fill to make a pond an embankment pond I guess?