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Have a new pond, very muddy. Gathered a gallon jug and in a month of sitting still at room temp, only top half was clearing. sent for testing and recommendation was for Alum (Aluminum sulfate) 150 pounds per ac-ft. I can get the granular version but thinking that's going to be lots of work to dissolve 1600 pounds of alum in buckets and pouring in.

Does anyone have an inventive idea for disolving the alum prior to application

Does anyone know where to get powdered ALum. I'm in the DFW area

Or any other thoughts

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See this thread and others like it (search for alum and pondboss on google)

Alum application

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I'm trying to find the conversion rate of grams to teaspoons for alum for the 5gal bucket test, can anybody help me

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453.6 grams to a pound. 1 teaspoon of flour is 6.4 grams. alum maybe heaver than flour, you should weigh a 1/4 cup of alum and then there is 487 teaspoons are in 1 cup or 12 to a 1/4 cup. You would still need to weigh your alum to get an exact amount.


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I’ve pondered over the idea of using a 30 or 55 gallon barrel to make what is called a chemical feed pot. I haven’t tried it myself, so there’s no guarantee it’ll work, but I think it will. Besides, not much is lost if it doesn’t…. lol

Use two 2”X3/4” barrel plugs to install a water hose connection into each of the barrel's 2 bungholes. One is an inlet, the other is an outlet. Install a valve on the outlet side.

Remove one plug and pour a large amount of alum into the barrel. Lay the barrel on its side near the pond. Connect a water hose from a pressurized water source to the inlet, and connect another hose equipped with a spray nozzle to the outlet.


Turn on the water to fill the barrel, and crack the outlet valve to bleed the air. Once the barrel is full, open the valve further and begin spraying the alum enriched water across the pond’s surface, occasionally rolling the barrel around to promote mixing.

Edit: After further thought, I've concluded that the valve on the outlet may not be necessary. The spray nozzle on the hose will act as a valve.

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I'll have to borrow a weed scale from one of my stoner friends lol

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I have been considering Alum but have decided to wait and see. In all my researching some of the best info came from the Muddy water section here on the forum site. Ck out Rainman's first two threads. Alum kicks butt and Alum Kicks butt again. It has the weight of a teaspoon of alum and how to figure for total additions to a pond. Another is TMAU Fact sheet on Clearing water up using alum.

Last edited by TGW1; 02/21/18 08:11 AM.

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Originally Posted By: iraisetrout
I'm trying to find the conversion rate of grams to teaspoons for alum for the 5gal bucket test, can anybody help me


The charts and tables in my muddy water threads are great for clearing water in a laboratory, but from clearing MANY muddy ponds, you will need more than the "tests" show...often, double.

Alum becomes a slurry in water, and settles out without constant agitation...doses are NOT cumulative, so under treating is just wasted alum.....if a "test" shows 100 pounds is needed in a jar/bucket, but 200 pounds is needed in the pond, after you apply the 100 pounds in a pond, you will have to come back and still apply the 200 pounds, for a total of 300

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Originally Posted By: DavidBiss


Does anyone have an inventive idea for dissolving the alum prior to application


I may need to treat my new pond and have pondered methods of efficiently mixing and spraying alum over the pond.

My current thought is to use my 2" pump and fire hose nozzle I already have from keeping the dam wet as it was being built. Perhaps an efficient method would be to feed the alum into the water suction side and have it get mixed as its run through the hoses and out the nozzle.

I will try a 5 gallon bucket and drill a hole in the side about 8 inches from the bottom so the suction hose can be passed through and the intake screen be screwed on inside the bucket. Then drill multiple 1/2 holes in the sides of the bucket (but up several inches from the bottom) such that water can flow in. Hang the bucket over the side of a john boat with the top lip several inches out of the water. Then as the pump is sucking water into the bucket you can feed alum into the top of the bucket. The alum would get sucked into the intake and mixed with the water as it runs through the pump and out the nozzle. One person feeds in alum, one person runs the nozzle and trolling motor. Might need some sort of easy way to slowly feed the alum into the bucket. I wonder if the alum will wear out the pump quickly.

I used a similar method to mix hydrated lime and blowing it out into a mostly drained pond to kill fish. Worked fine.


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Here is a picture of my thought on an easy way to mix alum in water and spray it over a pond. Set the bucket in water nearly up to its rim either off the pond bank or over the side of a boat. Feed the dry alum into the water being sucked into the hose and it will get mixed as it runs through the hose, pump and out the nozzle. I have not done this but expect it to work. May need to add more holes to allow water into the bucket if I need it to run flat out without sucking in air.


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Originally Posted By: Redonthehead
Here is a picture of my thought on an easy way to mix alum in water and spray it over a pond. Set the bucket in water nearly up to its rim either off the pond bank or over the side of a boat. Feed the dry alum into the water being sucked into the hose and it will get mixed as it runs through the hose, pump and out the nozzle. I have not done this but expect it to work. May need to add more holes to allow water into the bucket if I need it to run flat out without sucking in air.


Pouring the alum into a bucket like that would result in one huge chunk of alum.

Alum and Hydrated lime have to be heavily agitated into a slurry to be sprayed. I designed a rotating agitation bar in a large 275 gallon chemical tote. I use 2 2" trash pumps...one pump keeps the slurry agitated and the other pump supplies the spray nozzles. When not using the boat on smaller ponds, I use the same tote/pumps, but spray using a 1" ag hose....spraying alum/lime properly is not an easy job at all



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Originally Posted By: DavidBiss
Have a new pond, very muddy. Gathered a gallon jug and in a month of sitting still at room temp, only top half was clearing. sent for testing and recommendation was for Alum (Aluminum sulfate) 150 pounds per ac-ft. I can get the granular version but thinking that's going to be lots of work to dissolve 1600 pounds of alum in buckets and pouring in.

