My pond is clean but it had a lot of "fines" that the filter just
would not pick up. I have a Challenger on a 15,000 gallon pond. I have tried
many commercial pond vacuums and none of them worked to my satisfaction. After
much thought, and other failed attempts, Rich and I came up with an idea that
works very well.
We used a larger pump and hooked it to a piece of tubing.
You might be able to
use a garden hose (possibly you would have to buy a fitting. This would depend
on the size pump you use). I tried quilt batting at first and but it did not
wash clean. Daughter Jen found some polyester knit material on the clearance
table for $1.00 a yard at Wal-Mart. We lined a heavy duty laundry basket with
the material. We had to use clamps to hold it to the basket because we used a
4500 GPH trash pump, a very powerful pump.
We set the laundry basket on the water fall so that the clean water would return
to the pond. Turned on the pump and oh wow! We had to wash the material about
every 15 minutes and repeated until all the fines were out of the water. Rich
did get in the pond and "swim" a couple of times to keep the stuff
moving toward the pump. Not a problem for him because he swims with the fish
nearly ever day.
They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so here are some pictures worth
a million words.
I thought my pond was clean because I could see the bottom drain
- left photo. We could
also see the pump we used in the bottom of the pond- right photo! it LOOKS clean - right? |
We set up an extra pump in the pond and ran tubing into a
laundry basket that had a piece of "t-shirt" material
You can see the dirty water going into the laundry basket
And I thought my pond was clean because I could see the bottom!
Water from the pump is running into the laundry basket that is
sitting on the rocks of the water fall