Pumping Leaves Out of Pond

No. Leaves will plug the inlet, more than likely.

If not, the impeller.

You need a garbage pump with an open impeller or a grinder.

The pump you suggest will likely plug.

It's also know as a trash pump, and Harbor Freight does carry one for $300.00.

Check the reviews on it.

Trash pump and Harbor Freight just seems to have such a natural ring to it.

I use a small bilge pump as used by farmers on the land? Plenty of leaves in my pool at the moment. Never had and problems with blockages, and on/off is float controlled. The leaves are cleaned out when the pool is empty.

Regards JD.

Hey Jd -I'm a bit befuddled by your last sentence: do you mean the leaves are NOT cleaned out until the pool is drained?

Yes htesto. I keep the pool drained at the moment and it fills with rain and leaves, so every so often I pump out the water, and clean out the leaves.

Regards JD.

I'm also of the opinion that a a 1 HP dirty water pump is likely to become clogged if you try to use it to pump decaying leaves out.

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How big is the pond? How deep?

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A dirty water pump might be effective at draining the pond if a sufficiently large strainer can be used over the water intake. With the pond drained, the options for removing the leaves expand considerably.

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Alternately perhaps you could use a winch and a strong seine net to rake the leaves out.

Okay, here is another approach:

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This relies on utilizing the big trees located around the pond as sturdy attachments for a winch. You will also need to procure (or happen to already have) something like a rake attachment for a tractor, or a frame supported net...like a hockey or lacrosse goal.

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The rake attachment will probably only work if the bottom is sufficiently smooth and if most of the leaves are in that area. Attachment to the winch line and repeated winching across the pond could rake out a lot of leaves if the rake is well suited to the task.

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For the frame supported net, it will probably need to be attached to a base sled that can be winched across the bottom. depending on how deep the leaves are and how smooth or rough the bottom of the pond is, mounting the frame supported net on a small flat bed trailer or cart and then attaching the winch to the tongue of the trailer/cart could work well. adding floats to the top of the frame could be helpful, but if you do put any real consideration in this direction, it would be a good idea to see what Netmaker things of the idea. I'm just brainstorming, he actually knows what he is talking about.

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At any rate, keep us informed of how you decide to proceed and how things actually proceed. Some photos would be great.

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BTW.... how big is this pond (how far across at widest and narrowest spans)? .....and how deep is it on average? at it's deepest? Is the bottom smooth?

3rd Caveat (for Canadians)- H2O2 in excess of 27% is regulated as a precursor by our ever-so-careful government. Not that you can't buy it for personal use but there is a fair bit of red tape to go along. Some chemical suppliers have started with 27% for this reason.

And thanks for the info! Note that you may want to pre-dilute the peroxide to less than 5%, less than 1% even better, before pumping it in- this will help mix it into the pond water due to the higher volumes, as well as reducing shock to any aquatic life. Unfortunately it will also get rid of that lovely swamp water smell you may have too.

I use 50% on a regular basis but get it in drums- my guess on pricing for someone at the retail level may be more like $3 per kg for the 35%, depending on volume and how well you know the counterperson.

I have been retired now going on ten years so I am a little out of date with prices and rules. So thanks.

50% was a little too risky to handle and we limited use for worker safety to 35% but carried eyewash and clothing. We did a lot of ground water and soil remediation and even set up one municipality with peroxide as a pretreatment to lower THM production potential. It was a pilot that eventually went full scale. Great study.

Interesting to hear!

I do soil & groundwater remediation with it as well, and we actually have a safety shower plumbed in the trailer as well because of the percentage. As you say, can't be to careful with the stuff.

...which is all great until some of the <...leaves...> catch fire...

How about stopping the leaves getting in?

Lots of big trees around maybe 3/4 of the pond; every fall big blankets of leaves floating around. Natural process, and eventually, the pond will become swamp, unfortunately. After my years here, I think.

If you have the parts and a suitable vessel, you can make a simple filter trap that will stay submerged while you vacuum the leaves up through a larger diameter hose.

The filter trap is just a box with the input on one side and the output leading to your pump on the other.

Build a box that has a removable top and input/output fittings on each end. Pack a wad of chicken wire into the output end and viola'. If you have a drum with a removable lid you are 80% there.

The size of each hose will determine the power and speed it will operate with.

add a scrap of foam to the filter box and it will float along. Attach a large diameter short hose to the input side of the filter box and operate from a boat, in the water, or use ropes to operate from shore.

Slightly reduce the size of the input hose at the business end to increase suction, and reduce clogs in this hose.

Clean discharge from the pump extends pump.

Have fun

This idea sounds straightforward enough that it just might work. I'm hoping to merely clean up the immediate area around my 24 ft. boat dock. The pond is about an acre, and part of a lake, so the DNR would not be likely to allow any large-scale cleanup operations, but a small area....maybe. Thanks!

I've tried raking, effective but lots of sweat and muscle pain.

I agree with JE. Think in terms of a shop vac, but much larger. That's how septic tank cleaning trucks work, they don't pump it out, they just pull a vacuum in the trailer tank.

Use 6 or 8" corrugated drain as your hose, two or more drums in series as a waste trap and water collector, powered by a decent blower pulling a vacuum in the drums, plus some imagination.

Thanks for the agree, but I was talking about using his 1" HF pump as the vac.