Does anyone have an inventive idea for disolving the alum prior to application

Does anyone know where to get powdered ALum. I'm in the DFW area

Or any other thoughts



Contact Kelly Duffy with Helena Chemical for powdered alum, or PM me and I can arrange for you to pick up some granulated that dissolves well at one of my suppliers.

FWIW, if your "tests" showed 150 pounds per acre foot, use 200 pounds and, round up on the number of acre feet in volume.....if you apply too little, alum is not cumulative and a larger dose will be needed the second time around.

I have a newer agitator bar that is more effective....I used 2" Cam lock fittings after removing the rubber seal to make a "swivel"

Attached Images
Chemical tote.jpg agitator.jpg
Last edited by Rainman; 03/13/18 11:18 PM.


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Rex, nice set-up for chemical mixing and adding the mixed slurry to a pond or lake.


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Originally Posted By: Rainman


Pouring the alum into a bucket like that would result in one huge chunk of alum.


I really don't think it will. It won't be dumped in all at once - it will be "metered" or poured in slowly and I expect the hose to suck it up. There will probably need to be adjustments made to the holes/pump rate. Perhaps even remove the suction screen.

Hopefully I won't need to do it anyway after I get the banks covered with grass and new water flushes out the muddy water.


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Originally Posted By: Redonthehead
Originally Posted By: Rainman


Pouring the alum into a bucket like that would result in one huge chunk of alum.


I really don't think it will. It won't be dumped in all at once - it will be "metered" or poured in slowly and I expect the hose to suck it up. There will probably need to be adjustments made to the holes/pump rate. Perhaps even remove the suction screen.

Hopefully I won't need to do it anyway after I get the banks covered with grass and new water flushes out the muddy water.


You may be right....after mixing and applying tens of thousands of pounds of alum, it's been my experience that any dead spot not agitated creates globs of alum glue.

A better way might be to use a small barrel with overflow tubes that you can pour the alum into and use the trash pump outlet to mix....Kelly Duffie made a setup like that and I think it worked fairly well on smaller ponds.



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As you can see in my mixing tote, that even with VERY heavy agitation, there is still some chemical coagulated in the bottom of the tote. That was after running about 6000 pounds of Hydrated lime through the system and maybe an hour of continuous agitation.



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I use window screen on the pond water suction strainer and on the slurry pick-up....if the Alum is not completely dissolved, it falls straight to the bottom like a rock and does not flocculate.

Hydrated lime dissolves and disperses throughout the water column.....alum does not. Alum goes into a slurry when heavily agitated in water, and then falls to the bottom after being sprayed onto the pond

Last edited by Rainman; 03/15/18 09:29 AM.


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Yeah I would expect the bottom of the bucket to collect alum, but hopefully it won't plug up the intake.

But I see the issue you pointed out is I would need to confirm most of the alum is dissolved by the time it exits the nozzle. It would be traveling through 20' of suction hose, the pump, and 20' of discharge hose. I have another 300' of discharge hose if more "time in water" is needed. I assume a gallon of water can only hold xx grams of dissolved alum, and no amount of agitation can make it hold more. The key may be to run the pump near the max of 158 gallons per minute.

Does your suction strainer covered with window screen not pick up undissolved particles in the slurry? Is your system able to only spray solution without any undissolved particles?

thanks!

edit: found this on in the web - perhaps this is the "glue" you mentioned: When dissolved in a large amount of neutral or slightly alkaline water, aluminium sulfate produces a gelatinous precipitate of aluminium hydroxide, Al(OH)3. In dyeing and printing cloth, the gelatinous precipitate helps the dye adhere to the clothing fibers by rendering the pigment insoluble.

Last edited by Redonthehead; 03/15/18 01:26 PM.

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The Alum Molecules, AlSO4, are held together by an inert binder. The binder creates an almost hardened plaster of paris consistency. I have broken high quality boat oars trying to break the stuff up in the mixing tank. If you mix the hydrated lime and alum together, it becomes gelatinous and impossible to pump/spray.

My setup for spraying is 2-fold....On my pond water intake, I want to strain out plants and fish fry. On the chemical slurry side, you are correct, I only want dissolved alum being sprayed, but mostly because I use numerous boomless spray nozzles that have been drilled out for higher flow....2GPM (at 40psi) to around 6 GPM at 30 psi. Even drilled out for higher flow, and strained to very small particle sizes, the Alum and hydrated lime can still harden on the brass nozzles and will need cleaning at times. Spraying this stuff utterly destroys equipment, fast! My 3 current trash pumps are less than 6 months old....One motor is totally locked up, and the metal throttle controls on the other 2 are almost rusted through. None of the pumps got hit with the alum or lime, yet just the dust will destroy the metal



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why not use a plastic drum instead of a 5 gal bucket? If you take one of those blue plastic drums and lay it on it's side, cut an oval shaped window on the top side to where you can use a shovel to stir up the mixture as it is being mixed. Use a 4x4 frame to surround the bottom side of the drum for some stability. In the old days we used a 55 gal drum and called it a chemical barrel and used it to add chemicals to the drilling water or drilling fluid on drilling rigs. Used it a lot for adding lime. Add a flow control valve on the end side of the drum

Last edited by TGW1; 03/16/18 08:38 AM.

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