enlarging pond and deeping it.

[boggen]

this is one of them multi year projects. as i work around the weather, and dealing with all the other projects.

maps.google.com
"print screen button"
edit->paste-> into microsoft paint
edit->paste-> "transparent selection

edited different areas from google maps.

the dam is to small to get the 555C loader/backhoe across it. so i had to build a quick culvert at other end of current lake. to get across and around it. bad part of it is. all the run off water goes right through that area. so only time i can work without constantly getting stuck is when everything is mostly dry.

 

[boggen]

EDIT: adding pictures of different things, (just what ever i could quickly find googling)

multi problems that need to be deal with this lake.

pond use to be approx 10 to 11 feet deep. and now 2 to 3 feet deep (3 feet is pushing it) and just tons of silt from nearby fields have ran into it. filling it up and turning it, into basically swampy mess.

over the years i have looked into what it would take to clear the lake back out and gain its depth.

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i have thought about building a 55 gallon barrel dock. and using a gas powered trash pump. and just pumping the black smelly almost sewage like muck in bottom of the lake up to a higher spot.

there are different types of trash pumps. some light duty, for example a sump and trash pump or rather sump pump in folks basements to keep there basement dry. then you can get into more heavy duty trash pumps that are cast iron and bigger motors. then you can get into larger pumps still from PTO driven on back of tractors, to larger size gas powered units, to 220 volt units.

they all have there problems majority of units have some sort of screen or mesh around the impeller. that does not work to well if you want to plumb hoses to both in / out take sides of the pump. and/or the mesh does not allow you to sink the pump down into the mud so the mud gets sucked away as well.

internet search keywords sand,dirt,mud,slurry, trash pumps

things to look out for, "solid size diameter", and percentage of mud vs water.

Semi-Trash Water Pump ONLY For Threaded Shafts, 3in. Ports, 14,160 GPH

IPT by Gorman-Rupp Submersible Shredder Sewage Pump 4in. NPT, 3 HP, 230 Volt, 220 GPM, Model# 5765-IPT-95

Wayne Switch Genius Submersible Sump Pump 3/4HP, 4300 GPH, Model# CDUCAP995

Tsurumi Automatic Sand/Trash Pump 2in. Discharge, 3000 GPH, 39ft. Max. Total Head, Model# IHSZTDAA3

Sludge Master Air-Powered Trash Pump 18,000 GPH, 2 1/2 HP Motor, Model# SMA3-A

IPT Trash Pump 390cc, 4in. Ports, Model# 3994-IPT-96

Pacer Self-Priming Trash Pump 22,800 GPH, 305cc, 3in., Model# TE3TBBE8AC

NorthStar Semi-Trash Pump 4in. Ports, 23,040 GPH, 5/16in. Solids Capacity

TrunkPump PTO-Powered Water Pump 3in., Model# TP-3PT

TrunkPump PTO-Powered Water Pump 3in., Model# TP-3PT

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machinetrader.com -> Pump


HAZ Series

Mud Sucker 3FA-M



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so i ended up on "gold mining" websites eventually. and there river bank / shore line setups, and floating setups. were they use most of the time a gas powered engine hooked up to a rather pricey pump. and use a ""jet"" ((if you know what a ventri is like on a fish tank that pulls in air bubbles to aerated the fish tank, then you have idea what a jet is like)) though jet for this setup is a tad different in use. due to you are pumping in high pressure very fast moving water. into a main larger size pipe. that sucks up muck at one end. and delivers lots of water and rock / mud to some sort of setup on bank to sort stuff out to find the gold.

they look like pretty nice setups. but the problem with these setups. is you are limited to how high you can raise the end of pipe above the water in the river or in this case lake water level. and when you get into thicker mud. or get to much rock / mud in the pipe vs amount of water and keep things moving at a good rate. you will end up with clogs. which results in tearing things apart and cleaning everything out.



