Installing my new Sequence 750 pump

[GBBUDD]

It is great your educating your self but as my wife would say you guys are a dumb as a box of rocks GO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS! meaning yes we have some experience but we do not do this for a living. My supplier for pond stuff deals with these pumps day in day out and see's what comes back for warrantee work and what doesn't last I suggest you call him, Dan at underwater warehouse

 

[combatwombat]

What are you finding challenging about it? I haven’t looked myself but imagine there must be dozens of pumps that meet the criteria.

 

[Pablo]

It is great your educating your self but as my wife would say you guys are a dumb as a box of rocks GO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS! meaning yes we have some experience but we do not do this for a living. My supplier for pond stuff deals with these pumps day in day out and see's what comes back for warrantee work and what doesn't last I suggest you call him, Dan at underwater warehouse

Oh crap, now you tell us, I had based my whole pond build on what you and @combatwombat have said on this forum. And I am turning the pump on for the first time today, so now I am in trouble Just kidding!

 

[GBBUDD]

Oh crap, now you tell us, I had based my whole pond build on what you and @combatwombat have said on this forum. And I am turning the pump on for the first time today, so now I am in trouble Just kidding!

big day . you better have multiple videos going when you plug her in.....

 

[Pablo]

big day . you better have multiple videos going when you plug her in.....

Yes, I am sure I will be a youtube star "Watch lawyer get drenched by water geiser pond fail"

 

[GBBUDD]

ohhhhhh i could be nasttttttyyyyy. oh hell.......... no sense holding back now i never have .....The only thing that could spit at a lawyer and get away with it. looking forward to the video.....

 

[j.w]

Yep we all want to see a lawyer get dumped on

 

[Pablo]

ohhhhhh i could be nasttttttyyyyy. oh hell.......... no sense holding back now i never have .....The only thing that could spit at a lawyer and get away with it. looking forward to the video.....

Sorry to disappoint all of you but I survived I am quite shocked that everything is working right, waterfalls and stream are working better than I thought they would. PerformancePro pump is awesome, so quiet. I dont want to hijack this thread so I will start another one later today.

 

[GBBUDD]

Yep we all want to see a lawyer get dumped on View attachment 160273

Hey come on now J/w while the profession is not one i gravities towards, number two on them is a bit harsh I'll settle for spit , number 1 or a squirt !!

 

[miamicuse]

Sorry to disappoint all of you but I survived I am quite shocked that everything is working right, waterfalls and stream are working better than I thought they would. PerformancePro pump is awesome, so quiet. I dont want to hijack this thread so I will start another one later today.

That's good news! You have done your homework well, unlike me LOL!!!

 

[miamicuse]

What are you finding challenging about it? I haven’t looked myself but imagine there must be dozens of pumps that meet the criteria.

combatwombat, it's not just the pump itself, but I think between the end of last year till now, this pond has been kind of in a rebuild mode for all this time and there have been multiple setbacks despite me trying to do my homework best I can.

The PVC pipework that I laid from pond to pump was redone three times during this period. I excavated the original piping and redid it once, then we had liquid sub termite treatment around the perimeter and the termite contractor damaged the pipes do I redid it a second time, then my wife decided we should put some pavers down as a walkway over the path of the pipes so I excavated another 4" lower to account for the paver base.

The electrical wiring to the pump was shared by too many other fixtures so I had to run a new circuit from the panel 40' away through a crawlspace climbing with my elbows and knees with a headlamp, tool box tied to my ankle as I drag it along as I crawled, really creepy crawlspace with 16" headroom. Not fun.

Then it took a while to build a new middle concrete pier for the replacement bridge. The bridge took a while to put up, and a slow process because it rains every day, and to do any work we had to pump out the pond to work an hour or two after work each day before it goes dark. When I had the bridge 90% done, we had a 1000 year historic flood from rain in May 2023, dumped 26" of rain in six hours time. The entire property was flooded with 20" of water above grade. Well guess what, the bridge floated UP. We never had a flood like this, I did everything to make sure the bridge will stay in place, and it never occurred to me to strap the bridge down in case it water rises 2' above the street to cause the entire bridge to float. trash everywhere and I had to take the new and floated out of place bridge apart piece by piece and redesign the connections to account for gravity loads and buoyancy.

I did some calculations on sizing the pump, went through some of the web sites with calculators. What threw me off was they all asked for "distance from pump to pond" and fittings and valves along that run. That was the basis of selecting the Sequence 750. I then realized I needed to calculated from pond to pump back to pond to waterfall, a distance twice as long with double the fittings. Oops. I think those calculators were assuming submersible so there is no intake components.

So the challenge is not so much selecting the pump for a second time, it's more of a cumulative effect of many setbacks along the way. I apologize for the rant.

 

[Pablo]

Hey come on now J/w while the profession is not one i gravities towards, number two on them is a bit harsh I'll settle for spit , number 1 or a squirt !!

