Ways to avoid your pond from emptying

[DrDave]

Talk about too late for Koi? This may be a little off topic but this morning I woke up to a nearly empty lower pond. We had over an inch of rain yesterday and it was overflowing when I went to bed last night.

My lower pond has 3 pumps running 24/7. The uppermost pump (thankfully), which feeds a nursery tub full of Taro befoore returning to the pond had its feed tube blown off location and was pumping water out of the pond.

While my upper pond was full, the lower one was down to 6" and my 8 breeder Koi were a bit concerned. Fortunatley, the Koi and the pumps survived. The pumps were all cavitating when I went out this morning.

Well, I fixed the misslocated tube, raised the pump to 18" and now I am refilling. It is a good thing I have concetrated sodium thiosulfate to add since this is a lot of water.

I have decided to fill it back up in 15 minute intervals, waiting an hour between. I don't want to shock them any more than they already are.

 

[koikeepr]

Re: Too Late for Koi?

JEEZ!! Isn't that the WORST feeling, Doc!? Going outside and seeing a nearly empty pond. It happened to me a few times, and that's why i finally went to external pumps.

It's a good lesson for everyone to raise their pumps off the pond floor so that the water will never be pumped out below it--AND to ensure your return tubing is also raised up higher, because the same thing can happen (even with an external pump).

Glad to hear you caught things in time and the fish were okay.

 

[DrDave]

Re: Too Late for Koi?

If any of these pumps were on a bottom drain, I would have come out to 8 dead fish. Because they are all submersibles and off the bottom by several inches, my fish are alive today.

If I had external pumps, they all would have burnt up overnight running dry and I would not only have lost my breeder Koi but the cost of replacing all the pumps.

There was enough water returning from the upper pond and it kept the submersibles impellers just wet enough so they all survived.

I remember my first swimming pool and learning how to use the vacuum. I allowed the pump to run dry for only a few seconds and I had to spend over a $100 to have it repaired. and that was back in 1983. Imagine the cost today.

Needless to say, I will never have a bottom drain or external pump.

So this brings to mind. We need a thread on preventative measures so this cannot happen to folks with BD's and EP's.

 

[CliffandJoann]

Re: Too Late for Koi?

Doc Dave, your pumps are in your pond?

We have a BD, however the pumps are in tubs that are buried in the ground
(outside of the pond) the same level as the pond, it is a gravity fed system
and can never empty out of water.

It's a good idea about a separate thread on this, as there are many ways
to accomplish successful pond building and maintenance.

 

[koiguy1969]

Re: Too Late for Koi?

thats one reason i use the prefilters, the submersable pump sits on the bottom but the prefilters are elevated so the water draw will stop even with the pump running..but the pump will still be submerged in water and cooled, buying time before fear of over heating, and /or burnout. not to mention pulling water from multiple areas of the pond with out running extra pumps.

 

[DrDave]

Re: Too Late for Koi?

Doc Dave, your pumps are in your pond?

We have a BD, however the pumps are in tubs that are buried in the ground
(outside of the pond) the same level as the pond, it is a gravity fed system
and can never empty out of water.

It's a good idea about a separate thread on this, as there are many ways
to accomplish successful pond building and maintenance.

Joann
This is simple physics; if you have a bottom drain, and it is gravity fed, and you have a leak such as mine was, the pond will eventually empty out, all the way down to the bottom, then the pump will burn up since they require water to cool and lubricate the impeller.

This leaves the fish high and dry. If you don't belive me, hook up your pump to a hose that diverts the water from the pond and go to bed.

By morning, the pond will be dry, the fish will be dead and the pumps will have burnt up.
Now, to prevent this, a float switch could be installed that would shut off the pump when it is too low. Then all you need to worry about is your bio filter and oxygen levels.

We had 50-60 MPH winds here last night, that is what diverted the water from my nursery. These things happen, and no matter how carefull we are, there is always something that could go wrong. That is why I try to avoid the things that could present a problem.

 

[koikeepr]

Re: Too Late for Koi?

CliffandJoann are right. That would not happen with an external if set up properly. I have a bottom drain and all is gravity fed like they described. The water simply cannot drain out in such a manner. Even if my pump goes completely dead or something goes haywire, no water can come out of the pond. However, I'm not sure if CliffandJoann have submersibles, but are simply in a bucket outside of the pond. Mine is a true external--meaning that it is not a submersible pump. It is fully out of water.

I also have an automatic shut off to turn the pump off should no water be getting to it--just in case.

 

[DrDave]

Ok, this is where we can discuss the preventative measures on ponds that might become drained if something goes wrong. I will try to transfer some related threads to this location.

 

[DrDave]

Lisa
We posted at the same time.

 

[koikeepr]

Yes! The lesson here is definitely the fact that when it comes to ponds, a shut off is a critical component in a filtration system--regardless of internal/external pumps, bottom drains or anything else. As your story explains, crazy stuff CAN happen with potentially deadly results or damage to equipment.

 

[newday3000]

I had raccoons divert my water fall return and empty my pond. Pump was off the bottom but still drained 300 -400 gallons.

I installed a float switch in the new 3000G pond. My vote for simple cheap and easy to install solution is float switch, to turn off pump if water level drops for ANY reason.

Cost my $40 at Home depot and works with submerged or dry pumps, water falls. any thing. Even gravity return system could plug the return and cause a backup easily. I don't think any design is fool proof unless the pump is turned off in response to water loss.

See this thread https://www.gardenpondforum.com/float-switches-uses-them-t4430.html

 

[koikeepr]

So right Newday! Get a float swtich as insurance and you can pack your worries away for the most part.

 

[rdk]

What is a float switch? How does it work and how do you install it.? Thank you. RDK

 

[newday3000]

it's this http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/...ecN=112149&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber&showreviews=1

you plug the pump into the power cable on the float switch, plug the float switch into the power
drop the grey thing into the pond, it's a mercury switch when it points down it turns off the electricity to the pump
if you tie off the power cord you can control how much water loss triggers the switch.
I setup mine for 2" drop in water will turn off the pump, but you can tie off the power cord to any amount you want.

since the float sits in the pond it can detect any amount of water loss any where in the entire system, no matter what type of setup you have.

cheap simple to install and protects from water loss anywhere in the system, water fall, filter...

 

[mrsclem]

Ok- one more thing to add to the spring list! I had the return from the bog get blocked last week and lost 1500 gallons. I was trying to find some way to detect a low water level. These look much less expensive than an alarm system that would do no good if your are not at home! Pond and bog shut down for the year.