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[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]3600P[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]3" - 6.5 HP Intek Pro Jet Flare Dredge w/Power Jet[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1] $2,650.00[/SIZE][/FONT]
((multi DIY suction dredges out there on internet)) for mining for gold, granted for silt removal no need for sluice box and like, but... *shrugs*

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the above stemmed a couple problems. the first problem. i may need a cutting edge. down in the water. to help stir the dirt / muck up. so it will more easily be sucked up.

and the other problem. is limited by height say 5 to 8 feet max height. i can raise end of hose up.

on the first problem. i started thinking of how i could setup like a small little tiller head on end of pipe. for example could i take a gas powered weed-eater with a straight shaft. and then get its little tiller option they some of them have. and just make a long shaft that goes down into the water.

could i perhaps get a small 10 to 20 hp riding lawn mower engine. and some how setup a 3pt hitch setup to run a post hole digger with longer attachments for deeper depth.

Trimmer Plus Cultivator Attachment for Split Boom Gas Trimmers, Model# GC720

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above lead me to 3pt water pumps on tractors that have any were from 6 feet to 80 feet long drive shaft, with hydrualic wheels. to just back it up into lake. and start pumping stuff out. looking at the units and more so the ""blade"" i didn't think it would provide enough strength after removing shields. to let me stir up muck in bottom of lake and pump it out. and from what i can tell. are mainly meant to help aerate a lake. pulling water from deep in the lake and then pumping water back into it. via sprinklers or fountain. to help get descent dissolved oxygen levels going.



Trailer Centrifugal Pumps - 540 RPM PTO

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i then thought about modifying an out board motor. for a small bass boat. that ya just set down on rear end edge of the boat. hook up a small battery if need be to start it. and just extending the shaft and perhaps propeller down. my confidence in went down, after listing to my uncle. having to replace multi propellers, drive shafts, engine seals etc... due to hitting a rock. or getting it into the mud.

2010 Yamaha Complete Outboard
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up till recently, i have pretty much passed on idea, of running hydraulic lines off of a tractor a couple hundred feet. down to a hyd motor that turns tiller tines or something down under water.

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i have also looked into the pump end (casings, propellers, blades, etc...) along with different types of engines. for example a concrete pump, rock pump, sewage pumps for lagoons, sewage, ponds, etc...

i start getting a frowned face, when i start read about vibrations. of just mud, and smaller rocks hitting the blades and causing enough vibrations to crack the blades or housing, or bending shaft to engine. or breaking seals and sending oil all over the place. then the need for high quality metal to deal with things. then i start seeing price tags *big frown*

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i have also thought about create a ""huge pond vac"" not a wet dry vac but a wet vac. there is a difference. a regular wet/dry vac. normally requires air to be sucked in along with the water to cool the motor and if you do not the motor ends up dieing very quickly. while a wet vac is geared to allow external ventilation to happen to all the motor to cool.

but then i thought how in the world could i dump all the muck out. and make it easy to re-seal. i gave up on this idea fairly quickly.


Shop-Vac 5-Gallon Wet/Dry Vacuum

Oase Pondovac 3

there are companies out there, that have large size "vac trucks" and then drop off containers, that could be used. but pricing is way way way to high!

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folks talk about "drag lines" or "clam shell cranes" bought new, costs more than the farm and everything on it! bought used, would i actually be able to deal with mechanical problems and all the high tensil strength cables. and keep it from ended up on its side and in the lake. i gave up this idea fairly quickly.

i then thought about well. the one hill side is 40 plus feet high compared to other side. perhaps i could rig up some cables bank to bank as guide wires. that idea went out fairly quickly, way above my head.

i thought about renting or having someone come in with say a 20 foot or 40 foot excavator. *shakes head no real fast* no thank you, renting, on top of amount of fuel it goes through out of budget.

machinetrader.com -> Crane -> Crawler / Dragline (1135)

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i also searched for "dredges" *big frown* it took a couple years before companies started showing smaller size lake dredges for 1/2 acre to 3 acre lakes. everything else were units that were bigger than my lake, and were used on ocean shore lines, and on large size rivers.

