Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Need Help - Pond inflow pipe clogged...

Hello all! I've been reading this site for a few weeks and think it's great. Hate for my first post to be about this subject, but oh well. Can someone please recommend the best tools for cleaning out a 60ft clogged inflow pipe? I just bought the property and it obviously the pipe wasn't taken care of. It's full of silt, mud, and who knows what else is in there. I tried runing wood stakes, screwed together, and a heavy cable through, but can't penetrate through the crap that is in there. Any recommendations would be highly appreciated. I need to get this cleaned out immediately. Thanks in advance.

Jesse, do you know how old the pipe is? Are you sure that it's not collapsed? If it's metal, there's the possibility of it going bad (rusting thru) if it's 20 or more years old.

How big (diameter wise) is it?

I would try using water under pressure from the pond side to fllush out the pipe. Don't go from the upstream side, if you do break thru and the pipe is of any size, you could get sucked into the pipe (or parts of you could).

Esshup is exact right on this.. There's really no better way, a sewer jet machine could be rented if needed. If it's cracked our filled with roots a sewer jet has cutter ends that will cut through everything, but it will have to be done almost yearly to keep roots out..

I agree with Scott. A hydraulic "drill" (high-volume water-flow through a 3/4" PVC pipe, connected via hose to a centrifugal trash-pump) on the pond-side of the clog would be my approach.
Connect (glued) and insert into the drain-conduit enough 10' sticks of PVC pipe to contact the site of blockage. Then couple the pipe's terminal end to a centrifugal trash-pump (fed with pond water) and let the water-jet blast its way through the blockage.

Thanks for the suggestions! Well my problem is worse than I thought. After hours of getting mud, silt, and tiny stones out of the 4 inch pvc pipe, I got bigger problems. As I said, I just purchased this property, so everything is new to me. Even the lay of the land. After stopping, and looking very closely last evening, I noticed, that the spring feeding the pond has sunk during the flood. Bascially washed out, but not in a manner that it was obvious. Before the storm the inflow pipe was just below level, meaning the water coming in had to go up hill a tiny bit before going downhill to the pond. Poor design, I know. Now, however, the pipe is almost 6 inches lower than it was originally. Therefore, my next step is to run another pipe further upstream so the fall is greater, therefore, increasing flow, and hopefully enough to "make it up over the hill" so to speak. I tried just building a dam where the pipe is now, but the pressure is too weak. So, really I had three problems. Yep three, one the fall is not great enough, two the pipe was clogged, and three (which I created myself ) is I now have a ten foot piece of half inch steel conduit inside the pipe, which I was using to clean the pipe out. I had two screwed together and one slipped off when trying to pull it from the mud. No worries there, a friend of mine is bringing me a heavy duty magnet to retrieve it tonight before running the other pipe. Does anybody see a problem with proceeding this way or have any other ideas? The way I see it, is I have two options. Go higher with more pipe, or dig up the existing one. I really don't want to dig unless I absolutely have to.

Good luck with the magnet. If that doesn't work, I would use PVC and run water thru it. It'll wash out the pipe quicker than you think.

Went higher with the pipe, which created more fall, and I now have water from the inflow pipe! Thanks for all your help and suggestions!