Looking For A Pool Vac System To Clean My Koi Pond

[tuffy]

I have a quite large koi pond in which a lot of sediment builds up in. It it too expensive and time consuming to drain frequently. I would like to use a vacuum system to clean the bottom as the water stays fairly clear. I am not sure what is available, It would need to be self contained with its own suction power. I guess what i am referring to is a large vacuum type cleaner i saw some maintenance guys using in a mall to clean their fountain. Maybe I could even build my own with a shop vac and filter set up??

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[cdnvic]

How big is this thing approximately, and what kind of pump and filter (if any) does it use?

[cdnvic]

If you can find one of these it would be ideal. Locally here they are about $4-500 CDN. I shopvac would be too much trouble unless it was a fairly small pond.

There's a Malaysian Koi Forum in English that may be a good source of info.

http://www.koi.com.my/

[tuffy]

Sorry it has taken so long to reply but my internet has been down for the last few days.

The pond is in a restaurant and is aprox. 100' long and about 5' wide 3' deep. It's filter system consists of oyster shells and a fiber top layer. Both are in need of replacing which i am working on. The maintenance guy used a chemical that really cleared up the water after about a week and didn't kill the fish. Not sure what it was but the water went from couldn't see the fish to crystal clear.

Now that the water is clear i can see the sediment on the bottom and a vac system would be ideal to clean it in between flushes. I don't really want to spend that much $4-500, but that looks like exactly what i need in the picture.

[cdnvic]

There are many flocculates that are non toxic to fish. They work by coating light particles and making them settle faster, and/or filter better. Considering the size of the pond you may want to consider a small sand filter and a regular pool vac., just hooking a hose into the system. A 50ft flex hose with a vacuum head and a pole shouldn't run you over $100. A sand filter will greatly reduce your need to vacuum though. A bit more expensive but if you planned on replacing the filter anyway, it kills two birds with one stone. The drainage and circulation method your pond uses will affect the viability of this option. You should have an overflow and bottom drain.

This type of head sits tight to the bottom and would likely be safest to use when fish are around.

[tuffy]

I don't think that I could hook this into my system, It has 3 seperate pumps that pump water from a divided chamber. The water enters the first chamber from the bottom by gravity feed from the bottom of the pond, filters up through the shells and spills over a wall into the second then through the fiber filter and the pumps draw from this last chamber.

[cdnvic]

Would one of these be better for you maybe? They run around $200-250. The cordless operation is a bonus.

http://www.backyardcitypools.com/automatic...Pool-Buster.htm

There are vacs that are hand pumped and cost under $50 but it all depends on how much work you want to make for your pond cleaner.

They don't really work that great on anything bigger than a whirlpool though.

[tuffy]

Thanks for the ideas Cndvic, i will have to keep looking to see what is out there, there is quite a bit of sediment that collects here so that had pump would wear out the maintenance guy!