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there are now a few mini dredges. they can actually be placed on a trailer that is 7 to 8 feet wide, and not stick 20 feet up in the air. so you can actually trailer them without having some sort of specialized "over sized load" or width / height constraints.

looking at the units available. it is what i have been wanting to DIY. pontoons vs a dock made out of 55 gallon drums. i can live with that. they have figured out and done math for pump and engine. so if rocks / mud / slurry goes through pump you are not damaging things ((more or less a booster pump)). and have a secondary pump for "jet" use. get more suction at the nozzle / suction end of hose. some units have a trash pump setup were you drop the end of pump down into mud to stir things up and pump the mud out. some come with extra pulleys and like. so you can put some guide wires around lake. punch in some control commands. and let the entire unit move around automatically. and just go out with a boat to fill with gas. or pay for high grade 220 or 110 electrical line cables to the unit.

i do not know any better. because i have never done it myself. but i am dis-appointed. in not having some sort of boom with a snow blower or tiller head attachment on the end of it. even just a little 4" to 8" or up to a couple feet wide. with a small hydraulic cylinder and hydrualic motor on the unit to raise and lower and run the tiller attachment on it. surely someone could take say a 5hp engine or like and a smaller pto pump match things up. and go. put up some guide wires. and if need be a hand crank. and a couple gears. to pull / push you along the lake bottom. just like if you were tilling, but in this case, tilling and sucking up muck and water and pumping it away.

perhaps it is a simple combination. of having enough suction power without need of some sort of tiller attachment. and mud to water ratio that works out. and a tiller attachment would over load water to mud ratio to a point of being to much mud. and setups are geared for silt, and less harder compacted earth. and companies figuring once ya hit that hard of dirt. you would be better of draining the smaller size lake and getting in excavators, and dozers to do the work.



Pond Dredging with the FLUMP Dredge

Crisafulli FLUMPTM Dredges




Piranha Pumps



Piranha Pumps

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i have looked at "floating tractors" for example use in swamps, to clean them out. along with tracked units. all from excavators, to dozers, to other. including extra wide tracks. and costs went through the roof.

username 20 20 permlink to post/thread #37 (permalink) and #39 (permalink)

20 20 notes about using timbers and like bolted together as platforms to roll excavator out on to.

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i have looked at buying used dozers, vs renting, vs hiring the job out. along with excavators, dump trucks / dump trailers, semi's and dump trailers for them. and price caught me off guard by a good amount! way to high, at least this point in time.

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talking, emailing, searching the internet. many times i will see, spoils ((mud, silt, etc.. taken from the lake)) requires a 1 to 3 to dry out before it can be driven on, and like.

along with folks getting stuck with tracked units (dozers, excavators, etc...) and then requiring a small fortune some times almost as costly as the unit itself that got stuck to get them unstuck.

so at this point in time, i am thinking about busting a hole in the dam. draining the lake, and as it dries, slowly trenching into the lake as time allows. to allow the "spoils still in the lake" to dry and allow the water table for area and water in the spoils to drain out, ((basically turning the lake back into a ravine)) for a few years. so that i can, then just drive right on top of all the silt and either use the 555c TLB (tractor loader backhoe) or perhaps at that time get a used dozer, and as time and gas and cash allows digging things out.

it is either above, or see about finding a used mini dredge. and pumping the stuff out. both have there con's and pro's. right now i have a well that requires the water table in the area, to keep it full of water.

on other hand. i still need to move tons of dirt on opposite end of dam/lake. and dig things down to 1 to 2 feet above current water level. as more of prep work. so when it comes time. for spoils perhaps it will be a quicker doing.

diagram and some other info for above #31 (permalink)

EDIT: adding pictures of different things, (just what ever i could quickly find googling)

EDIT: adding some additional things to below....
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folks can buy them cheap 5 to 30 buck pond vacs. that hook up to a garden hose and act kinda like a siphon. to pull muck up and out of folks small back yard liner ponds. perhaps doing something like that but upgraded to 4" pipe and a nice beefy gas motor driven water pump.

