I use the ones that have a ring on the open end, and just duck tape them to the discharge hose on my water pumps. If you remove them after use, they'll last for years.

I always float mine under a sealed 5 gallon bucket, but anything with enough buoyancy would work. I've also used a scrapped 2-3' piece of capped PVC pipe as the float. My thought is that if the outflow was on the bottom, it would disturb the muck on the bottom of the pond, and I don't want that.

The 300 micron mesh is extremely fine, and no fish or aquatic plants will go through it. At most, there will be finely chopped plant parts at the bottom of the bag.

EDIT: I always pull water from the lowest point in a pond, then float the output. It should have been, I pull from the lowest point if I'm just draining a pond. If I'm transferring water from one pond to another, I initially leave both the inlet and the outlet in the pond that's supplying the water, and rake up a 2' circle around the inlet. This disturbs any possible plants or silt, and I pump it until that water clears. Then I just stick the inlet into a 5 gallon pail to protect it from anything that might drift to it, then move the discharge outlet to the receiving pond.

Here's pic of mine. 3" PVC pipe with a 3" to 4" fitting on the end to keep the bag from sliding off when duck tape is used.
[Linked Image from forums.pondboss.com]

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Last edited by FireIsHot; 11/25/20 03:47 PM. Reason: ADD

AL