You learn more from your failures than you do from your successes. Plus it's good to laugh at yourself. Hopefully people learned from my trial & error (and laughed). Thanks for the kind words
Ya that muddy bottom is no joke. When I was a kid, went swimming in a small lake dove down then pushed off the bottom. My legs sunk in the bottom up to my knees, had the damndest time working my legs out, damn near drowned. I can still "feel" that freaking cold mud my legs sunk into. If you're at a lake swimming make sure you tell everyone don't push off the bottom and why they shouldn't. Really surprised someone hasn't done a documentary on this danger.
here is the secret to making that siphon work. either run the outlet end of the pipe down into a bucket or big trash can to keep air from going back or put an elbow turning the flow upwards at the end. the last thing is with a 6 inch pipe choke the end down and graduate up to the 6 inch full stream flow
Yes, that was painful to watch trying to get the siphon to work. Run the outlet into the creek water, then all you need at the top is a tiny hole in a fitting and a vacuum hose to a vacuum source. Even a 1/4" ID vinyl hose would work. I like to use a gas engine for the vacuum source, but use a jar so you don't suck water into the engine. Start that siphon in two minutes with no effort. Or, dig into the dam, bury the pipeline and use a cap on the uphill side of the pipe. The drain will be very useful in the future, to remove suspended sediment, and nutrient rich water.
My friend, you are a hero. I actually mean that. Persisting through this frustration. I am subbing that. Too late now, but had you put the pump at the output end, you would have had to suck it once and after that the syphon effect would have saved you from having to refill gas, you could have basically switched it off and the water would still have been running, just like draining a gas tank. Suck once, enjoy the ride. So glad you got it running eventually! Is there a sequel to this?
Thank you for the kind words! As far as sequels, there's Part 2 (Dredging), and Part 3 (Fish Structure) on the "Lake Restoration" playlist on my channel. Part 4 (Dock) will be out in about a week and Part 5 (Fish Stocking) won't be far behind 🤙
hi buddy. i know that waterplants can be a pain in the ass sometimes but they are also very important, they improve your water quality very much and its also very good for all other living animals in your pond. they are also bringing the needed oxigen in your water. and also, when normal waterplants grow, the algae have less change to grow. i guess you already knew that :) cheers bro and friendly regards from the netherlands.
Thanks and yeah I don't want to eliminate all the plants but the hydrilla was out of control. The muck was the main reason for draining/dredging. Thanks for reaching out, it's cool to hear from people all over the world!
for me #1 check valve and glue all the pipe together. #2 get the inlet floating 1' 2' below the sufface of the water (not on bottom). #3 put ball valve on the outlet. #4 sump pump to fill that pipe. question , how far down in the outlet ?
Our lake overflow drains into the creek anyway. All man-made ponds/lakes drain into some other waterway. We met with someone from the department of natural resources who actually helped us set up the original siphon. We tried to put as little silt into the creek as possible, that got dredged out and piled in our yard to dry out and was later spread as topsoil.
Oh yes kill me now!! thass wahm talkin bout!!! @1:50 Pls pls pls tell me she's yours!!! I had to watch this at least 37 times-- okay some of those were in extreme slow motion-- this woman is what I live and aspire to and lie awake at night thinking about.... Thank you dear God.
Hi! The one way (check) valve goes on the intake end of your system (at the bottom of the lake). Position the valve so water can get pulled into the system and not flow back into the pond. Good luck!
Can not see that any angle comes into play here. The input must be higher than the output. The tubing must be airtight. Output must be restricted in som way to prevent air from entering via the output. A simple way is simply tu expel the water under the surface of the river. In a smaller system you may just use a bucket.
You should ou attached a hose to the intake end and used it to dredge out the muck. Then you would of had to wait less and move less once its empty. If you had to do it at all.
You have more water on the uphill side than on the downhill side, no natural suction. The siphon works on water weight and gravity. With the amount of drop you have the water level should get down pretty far, but physics never stops
I would think so. It is 50 years worth of organic, decomposed leaves mostly. I'm counting on it being great topsoil in our new backyard this spring. It did have a lot of small rocks in it though. I'll update how grass grows in a future video
Rain water in addition to several drains in the driveway above that feed into the lake. There are rumors of a natural spring but I haven't seen much evidence of that. I had grandiose plans of draining the lake completely and transplanting the fish but several people brought up the good point that I'd have to trudge through the heavy muck with a net full of fish and it would probably be a disaster. Part of me still wishes I gave it a try but it's nice having an established fish population still
You can't drain 'anything' with a syphon if the level of the creek you're trying to syphon 'into' is higher than the level of the pond you're syphoning out of. And that is apparently what happened near the end of your syphoning efforts. Helpful hint... you appear to be in a situation where, once your pond is empty, you can start to refill your pond directly from the creek by doing it all backwards, by syphoning the creek back into your empty pond... at least for the first several feet. You're a dope on so many levels, but somehow I love ya. LOL 💗
@@CityBillyAdventures To be honest, your 6" syphon is the biggest I've ever seen for the purposes of draining a pond. That size of pipe will move 2.2X as much water as just a 4" pipe. A 6" syphon is fast, very aggressive and a lot to handle. If you wanted to reverse it to refill your pond from the creek (to the highest extent possible in your pond), then a 3" syphon system would work really well... except that it would only deliver water at the rate of 25% the volume (per hour) as a 6" system. But so what? It would work flawlessly and take just a few relaxing days. Your creek is awesome and it could feed that amount of flow very easily. That method would also offer an automatic shutoff with no possible bad after effects, LOL. I'm serious... you might want to try that if filling your pond any other way is a problem or concern (such as if you might have to pump it all (or drain your well) in order to refill the pond). I any case, I got a big kick out of your video. You have a very likeable style. Thank you so much. Lots of love from Canada. PS: In the off chance that you might want to try my suggestion for refilling the pond... set your intake "at the creek" at the highest possible elevation in the creek... even if you might have to go upstream a few hundred feet. The higher your 'source', the higher it will fill your lovely pond before the maximum is achieved. For what it's worth, I'm an older guy, but an engineer. 👊
All great and very interesting advice! Could have used you last fall! The lake is full now, we decided to do it the hard way haha. Definately figuring it out as we go. Glad you enjoyed the journey. There's been a few update videos posted since this one, if you didn't see them. Part 4 will be out in a week or two (building a dock). Thanks for taking the time to reach out 🤙
