Small solar powered pond build

[poconojoe]

i have had a couple of home improvements in the last year. one was all new windows and new showers. when i called them on their sub par ( half ass ) installation jobs they cry we can not get good help it is not us. i call bs on that. the level of craftsmanship and pride in ones job has slid a lot in the last 10 years. now if you do not watch them they will slide one in you deep, with no remorse. and take your hard earned money for it.

Yeah, my daughter had a company install the flue for her wood burning stove last year.
There were so many problems with the install not done to code and the roof leaking.
They came back 4 times and the roof is still leaking. You would think it was good they came back, but after a certain point you don't even want these idiots near your house.
The owner kept blaming his ex-partner. I told him he is the one ultimately responsible for all the work done by his company.

 

[poconojoe]

Still leaking and so frustrating. It is in the same area and is hard to pinpoint because it is hard to see where it is. I added some water tonight and dropped in food coloring to try and see where it is leaking. It looks like it is dead center but I can't be sure.

Leaks are a royal pain.
Not only hard to patch, but you have find them first.
That's why neither my pond nor my bog have any holes cut in their liner.
And....all my plumbing is within the pond and bog. No water can escape the system, even if there's a major break in the piping.

Years ago, before the bog, I had serviced one of my pressure filters. I had failed to tighten one of the clamps and overnight most of the water had been pumped out of the pond. I lost one huge koi. That's why I'm so paranoid!

 

[SoCal Pond]

It has been a few weeks and the leak is still there. Today I did what I was hesitant to do but it had to be done. I bought a diamond cutoff wheel and removed the flagstone that was in the way so I could see what was going on.

It did not take long to find where it was leaking. I could not see this with the flagstone when it was in place.

It is now patched and hopefully the end of this saga.

One thing that completely threw me off guard was as I was pumping the water out into many tubs to save as much of the good water and place my plants into them I found out I have two small minnows in my pond. I have no idea on how the got in there. They are 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" and look like mosquito fish but I have no idea on how they got into there.

Even with the pains to get this pond 100% there is always neat things I am finding along the way.

 

[poconojoe]

Glad you found and fixed the leak.
And two new members of your fish community!

 

[Mgessert]

How is your solar setup working? I would like to do something similar for my little pond, that has a 600 gph pump cycling 30 min. on 30 min. off, with about a two foot lift. Do you think a marine battery would run it all night? I know nothing about electricity, but we have lots of sunshine here in Florida. If nothing else, maybe it could be a backup system when the power goes out.

 

[SoCal Pond]

How is your solar setup working? I would like to do something similar for my little pond, that has a 600 gph pump cycling 30 min. on 30 min. off, with about a two foot lift. Do you think a marine battery would run it all night? I know nothing about electricity, but we have lots of sunshine here in Florida. If nothing else, maybe it could be a backup system when the power goes out.

The solar is working out great.

With one 12V-100W cell and a 100AH marine battery you should be able to run a 660GPH pump continuously 24 hrs a day in Florida.

A 12V-100W solar cell provides about 5.8 amps at 18V in the sun. The 660 pumps running off the battery only use 1.4 amps max.

The solar cells actually provide 18V to the controller. They will charge the battery up to 14V.

The pumps are variable 12-24V and will pump more water when the batteries are at full charge in the day and slow down when the battery gets down to 12V in the middle of the night.

I have my big pumps (660 x2 waterfall) on a timer and they run from 9am until 10pm. The smaller pumps (240 x2 bog) run 24hr/day.

 

[Mgessert]

That’s super! I’m going to have to work on that. Thank you!

 

[Mgessert]

I don’t suppose there’s a practical way to use my existing ac pump in a solar/battery setup is there?

 

[combatwombat]

I don’t suppose there’s a practical way to use my existing ac pump in a solar/battery setup is there?

There certainly is, but you’d need an inverter.

 

[SoCal Pond]

So far so good! It is completely dry behind the liner now.

 

[SoCal Pond]

@Mgessert Here is a link to show the flow rate for these pumps. : tried to upload the gifs but they were too large even at 320 lines.

http://www.tophersworld.com/home_improvement_pond_gifs.html

 

[SoCal Pond]

Unfortunately the leak is still there. I am done with LDPE. After many attempts to fix it I contacted my contractor today.

I will drain my small pond next weekend, use as many tubs to save as much water as possible as well as the plants.

If possible I will catch the two small fish and place them in an indoor aquarium with as many snails as I can grab.

The I will have them remove the flagstone on the sides of the pond, Make an intake bay to match the one I built, cement the whole pond and intake bays.

Then use the liquid rubber like the bog and replace the flagstone. It will be a little costly but I have had enough with trying to patch the liner myself. It just was not working after many attempts.

I hope my next post will be a positive one.

 

[SoCal Pond]

I drained the pond tonight so I can get it cemented in tomorrow. I gathered up a couple hand fulls of these snails and ended up with 6 of the mosquito fish. I put them in an aquarium with the pond water for now.

 

[SoCal Pond]

It is getting closer. The cement work is done. Next is to line it with liquid rubber to seal it then put all the flagstone back in place.

The intake bays look better. They will have matching flagstone around the top of them as well as a large piece to cover the pump box.

The Lillies are doing well in tubs waiting to be returned to the pond. One even flowered today.

 

[SoCal Pond]

sealed. They should finish it up Monday and I can fill it up Tuesday night.