JRP
Platinum Member
So you are telling us that in three hours you emptied a pond with a shop vac and put the water into a 55 gallon drum. Are you sure?
pond siphon
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Taylortractornut
Elite Member
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No I just used the 55gallon drum as a vacuum tank to pull the pond water up the siphon piping. When the drum started taking water i knew to unscrew the end of the siphon piping to make the 6 inch flow. I could have used just the plain shop vac on the end of the 6inch siphon but It brought about 2 unknowns. Did it have enough pull to bring it straight up the pipe or did it need to build like a vacuum actuator? The second unknown was how safe a 20 dollar Chinese no name shopvac was around water. The way it rushed in the barrel was faster and more volume than my vacuum could take.
I do the welding maintenance for a friends catfish pond especially all the overflow gates and aerators. I just drain 2 to 3 feet out of the ponds to get them down below the metal flood gates so i can weld on them.
I do the welding maintenance for a friends catfish pond especially all the overflow gates and aerators. I just drain 2 to 3 feet out of the ponds to get them down below the metal flood gates so i can weld on them.
Sprocket1
Bronze Member
Instead of the shop vac, next time try taking a vacuum hose off somewhere on your pickup. We used to do that all the time at a coal mine I worked at. An engine will have enough vacuum at idle to do the job. Be sure and use something like the barrel though to keep water out of the engine. The old truck we used we didn't care about but you might yours.
Taylortractornut
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I thought of that but some of the lower ends of the siphons were easier to reach with the shop vac. Alhough iused to have a 250 straight six Ford engine on a stand with a single barrel carb hooked to a sealed box to Vacuum form hot plexiglass for some helicotper view ports i made once.
jymbee
Platinum Member
We did this using pretty much the technique described here by others. Cap the lower end, fill the pipe with water at the highest point shown in the attached images, then remove the cap. With the two 4 inch pipes it was pretty impressive how fast the pond drained.
[EDIT: WOW-- didn't notice how OLD this thread was!]
[EDIT: WOW-- didn't notice how OLD this thread was!]
OldMcDonald
Platinum Member
jymbee, Thanks for posting. I would never have seen the thread if you had not.
It is a long-term project. I have shallow well with my main irrigation pump attached to it. Without topping up the well I can irrigate most of the time for 3 to 4 hours. I usually top up (from a river that often becomes too shallow before I am finished irrigating for the season) so I can irrigate for 8 or 9 hours a day. The well fills again overnight - again only until about the same time as the river flow drops.
I am increasing my requirements for irrigation so will need more "top up" water. I have a borehole that will provide some (an unknown amount) with a submersible pump that I plan to install before next season, but I have an area of a bit more than 1000sq yds that is a depression and holds water at a higher level than the well. I am considering making this into water storage. Land drains and natural flow go into this depression at present. I had thought of siphoning over the spillway - it flows that way now through a conduit under the adjoining entrance road. This water is all wasted because it just goes into a stream a short distance from the river.
The spillway will be raised to help with the water storage depth, and some digging will be done too. I have not calculated how much I need to store. It will depend partly on how much I can pump from the borehole. I can easily run a 100m coil of irrigation pipe to the well from the pond. A small diameter will do the job. No calculations done at this stage as to flow rate of different diameters.
Would a tap at the well (such as I already use on risers from my underground irrigation system) be a satisfactory way of turning the siphon on and off? The siphon pipe will remain full so my gut feeling is tthat it will. The fall from the present depression to the well is about 30 feet.
It is a long-term project. I have shallow well with my main irrigation pump attached to it. Without topping up the well I can irrigate most of the time for 3 to 4 hours. I usually top up (from a river that often becomes too shallow before I am finished irrigating for the season) so I can irrigate for 8 or 9 hours a day. The well fills again overnight - again only until about the same time as the river flow drops.
I am increasing my requirements for irrigation so will need more "top up" water. I have a borehole that will provide some (an unknown amount) with a submersible pump that I plan to install before next season, but I have an area of a bit more than 1000sq yds that is a depression and holds water at a higher level than the well. I am considering making this into water storage. Land drains and natural flow go into this depression at present. I had thought of siphoning over the spillway - it flows that way now through a conduit under the adjoining entrance road. This water is all wasted because it just goes into a stream a short distance from the river.
The spillway will be raised to help with the water storage depth, and some digging will be done too. I have not calculated how much I need to store. It will depend partly on how much I can pump from the borehole. I can easily run a 100m coil of irrigation pipe to the well from the pond. A small diameter will do the job. No calculations done at this stage as to flow rate of different diameters.
Would a tap at the well (such as I already use on risers from my underground irrigation system) be a satisfactory way of turning the siphon on and off? The siphon pipe will remain full so my gut feeling is tthat it will. The fall from the present depression to the well is about 30 feet.
davesl708
Elite Member
I used 4 4" flex pipe to lower a 15 acre lake/pond 36" to do repairs. Worked great. Took about six days to get it down.