Bog/pump clogging too frequently?

[dinm]

Been raining real heavy today, and I just come up to the waterfall and notice its barely doing anything. I remove the waterfall flat rock, still very weak. I go ahead and restart power, and back to normal. I am not sure why this is, it's like something plugs the pipes but I am not sure what one could even do to fix it?

 

[dinm]

Rained hard I guess again today. Very low flow, bog got clogged again. Any idea as to why this happens? Often me turning off the pump and turning it back on will unclog it.

 

[damian]

submerged or external pump? are you sure it's not the pump? Sometimes my external pump will pull in air because of a loose connection somewhere, which bogs it down quite a bit.

 

[dinm]

submerged or external pump? are you sure it's not the pump? Sometimes my external pump will pull in air because of a loose connection somewhere, which bogs it down quite a bit.

Submerged, but how would I know anyways that it pulled in air? I am thinking it may be debris because rain/wind will send leaves, and organic matter into the pond. Whenever I turn it back on I can almost see bog pipes unplugging themselves, though that may not be much to be quite honest that seems typical whenever the system is restarted. But this for me has led to another problem, whenever this blockage happens pipes start pushing themselves and today I could not get it back in place so currently the water is simply flowing out of the bog pipe to pond instead of going to bottom.

It's certainly possible however that what you are speaking of is the case. But I'm not sure how i'd check.

I read that gravel can clogged easily, but on the bottom I used big rocks, then I used round pea gravel and the top I went with some gravel chips but that is simply the top layer, most of it is medium sized pea gravel.

Been running 24/7 since 9th march.

 

[damian]

it's probably not the case with a submerged pump. in my case, the pump would sometimes "un-prime" itself.

the only reason i asked is because turning it off and on in your case temporarily fixes the issue, which doesn't make as much sense with a clog unless you're temporarily getting a higher pump flow rate right at startup.

Unless it's a pump issue, the only thing I can think of is some object or debris that is temporarily shifted out of the way when you turn the pump off and on.

 

[damian]

is there any way you can check pump output independent of your bog/waterfall?

 

[dinm]

is there any way you can check pump output independent of your bog/waterfall?

well if it was any such clog like you said that pulled in air or something. i could not check for it now because i have long since restarted power, the pump itself however works well, the flow there is fine. i know because right now the water is simply flowing over the bog and the flow rate is very good. I am interested though in knowing how much slower the flow rate should be after going down and through the rocks etc, cause usually its much slower than the actual flow rate but i figure thats normal though i dont see that as an issue, my issue is when the flow rate is extremely weak after heavy rain.

 

[damian]

i can think of no reason why rain alone would cause any issues, but it's hard to analyze without knowing your exact configuration of pump/pond/waterfall/bog/etc.

 

[dinm]

i can think of no reason why rain alone would cause any issues, but it's hard to analyze without knowing your exact configuration of pump/pond/waterfall/bog/etc.

pump's 2000gph, bog's 120g, pond's around 1200g i think. something like that more or less.