 

[GLyford]

EDIT: adding pictures of different things, (just what ever i could quickly find googling)

Some neat ideas there.

Have you seen a "hydro rake"?

I've seen a few stories of these being used in the news.

I don't know what guys who run those charge to dredge a lake, but if it was at all reasonable I'd be tempted to just have them do it.

Making your own looks deceptively easy, mount a towable backhoe (such as www.ubuilditplans.com and others) on pontoons, with about a 4' long section of landscape rake instead of a bucket. Looks like most of them mount a couple paddlewheels onto hydraulic motors for getting around (probably to keep from tangling props when used to clear weeds) but if just silt not weeds are the problem a regular boat motor might work?

I say deceptively because the hard part is no doubt in the details. Getting the flotation wrong a few times could get expensive, and it's probably really easy to wreck the barge with the arm, or to wreck the rake against the barge.

Here's another idea that won't help you dredge at all, but might help you manage the lake. Could you section off a smaller part, near where the water flows in, to be a settling pond? Dredging a small pond a few times a year might be easier than doing the whole lake every time (especially if all of the settling pond can then be reached from shore). If you did that first, it might even slow down the new silt enough that you could "catch up" on the rest? Just kinda thinking out loud here.

 

[boggen]

if ya ever dragged moss out of a lake. and more so if ya thought you could do it with a small bass boat. example 10 to 14 footer approx 4 foot wide. using metal garden rakes. you quickly understand how heavy the stuff is. granted once you get it up on shore line and you spread it out so it dries over a couple days. the stuff is extremely light. *figures*

i have rigged up a 4 foot drag harrow with a couple metal pipes bent to act like skies on bottom side of it. and pulled it across shore lines before. using s10 blazer with long ropes and cables. worked out pretty nice. to remove the moss but not cattails, and other vegetation. and did not solve problem long term. removing silt and roots = long term problem fix. (not counting any reshaping or edging underwater near shore line.)

the motorized rake you show. looks nice! and for some folks, that unit may be just the key to some areas of there lakes for temporary doings in attempt to reclaim there shore lines and lower depth spots. i would imagine it also allows folks to help rip out roots and bulb like plants with ease as well.

though i would imagine. that piles of vegetation happen right on the shore line just within the water. due to not being able to drive the unit up onto softer dirt. and perhaps needing backhoe or excavator. to pull the piles once made up and out of the lake. so the decaying matter does not harm the lake.

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as far as swapping rake for a bucket. hmmmsss. don't know about that. would have to get on the unit and see how fast it would move across water with full bucket of muck. and how big the bucket was.

as you noted, hitting bucket up against the flotations. and looks like only way to get full depth digging is straight down center between the 2 floats. which would be very limiting factor

 

[BruceWard]

Looks like you have done a lot of research.

I can not image any of these methods being cheaper or more effective than an excavator with a large bucket and a dump truck for a day or two. In my area, after some shopping around, you can find an older but quality 20 ton excavator for $100 an hour. They move a yard or more of material with every scoop.

Another option would be to sell the material. You might find a local excavation company who would break the levy, then truck the material away to customers and rebuild the levy when they leave. Alternately you could sell the material yourself possbily making a profit.

 

[Localmotion]

About 10 years ago we had to dam and dredge several ponds for the Forestry Commission in the Forest of Dean (UK).

Despite hiring in the biggest pumps we could locally source, we had endless trouble with them silting up and especially with Eels blocking the inlets. The problem was that this generally happend at night - the pumps would cut out and by morning the pond was half full again.

The problem was solved by a friend of mine who operated a slurry spreading business for local farmers. He came along with his umblical slurry pump and a slurry stirrer. The stirrer prevented anything too solid from reaching the pump, while the tractor mounted slurry pump shifted not only the water, but also quite a lot of the sludge which we had planned to remove by excavator. The umbilical pipe delivered the water / sludge mix direct to the tip site (nearly a mile away).

If you have any dairy farmers in your area, see if any of them have access to an umbilical system...