Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] pond help needed

Sue,
This problem is rather common, not just with pond pumps but with power heads in aquariums also. I work a lot with plastic canvas for both. Yarn works and holds up fairly well, and fishing line works well but is a little harder to use for this... but I make a box out of the plastic canvas, just big enough for the pump to fit inside. Using a small but sharp scissors or box cutter, I trim just enough to allows the connection ends to poke through, but all "open" areas near impellers and such, is enclosed by the plastic canvas.
I like the plastic canvas for multiple reasons... its cheap, its flexible, its durable in water, and easy to clean debris from the outside of it by just running a hand over it.
There are 2 different sizes of plastic canvas. I try to use the stuff with the larger holes/squares for large pond pumps and the smaller holes for working with small power heads or when making my own filter media containers.

You brought up a good point about debris being trapped on the outside of some materials, and this holds true with nylon stockings, which are quite popular for various modifications in the aquarium hobby. I do use nylon stockings for other things... but never to house a pump/power head, as it becomes clogged quickly.

Along the lines of nylon stockings there are laundry bags that look like a large grade of white mesh, for washing delicates in a washing machine. These are found at most department stores such as Walmart in the laundry section and usually have zipper closures on them. I haven't tried one of these yet, but it may be an option that is easier for you than the plastic canvas. It would need some modifying, of course, to get the type of fit you need for the proper protection, but I can see no reason why that couldn't be done.

I hope this helps.

Dawn

Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334

--- On Sat, 4/2/11, suemfrancis <peterelectrician@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

From: suemfrancis <peterelectrician@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [tropical fish club] pond help needed
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, April 2, 2011, 9:58 AM

Hi

I have an approx 6,500 litre pond set up last Aug. Last autumn I purchased an Oase filter unit and pump which cleared the cloudy water nicely but duing to the fact it wasnt recommended to be utilised in low temps. packed it away for the winter.

A few weeks ago I set it up again and to my horror today found 3 ADULT NEWTS (dead)STUCK half in and half out of the slits in pump (Oase pump).

On googling this problem it seems many others have this same problem (with various makes of pumps) with not only newts, but tadpoles and small fish getting sucked into pumps. I have found a few suggestions (nylon tights around the pump but some say the claws of the newts get stuck in the mesh).

For a short term solution I have a laundry bag that lets water in/out used to stop dog hair messing up the washing machine which I have zipped around it, but as there are no visable holes I would imagine that any dirt would not be able to get through to the filter? although the water is flowing freely, so the UV light will still be functioning.

Has anyone else any better suggestion???

Many thanks

Sue Francis

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