Makeover Help - Clueless

[addy1]

The only submersible pumps I have are Laguna, mine are small, one 240 or so and one 720 or so gph. I use one in my hot tub pond and one to circulate the water in my deck ponds.

They survive me pulling them out in the fall sticking them on a shelf and they start right back up in the spring. One stays in the deck pond and freezes up off and on, the water there is very shallow and does freeze. So all I can say they seem to be great pumps.

 

[j.w]

I have Laguna 4280 Maxflo and it's a good pump and lower power usage too than most brands. My pond is about 2400 gals so wanted the flo to be about twice as much so my waterfall would have a nice amount of water coming over.

 

[vaaccess]

i was reviewing the pump description again and pondering what would happen if it grabbed debris from the pond and pushed it into the pea rock...should I avoid a pump that doesn’t filter?

“Laguna Max-Flo 960 Waterfall & Filter Pump is designed to circulate water loaded with moderate amounts of solid particles (or solids) and transport them to suitable external filter systems (including pressurized filters) which then trap debris that could potentially pollute pond water, effectively filtering the pond.”

 

[vaaccess]

I have Laguna 4280 Maxflo and it's a good pump and lower power usage too than most brands. My pond is about 2400 gals so wanted the flo to be about twice as much so my waterfall would have a nice amount of water coming over.

Thanks for this! Do you have it going into pea rock? See my just posted question, I’m probably over thinking it.

And that’s a beautiful waterfall!!!

 

[sissy]

you have to think of head height and elbows in the hose as that will slow the water down also .I use laguna pumps also great warranty and energy efficient and great prices .I bought mine off ebay from country fish girl .Bought back in 2014 4 year warranty and would buy them again if I needed one

 

[j.w]

@vaaccess I took off the outer covering cage on the Laguna pump and have it hooked to a pre-filter that pumps to the waterfall. Don't tell the Laguna company I did that tho, lol, as it voids the warranty. It has been working fine for several years that way. No pea rock thing.

I bought this kind of pre-filter to attach to mine:

Mine is hooked something like this:

 

[dustboy]

I have been reluctant to put any sort of pre-filter on my pump, I actually want some smaller chunks of bio matter to get pumped into my bog. The more of that stuff that is in the gravel will help to slow the flow and trap more small particles. Plus, I have no prefilter that I have to clean.

That’s my theory anyway. Obviously you don’t want to be pumping anything that is big enough to plug the diffuser.

 

[sissy]

Like said if you do not clean it often it can burn up a pump or cause it to overheat and also use more electric

 

[vaaccess]

So I was having issues with it leaking over the back of my bog, and as mentioned the pump didn’t seem to be strong enough.

But before I got a new pump I needed to address the big problem and so today I dug in, what a muddy mess! The root systems had basically blocked the water flow, I think they put dirt in it when they built it.

I pulled out all of the root balls and dug out as much of the mud as I could, getting all the way down to the rubber liner. Seriously, what a mess.

Then without the rock and plants in it I filled it back up to ensure that the output side was lower than the back wall. And while the back of the bog was lower, the output point is lower and water flowed well.

I have the pump output hose stuck pretty deep in the rock at the back of the bog and then put back the plants and rock, seems to be doing well now. I could probably move up to a better pump to increase the flow and not worry about the issue I was having before.

Will this murky water clean up pretty quickly?

(I need to get more pea rock...)

 

[Lisak1]

I have been reluctant to put any sort of pre-filter on my pump, I actually want some smaller chunks of bio matter to get pumped into my bog. The more of that stuff that is in the gravel will help to slow the flow and trap more small particles. Plus, I have no prefilter that I have to clean.

That’s my theory anyway. Obviously you don’t want to be pumping anything that is big enough to plug the diffuser.

I don't want to hijack this thread but did want to say that I'm not so sure your theory is going to work out in the long run. I don't know how big your bog is or how it's set up, but pumping "chunks" of biomatter into your bog is going to clog the whole thing eventually - and probably sooner rather than later. Unless you have a plan to clean out your bog on a regular basis (and an easy and effective way to do so) I might rethink that plan. Just my opinion but cleaning a pre-filter is going to be easier than cleaning a bog full of dirty gravel. We have what is effectively a down flow bog on the negative edge of our pond and I can tell you that any organic material that flows over the edge will quickly clog the gravel. We originally filled it with pea gravel and had to quickly rethink that plan as even the tiniest bit of organic material would clog the whole thing up. Digging that pea gravel out and replacing it was not a fun task.

Anyway - just an opinion. Take it or leave it!

Sorry @vaaccess - back to your regularly scheduled programming!

 

[dustboy]

The murkiness from the gravel refused to go away in my pond, if you can set up some fine filtration it will speed things up a lot. It was suggested to put a basket with quilt batting under my falls. I actually just ended up changing the water as I needed drain it to make some changes to the plumbing anyway.

 

[addy1]

My murky goes away within a day or so. Agree with @Lisak1 I draw water from around a foot off the bottom of the pond, have a leaf basket before the pump (external) the water going into my bog is water with minimal organic debris. It is still running fine 10 years later. No cleaning except yanking excess plants.

 

[vaaccess]

A dozen days later and it isn’t clean. I tried using panty hose (had some that I use for filtering other stuff) and it had no impact. I think I’ll just drain and refill at this point.

 

[JamieB]

A dozen days later and it isn’t clean. I tried using panty hose (had some that I use for filtering other stuff) and it had no impact. I think I’ll just drain and refill at this point.

That’ll restart the cycle all over. Patience, it takes time. Let the fine particulate settle, it’ll fix itself

 

[CometKeith]

A dozen days later and it isn’t clean. I tried using panty hose (had some that I use for filtering other stuff) and it had no impact. I think I’ll just drain and refill at this point.

Hi.Good luck with your pond. The last thing you want to do is change all the water. The pond will have to recycle and could take a month or more to do that. I would recommend to read up about the nitrogen cycle. Basically you want to create an environment that the pond will pretty much keep everything in balance by itself with no chemicals that need to be added other than using declor when you add water. To probably balance all the way it can take a year so patience is needed.