oh what a apple can do to a pond..........................

[addy1]

Came back from working the bee booth at the fair, (selling lots of my honey) the pond is in great shape. Bees happy, birds need food.

Wake up in the am and the pump is not pumping water, the pond is down 18-24 inches ( I didn't bother to measure)
The skimmer was drawing air which caused the pump to lose suction. So the pump quit draining the pond. The pump is fine even though no water was flowing it is made to swish water back and forth, never running dry. It was down there nicely running, just no water flow. No I have not got a low water switch set up yet. This year is the year of pond drainings.

So what caused it. I start with the bog, did plants redirect water, yanked a bunch out, it was way over grown, checked all the edges, dry.

Check the loop ponds, no water loss, no wet dirt, no issue.

Check the stream, all if fine, no wet areas.

Check the 1000 gallon stock tank, no wet areas seen.

Fill the big pond, hours of water flowing, turn on the big pond only. No level drop.

Now turn on the feed to the 1000 gallon pond, I hear water gushing out. Run up to check, find water flowing out of the 55 gallon sort of skippy filter. It cleans the water that flows from the big pond to the stock tank pond a little bit, so those fish get cleaner water.

I stick my hand in the top of the tank the two inch outflow pvc pipe has a nice round apple sticking in it, plugging it totally up. The water was flowing out of the tank. Right into some plants rocks, grasses which nicely hid the wet from the over flow.

That barrel now has fencing over the top of it, no more apple pond failures.

No leaks or water drops in three years, now this summer two bad ones!

 

[Mmathis]

LOL, Addy! I can almost see this in cartoon form with you running around looking, looking, then all of a sudden your character sees the apple, jumps up about 2 feet in the air and has all of these little exclamation points coming out of your head....!

 

[addy1]

laughing TM no kidding!

BTW So excited, my honey got 10 out of 10 for taste at the fair judging.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I'm glad you were able to find the issue and that it wasn't a huge disaster.

Good going on the honey

 

[Mmathis]

Way to go, Addy!!! No, I take that back. Way to go, Addy's bees!

[PS -- when I first glanced at your note, I thought you were talking about your other Honey, and it didn't make sense...... What was your Honey doing entered in a fair......]

 

[addy1]

[PS -- when I first glanced at your note, I thought you were talking about your other Honey, and it didn't make sense...... What was your Honey doing entered in a fair......]

laughing..................he was.NOT being tasted!

 

[sissy]

geeze addy what's next .That is why I like my filters contained in a liner to drain back into the pond

 

[Meyer Jordan]

I am assuming that you have Apple trees close to your pond.

 

[addy1]

geeze addy what's next .That is why I like my filters contained in a liner to drain back into the pond

I hope this is the end lol. This one barrel is mostly buried, because of our slope. No easy way to put a liner around it that would send any water back to the pond. With the netting over the top now, no more apples will get in, what gets me is it has been open like this for three years, never a problem.

At least I now know the drop dead low spot of the pond, plenty of water left for the fish. They had three feet in the deep end, around a 6 inches in the walk out end, when it stop draining. So it will never drain dry, as long as the skimmer is running and lets the air stop the pumps draw.

I am assuming that you have Apple trees close to your pond.

Yep two big apple trees, the base of them was around 20 feet from the big pond. The 1000 gallon tank was put in after everything else was built. I had it in the front of the house for lilies, a neighbors dog fell in and could not get out, so i converted it to a plant bog. Then we decided to enlarge the driveway parking lot, so I pulled it out and made it part of the ponds in the back. It is 10 feet from the base of the trees, the small filter is under the trees.

And luckily we are on well water no chlorine to worry about. The ponds got a good water change!

 

[addy1]

And there is water in the ponds this am!

 

[RobAmy]

Lucky you caught it and no major damage to anything. My pears are starting to drop like crazy now. On the ground and into the pond but at least the deer are happy now.

 

[addy1]

The deer, the rabbits, the ground hog, all get free meals. They inhale them. The pears are up by the front drive, with another large apple tree. I don't spray them, the red apples by the pond are so good! but you need to cut before you munch.

 

[Big Lou]

An apple a day...........

 

[Marshall]

An apple a day keeps the pump away ? ain't the way it goes? sorry to hear about the trauma and I literally just dealt with the same sort of devastation a few days back and it was my pump that did it too chucking 900 gallons of water out of my pond in about 8 hours.

 

[Marshall]

Way to go, Addy!!! No, I take that back. Way to go, Addy's bees!

[PS -- when I first glanced at your note, I thought you were talking about your other Honey, and it didn't make sense...... What was your Honey doing entered in a fair......]

LOL I thought the same thing at first and was like "what? wait... tasting what? lol"