The idea is to pull the water through the drums like water through a sludge tank/. Pop the top off and dump it when suction is lost.

a fully submersible tank that stays near the surface with a little float is quite maneuverable and works in shallow water.

- of course.. your input gave me a few ideas!

Why not use an eductor pump.

They use more water, but you won't clog the pump.

Thanks - never heard of it before but sounds interesting. Found lots of info about eductor pumps on Google but very little about using in this sort of down-to-earth application. Would you know of any websites for educating oneself?

I agree.

Most current day educators are only qualified for leaf sucking....

Or leaf blowing.

Best laugh I've had all week, thanks!

Sounds good, but please clarify: this thing works UNDER WATER, and sucks the leaves into the bag? Sure sounds like what I need. Sinking into the bottom can probably be overcome by some clever workaround. Price sure is right. Thanks!

Yes. There is a ring inside, at the bottom of the smaller section that is fed/pressurized by the hose. Small holes are drilled so that water flows upward inside the ring creating a suction under the bottom, outer lip of the device.

It WILL suck mud from the bottom, but the mesh allows dirt and mud to pass, trapping anything that is over about 1/8 inch in diameter to pass through.

The US Navy uses eductor pumps to dewater flooded compartments. They work really well, almost too well. There is no problem with clogging, full jumpsuits can be sucked through without clogging. They work so well that there is a danger in closed compartments of pulling a vacuum sufficient to incapacitate anyone inside.

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The same principal can be used to pump using compressed air (or steam). Though these are typically called ejector pumps. If you have a large air compressor, it might be an option.

That looks to be a cheap and easy system to use. It would be even better if you could pump water from the pond itself to make it work instead of using the water mains.....a good water pump with a suction sieve should do it, you may already have one of course.....

Get enough bags that you can do a lot before needing to stop and empty one for reuse....get the largest bags possible for the same reason....maybe the bigger version would be the best bet.

Best of luck.

How about airlift dredging?

Scale and modify operating procedures to suit your particular situation.

Won't block, no bags or screens to block or fill and cheap to make. Just need a source of compressed air and somewhere to dump or collect what you suck up.

Thats a really good idea, not difficult to make for a pond. The biggest problem is the large amount of air needed, I would rent a mobile compressor for example.....one for road work.....pneumatic drills and the like. Cheap here to rent for a weekend for example....

If the pond has had a lot of leaves in it over some years, there will probably be a thick layer of "mud", this type of device can remove that as well and deposit everything on land somewhere nearby, where the water component can safely drain back.....

There is a good YouTube video here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0rFe_f5jl4

They work really, really well.....

The mud, though smelly, can be safely used in the garden or on a field and will promote growth in plants.....don't waste it. Still smells better than manure!!!

There are also special natural chemicals that can be added to the water, without harming the wildlife, that allow bacteria to "eat" the leaf detritus and produce harmless other things.....not cheap, but very little work.

It also works continuously for ever...saving further work......

I do not know what that stuff is called. Sorry....it comes in 25Kg sacks and you need a sack per square meter of water surface if I remember correctly....

You don't need a huge compressor. I think. It didn't look big in the picture i posted.

They did say, in that video's comments, that you needed a minimum of 4m depth for it to work. I can't figure why.

But yeh, airlift well pumps work well in wells.

OP can research more.

'... needed a minimum of 4m depth for it to work....'

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Using the air bubbles to impart enough energy to the water to provide sufficient suction and momentum to rise above water level before turning down through the strainer has to require some distance for the bubbles to interact with the water.

Trying to solve the distance problem with more air has limits. You can only increase the amount of air you are adding to a certain point, after which , air either starts being forced out of the bottom of the hose, or the hose is filled with just air. Either way water wouldn't be pumped any more.

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I think you might be able to get away with a smaller compressor at deeper depths, as long as the compressor provides the minimum pressure needed, since the distance over which the bubbles impart energy to the water is so long.

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Near the surface you will need a compressor capable of higher volume. A venturi/ejector will be necessary to use air at shallow depths.

Naturally it works better the deeper it is under water, but having a "lot" of air makes up to some degree for a lack of depth. It is also dependent upon the weight of what needs to be moved.....

The picture was just a drawing, never assume that the artist understands technology, he can draw the compressor as big or as small as he wishes.

Also, small compressors can produce some air at high pressure or a lot of air at a low pressure air. If you have a lot of high pressure air available as with a trailer compressor, you can vary it how you want/need. Best of both worlds....

I can state that this is NOT a job for a small home compressor, the cylinder will be empty in seconds or maybe a minute if you want to empty a not so deep home pond.....

Canadian gold hunters work often in 2 meters or less of water and handle vast amounts of sand/silt/stones/gold dust.....all probably much heavier than leaf humus....

Naturally it needs to be tested out, but need not cost a fortune to test and find out......I personally prefer the Bacteria method because I am lazy.......

Stop by your local hardware and construction equipment rental place and spend the $30 to get a commercial trash pump and all the hoses you need for a day.

This has been a gratifying and fun discussion, thanks everybody! And this last one by tcmtech makes the most sense of all. It is really a 2-part task: 1) collect the leaves and 2)transport them to a disposal place (the woods, in my case). Pump and hoses should take care of both,no? I tried hand-raking some, and man, these things (leaves) are heavy, I lost any enthusiasm pretty quick. So, I'll try the trash pump route. Thanks again.

I don't think you realize how big this job is...working by yourself with some small pump will take will take weeks of hard work....You need to go big with a dredger built for purpose...