My pond is about to fill up and I wondered about making sure no sticks, trash etc. go down the spillway pipe. Any good ideas? I have a 15" plastic pipe. I am afraid to put any kind of wire, etc. over it for fear of causing stuff to collect on it and slow down the water flow.

pondsea:

You can get some ideas from the disucssion Brettski started here.

Here is what I have at my first pond. If the screen gets clogged at the waterline, overflow water runs below that clog to reach the drain. If it REALLY gets clogged up, it will run around the backside at a higher water level (before the emergency spillway level is reached).

Since there is a heavy grid on the drain box above, screening is not really needed to stop potentially clogging trash.

Currently on my new pond, I have 5 T-posts driven into the bottom in front of the drain inlet in a semi-circle with 3 short T-posts tied horizontally across them at and above the normal water level. This has been stopping trash from entering the drain pipe okay this Spring. Later I may replace or supplement the horizontal T-posts with screening like that in the picture above.

pondsea:
I suggest something similar to a cattle panel. You want the small items to pass through so the only concern is the large items, such as logs, etc...You can email me at mikeotto@ottosdirtserivce.com or call my office at 1.800.882.3478 (DIRT) if you need more information.
Otto

That was a great post Theo. Thanks. however, I was hoping to sleep a little better with this 3-5" of rain today and tonight. now I am not so sure. But I checked the pond yesterday evening and there was still about 4' of pipe still out of water, so a lot for a 6-7 acre pond to fill up yet. It is moving up about a foot per day, and with the rain I expect it to move about 2' per day. So I need to get my mind made up. One good thing I noted when inspecting the water rising was that there was very little debri sloshing around. That might pick up though once the water level moves up into the wooded banks. And of course being spring, there are no falling leaves, etc. My plans are to put somethng on this weekend.

How about this idea? How about taking a much larger diameter piece of plastic pipe, say a 24", slip it over the top of the spillway pipe, so that it sits about a foot below the top and extends a foot above the top? The water would still rise under the bigger pipe, and spill over into the main drain pipe. But the bigger sticks, etc. would just float on the surface and bouce around against the outer pipe. I could just anchor the larger pipe by screwing it into the side of the smaller main pipe. Any defects with that system?

Couple of pictures of the 15" corr plastic spillway pipe.

That was Rockytopper's suggestion for another standpipe trash-rack question on the forum.
The only issue I see is if the water inflow is so great that it does begin to overwhelm the standpipe, just due to volume. It will rise until it hits the level of the emergency spillway (assuming that you have that incorporated into the design). Anyway, should that occur, your trash-rack guard should be another 6" or so above the emergency spillway elevation at full flow, or you will start to suck in the crap.

Thx Brettski. That thread was really informative, but a little scary too. Made me want to giddy up. I am also toying with another idea based upon what you just said. I have some pig wire in the garage. It is 4" squares. Why not construct a "tube" of it and slip it over the plastic pipe. I could make it stand above level of emergency spillway. So about 1' or so on top. I could make to drop about 2' below the standpipe for stability. And for securing, instead of attaching it somehow to the standpipe, why not just run a thin flat piece of steel, metal, etc. across the top of the standpipe and attached to the pig wire tube on both sides. I could just set it down over teh standpipte and let it rest on top. That way I could just pull the whole device off anytime with no tools needed. It would catch the bigger sticks, etc. but the 4" squares would be plenty big enough to let leaves, etc. through with ease. I am not sure though that 4" is large enough holes. I could look for some a little bigger poss. ANyway thx for taking the time.

The 2x4 hog wire panels are recommended by the Texas Parks and Wildlife as an escape barrier for grass carp. Maybe I oughta say mandated. It is big enough to let trash/junk through but will contain keeper fish.

good to know. I just saw it lying there and thought I could make use of it. Who would think those Texas boys would have thought of it first. since I grajiated the 8th grade in TX, I can say "don't mess with Texas."

In my smaller ponds with 4 inch drains I built a PVC boom arond the drain. Three pieces of PVC with two elbows to make a 'u' shaped boom that is capped on the ends to keep water out and allow it to float. The closed end of the boom faces out into the pond and the two legs are anchored on the bank. Any floating debris stops at the boom. Simple but effective for me and it even keeps out floating algae.

But my overflow pipes are horizontal.

Well, I woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, having re-read Brettski's thread on trash guard, etc. just before falling asleep. I had a nightmare of kids on bikes in a campground downstream from my pond being swept by a tidal wave from the dam giving way. All because I didn't have a trash guard on the spillway pipe. I went down to the farm today and tried to slip my trash guard device over the drain. Unfortunately, the 3-5 inches of rain yesterday filled the pond to max. Water was about 3 or 4 inches over the spillway pipe. I knew it was gonna be tough. When I got out of the truck I could hear a Ross Perot "giant sucking sound" coming from the pond surface. I got in my boat and paddled over but it was just too much suction. And the pipe was 18" instead of 15. So I had to adjust my gizmo. The drain pipe was working great. Man an 18" pipe can handle a lot of water! Looked like viagra falls coming out the drain behind the dam. I gave up on the trash guard. Figured my wife and kids would have trouble explaining how daddy's last act on earth was getting sucked into a spillway pipe. Bad mojo for a fisherman to even think about it. I will wait a day or so to let the water level drop and try again. I spent the afternoon raking big sticks and debri out of the water instead. Lucky for me, the builder did a good job. There was very little junk to worry with relatively speaking. About two hours and most all on the banks. Theo don't recommend that thread to anyone after 10 p.m.

too much beer

That decision trumps all your best engineering concepts, hands down. Darn good thing, too, cuz I didn't want to have to write the ending to this thread.
I'm glad ya passed on the 18" water slide, pondsea. You'll get it; hang tite.