You know its bad when even @j.w is dumping on you. I thought she was nice to everyone

 

[Pablo]

combatwombat, it's not just the pump itself, but I think between the end of last year till now, this pond has been kind of in a rebuild mode for all this time and there have been multiple setbacks despite me trying to do my homework best I can.

The PVC pipework that I laid from pond to pump was redone three times during this period. I excavated the original piping and redid it once, then we had liquid sub termite treatment around the perimeter and the termite contractor damaged the pipes do I redid it a second time, then my wife decided we should put some pavers down as a walkway over the path of the pipes so I excavated another 4" lower to account for the paver base.

The electrical wiring to the pump was shared by too many other fixtures so I had to run a new circuit from the panel 40' away through a crawlspace climbing with my elbows and knees with a headlamp, tool box tied to my ankle as I drag it along as I crawled, really creepy crawlspace with 16" headroom. Not fun.

Then it took a while to build a new middle concrete pier for the replacement bridge. The bridge took a while to put up, and a slow process because it rains every day, and to do any work we had to pump out the pond to work an hour or two after work each day before it goes dark. When I had the bridge 90% done, we had a 1000 year historic flood from rain in May 2023, dumped 26" of rain in six hours time. The entire property was flooded with 20" of water above grade. Well guess what, the bridge floated UP. We never had a flood like this, I did everything to make sure the bridge will stay in place, and it never occurred to me to strap the bridge down in case it water rises 2' above the street to cause the entire bridge to float. trash everywhere and I had to take the new and floated out of place bridge apart piece by piece and redesign the connections to account for gravity loads and buoyancy.

I did some calculations on sizing the pump, went through some of the web sites with calculators. What threw me off was they all asked for "distance from pump to pond" and fittings and valves along that run. That was the basis of selecting the Sequence 750. I then realized I needed to calculated from pond to pump back to pond to waterfall, a distance twice as long with double the fittings. Oops. I think those calculators were assuming submersible so there is no intake components.

So the challenge is not so much selecting the pump for a second time, it's more of a cumulative effect of many setbacks along the way. I apologize for the rant.

Dont blame you at all for the rant. That is a lot to go through. Just the thought of the crawlspace creeps me out, ugh. But dont get too down, we all have different setups and challenges so even those that might make it look easy they had challenges along the way. It works out in the end and it is satisfying, this day has been amazing seeing the waterfalls after this whole spring and summer of working on this.

 

[Rugar458]

OK I have no idea what's going on but it's not working.

I got everything hooked up, filled the priming pot with water, closed and tightened the lit, plugged in the pump and it started running but it will not prime. It just runs and runs but the priming pot level went down to only 30%, water enters from the suction side but I can see water entering the priming pot on the suction side but the water is only 25% full of the pipe (if that). I waited a good 15 minutes and no difference.

So I think the issues can be:

(1) there is an leak on the suction side.
(2) there is a leak on the return side.
(3) the pump is defective.
(4) the pump is not powerful enough for my configuration.

I think I can rule out #2 because I hooked up a garden hose to the return side to test for leaks with my water supply so it should be OK. I could not do the same for the suction side because there is a check valve that would prevent continuous flow through the entire run.

On the suction side 90% of the pipe run is exposed because they were freshly laid and I haven't backfill the trench yet. I touched every joint I saw no moisture but since it's on the suction side it may not exhibit any moisture only air drawn inward. But I am pretty good with plumbing and primed/cement every joint and waited at least 12 hours for cement to cure before pressurizing.

May be the pump is not powerful enough? It is the 3600GPH model, has a 12' max head. My intake pipe is a 25' run from pond to pump, and 25' from pump back to pond. So using the 1' of head loss per 10' run that's 5' of head loss. The intake is 36" below grade, and the pump is 8" above grade, a total of 42" of lift to get to the pond, so that's another 4' there. Total 9' of head needed. Now if I am pushing a waterfall 5' high, that will be 14' of head needed and that would exceed the 12' max head right? But in this case, I disconnected the water feature and let the pipe run back into the pond at grade as a test, and still it is not priming and flow is very low.

I do have a number of pressure 90 elbows that may contribute to some cavitation, but I do not think this will make or break the operation. May be I just need more power? This pump is 1/8HP and my tiny utility pump is 1/4HP.

Looks like a LOT of elbows. Have you calculated your head pressure just in the plumbing? Have you thought about using flexible PVC? You could reduce your head a bunch I bet.

 

[GBBUDD]

Looks like a LOT of elbows. Have you calculated your head pressure just in the plumbing? Have you thought about using flexible PVC? You could reduce your head a bunch I bet.

WE ALSO MENTIONED USING SWEEP elbows AND DRAIN BUT HE HAS OPTED TO USE THE 90 DEGREE ELBOWS