Help Pumping out Pond

I was planning on building one of these (a Rus Pump):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jpi1_WMYIE

To pump out little the rain water catchment pond into another higher up.
I want to pump it up hill for about 20 meters with about 1 to 1.5 meters of height.

I have about 250 gallons/1000 liters to pump, maybe more. In the long term I need a more automatic solution (wind/solar) but for now it's going to be us pumping it out.

Do you think this pump will block once the 25mm tube is full of water and heading for the top pond?

Thanks,
William

I can now report, having built the Rus pump and having tried to pump water uphill 20 meters with a less-than-1m incline, that in theory it is possible.

In practice, however, unless you need 20 liters of water or less, pumping by hand will be a lot of work. 20 liters took me about 5 minutes to pump.

The pressure build-up inside the pump was so great that water was spewing from whatever hole it could find, mostly near where the pump action was happening and where the 25mm tube connects to the pump.

I'm beginning to think that pumping water by hand over certain distances is impossible.

When I took off the tube, there was no pressure build-up in the pump and it came out rather quickly, much more than 4 liters a minute.

My new strategy is to buy a 1.5hp pump with a built-in motor and do it that way. Kind of a disappointment. The good news is that I will still be able to use the Rus pump to fill 1000 liter tanks that I will place rather close to the pump/water source.

New question: will 1.5 horsepower be enough??

William

This is the kind of model I'm looking at:
http://wanhao.en.made-in-china.com/offer/iMunmdFXZDWr/Sell-Gasoline-Pump-1-0-Inch-1-5HP-WH10CX-.html

There's nothing like asking and answering questions by yourself....

I set up the "Infernal Machine" as I call it. A 150 euro 1.5 horsepower 2-stroke water pump.

It does pump water about 40 meters with 25mm tubing with an incline of about 1 meter or less at a rate of about 40 liters a minute. I still have to tweak the connections, where I think some pressure is being lost, but I'm happy with how it works. I could increase the rate a little if I bought a new, slightly wider tube.

It's the nasty smell of burning gasoline that bugs me, but oh well. For now I'll survive.

The pond is now more or less empty, waiting for more water to come down the hill.

I also modified the Rus pump with a 4m tube ending on it. It pumps about 20 liters a minute. Maybe a little less, because I'd need to pause. I'll use this to pump water into holding tanks for summer use.

I'm also going to make the top pond larger and try to get it to hold water longer with sodium bentonite. That way, maybe in the summer I'll have some water still percolating through the soil.

William

If the goal is simply to pump the pond down for maintenance or cleanup, the easiest approach is usually a submersible pond pump placed at the lowest point with a discharge hose running away from the pond.

For most hobby-sized ponds, a decent solids-handling pump works better than small fountain pumps because they won’t clog as easily with leaves, algae, or silt. You drop it in, attach a hose, and let gravity and the pump do the work. If the pond has a lot of muck, sometimes putting the pump in a small milk crate or bucket with holes helps keep large debris from blocking the intake.

Another thing that helps is pumping from the deepest pocket of the pond. If the bottom is uneven, you can slowly move the pump as the water level drops so it keeps pulling from the lowest area.

I’ve seen people use trash pumps for really big ponds, but for normal backyard setups a solid submersible pond pump usually does the job fine. When people ask about reliable options, the Best Pond Pumps From MidWest Ponds often come up because they’re designed to handle debris better than typical decorative pond pumps.

One small tip: start pumping before the pond gets extremely low. Once the water is shallow, it’s easier to scoop or siphon the last bit of water and sludge rather than forcing the pump to deal with heavy muck.

Guess i should update things here.

This was a freakin’ disaster as i recall.
I would advise against digging ditches 70cm deep
And a spade-width and putting a
2mq “pond” at the low end of the field and then trying to recover/recycle that water.
Especially in our climate which is spotty both in the way of too much or too little rain.
I think at some point the land just got way too
Filled with water, then summer came and everything went bone-dry anyway.
Not to mention trying to pump water horizontally
Is just not going to work…
A pool pump might have worked better but honestly the “pond” was only 2 feet deep.
Built a huge mound filled with wood at the bottom
end which only grew rats.

In the end that field had to be abandoned and we moved on to an even bigger disaster which also involved ineffective swales. Just lost that land too.

Swales on flattish land should probably be wider and softer than i was able to do. I suppose i did the best i could with a shovel and 1 day with a backhoe, but still…di-sas-ter.

Btw…
I still use a pump. From an IBC tank into a hose and onto plants in a greenhouse so i suppose all was not for nought.
William

The most reliable way to pump out a pond is to use a submersible pump or trash pump depending on how much debris is in the water and how big the pond is.

If the pond is relatively clean (mostly water, little debris), a standard submersible utility pump works well. You place it at the lowest point in the pond, run a discharge hose to where you want the water to go, and let it run until the pond is drained.

If there’s algae, sludge, leaves, or small fish, you’ll want a trash pump. These are designed to handle solids without clogging, and they’ll save you a lot of frustration compared to smaller pumps that constantly jam.

A few practical points that often get overlooked:

Make sure the pump is placed at the lowest point  sometimes digging a small sump area helps gather the remaining water.
Keep the intake from getting clogged by lifting it slightly off the bottom or using a screen.
Have a long enough discharge hose to direct water away from the pond so it doesn’t just flow back in.
If the pond is large, consider a higher-capacity unit rather than trying to use a small pump over a long period.

Also, if the goal isn’t just draining but also cleaning, it can help to pump most of the water out first, then finish the remaining sludge with a wet/dry vacuum or by hand.

Takeaway: match the pump type to the amount of debris  clean water can use a standard submersible, but anything with solids really needs a trash-style pump to avoid constant clogs and slow progress.

I pumped my duck pond last week with an RV water pump. It's 12 volts and the one I used needs about 20 amps, so I got away with a 100AH lifepo4 hooked up to a 250 watt solar panel. The cost of these batteries has really come down, I paid about $100 for mine but I've seen them advertised as low as $70.

The weak point in these pumps is the pressure switch, which will melt after an hour or two of use. What I did was bypass the switch so the pump was always on. This was a temporary setup but you could have a higher rated on/off switch for a permanent system.

I pumped onto my compost pile 100 feet away. There's a sediment filter that needs to be cleaned every 30 minutes or so depending on how much debris gets sucked in. I have hose adapters that convert the 1/2" NPT to 3/4" garden hose. Putting a filter on the sucking hose would probably be more efficient but I didn't have one at the time.