Water tank/fish pond cleaner.

[Guderian]

I'd like to buy a suction pump device with a long hose or nozzle on it with different attachments like a vacuum cleaner to clean out the dirt from the bottom of my water tank and also to clean the floor of my koi carp pond. What I'm thinking of is a much larger version of the small battery-operated suction pumps that you can buy to clean the bottom of an aquarium.

 

I've looked on Lazada and eBay but haven't found anything suitable. Has anybody seen such a thing on sale in Thailand?

 

My builder made one for his own use and I used to borrow it but he lent it to his brother up-country and that seems to be the last we'll see of it. It was powered by a small petrol engine and worked just great, though it could be a bit temperamental. I could ask him to make one for me, I suppose, but he's a busy guy and he wants to build structures rather than make machines so I might have a job persuading him.

[RichCor]

How deep is the water tank and koi pond (how much vertical lift is required), how fast do you want to suction the water, what size/type debris will be mixed in the water being lifted?

 

The safest/simplest option would be just to use a PVC pipe with a air-pressure hose attached near the bottom. The rising air will drag water and debris up the pipe. 

[grollies]

I just use a hose siphon and drag it across the bottom of the tank to lift out sand from the borehole supply. Works ok, bit slow.

[BEVUP]

Or how about a wet & dry vacuum, not sure how good they are but they start from 1300 w in power at roughly 3000 bht.

I tried attaching pond pumps with flexible piping but ended up reverting to Grollies method a 1 inch flexible pipe

I would presume the pool maintenance guys may use Vac,s as it would be hard to move filter with all the sand/ect in

Wouldn,t mind knowing if any one has seen these Vac,s in action

[Guderian]

The tank is a standard 750 l water storage tank but it's buried in the ground, not free-standing, so a siphon is not an option.

 

The fish pond is only around 3 ft deep but again its sunk into the ground so a siphon won't work.

 

The debris in the water tank should mainly be the sediment that comes with the mains water supply, so mostly fine stuff I guess. I'm not sure the water pressure here is ever high enough to move anything much larger along the water pipes. There seems to be a lot of this stuff, I cleaned the water tank 18 months ago and to judge by the state of the filter element which I changed just two months ago the tank must be filthy.

 

The fish pond is also fine sediment. Although it has a good filtration system which keeps the water clean, over time some fine dirt seems to accumulate on the bottom of the pond anyway.  You can see it moving when the carp flick their tails near the bottom. There's also some nooks and crannies where dirt accumulates. We used to clean it by draining the water off, manually scrubbing and lifting the dirt out, and then refiling it with clean water, but that's a lot of work and I'd prefer to try and get what's left after the filters have done their work by less intrusive means than draining the whole thing, which means putting all the carp and around a zillion pla hang into a big paddling pool.

[Guderian]

19 hours ago, RichCor said:

How deep is the water tank and koi pond (how much vertical lift is required), how fast do you want to suction the water, what size/type debris will be mixed in the water being lifted?

 

The safest/simplest option would be just to use a PVC pipe with a air-pressure hose attached near the bottom. The rising air will drag water and debris up the pipe. 

 

Yes, that would probably work but I'd like to buy one ready-made. Have you seen one on sale here?

 

My builder's invention provided suction with a petrol-powered water pump. It had a long (around 2 m) steel pipe/probe that meant you could get into all the ridges at the bottom of the water tank and clean it properly. The water plus dirt that was sucked up was simply ejected via an outlet hose into the nearest drain. Stones or gravel would block it but there shouldn't be any of those in there.

[Langsuan Man]

I have found many suitable on Ebay, but the prices may be reasonable but the shipping to Thailand is the deal breaker:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Swimming-Pool-Cleaner-Aqua-EZ-5-in-Handheld-Pool-Vacuum-Hose-Power-Spa-Pond-/272333028496?hash=item3f68503c90:g:9~cAAOSwIgNXpnXO

 

 

[Guderian]

On 16/01/2017 at 9:30 AM, Langsuan Man said:

I have found many suitable on Ebay, but the prices may be reasonable but the shipping to Thailand is the deal breaker:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Swimming-Pool-Cleaner-Aqua-EZ-5-in-Handheld-Pool-Vacuum-Hose-Power-Spa-Pond-/272333028496?hash=item3f68503c90:g:9~cAAOSwIgNXpnXO

 

 

 

Thanks, that looks like the kind of thing that might work. Yes, the postage basically doubles the cost.

 

Still, with Pattaya having so many swimming pools and companies servicing them you'd think it would be possible to find something like this on sale locally. I've never looked so I don't know.

[Langsuan Man]

1 hour ago, Guderian said:

 

Thanks, that looks like the kind of thing that might work. Yes, the postage basically doubles the cost.

 

Still, with Pattaya having so many swimming pools and companies servicing them you'd think it would be possible to find something like this on sale locally. I've never looked so I don't know.

 

Most swimming pool owners use the suction produced by their pool pump and filter.

 

I have searched high and low for such a device since I don't have a swimming pool  but a cement Koi Pond but have not found anything on the local market

 

 

I would buy one of the larger "vacuum"  type models in the US but  220-240 Volts is a deal breaker.  May pick up one of the water driven models next summer 

[Guderian]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I was thinking of asking my builder to make me a petrol motor driven version like the one he originally made for himself, but he's kind of unfocused and I'm guessing he might want a couple of thousand Baht for it. I must ask him. The water throughput from his original model was quite low, it took a while just to clean the water tank bottom. It might not be powerful enough to clean the bottom of the koi carp pond.

 

Maybe I should just cough up the postage and go for the one you suggested originally, it works out around 3000 Baht in total which is hardly a fortune?

[Guderian]

P.S. sorry for the delay in replying to you but I didn't get any notifications from the board that there had been a reply posted.