Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.

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SusieB

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Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« on: April 25, 2015, 19:23 »
Is it possible to syphon water from a river into my pond.  The river is near, but down a steep bank so a lot lower down from my pond.  Is there a way to syphon water a distance of approx. 15 metres (with a drop of about 12 metres). 

It would be great to leave a hose permanently in place, and just 'switch on' the syphon if the level drops.

Am I dreaming, or is this possible?

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ARPoet

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2015, 19:30 »
To answer your question, why not rig up a solar powered pump, BUT, You may need a permit to extract water from a river. Webtake river water at the sports club in the summer to water the bowling greens, but we have a permit. I seem to think its free for us, but you should check first.
Roger.

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SusieB

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2015, 19:59 »
Fast response, and good point.  A quick Google suggests I may be alright if I want to abstract less than 20 cubic metres a day, but I will make further enquiries about a license.

Hopefully it will be ok to take the water, so can anybody point me in the direction of solar pumps for this purpose, so far I have only found ones for garden fountains.

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Elm street

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2015, 08:27 »
The local authority will more likely be worried about contamination of the river by foreign pests from any ornamental fish in the pond! Be VERY careful there is no back flow or you could be deemed liable for any cleanup they decide to charge you for and that can cost a lot of money!!

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Kristen

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2015, 11:04 »
Is it possible to syphon water from a river into my pond.

As your pond is higher than the water level in the river you can't "syphon" the river into the pond, it would only work the other way round (which would be useless of course!) so you'd have to use a pump, as others have said.

If you only want to top up the pond, and have electricity nearby, I would use a submersible pump and chuck it in the river for a long enough to top up the pond and then put it all away again (or leave it all there, for next time, if that is a realistic option).  Solar powered pumps tend to be disappointing, particularly in terms of lifting water quite a lot of height (rather than quite-a-lot-of-distance). Depends how often you need to top up of course. The smaller the pond the more often you will need to top up, but with less water [than a larger pond].

You'd still need to check up water extraction rights from the river.

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hamstergbert

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2015, 11:20 »
siphons will only work taking water from a higher point to a lower point (and in the case of limited volumes such as two buckets side by side or fermentation vessel into bottles, flow will cease as soon as the liquid is the same level)

To move water uphill (which is what you appear to be looking to do) requires input of energy.  Theoretically enclosing the pond in a gastight dome from which you pump air creating a partial vacuum would result in uphill syphoning due to the dp - which would presumably be the preferred solution if a government were attempting it without having to bother about such details as cost or reasonableness.....

In the real world energy needs expending with fun to be had choosing from where to obtain the energy (assuming you don't want to give the electicity board money to power an electric pump of course).  Solar pump is one easy one, install and forget for a while.  Could try creating a bottom flow paddle wheel sitting on the river flow driving a simple positive displacement (push) pump - could be a good design and build challenge for the CDT faculty of your nearest school.   At the least sophisticated end of course there is always the option of a bucket on a rope to dip and fill in the river followed by a trudge back up the slope to teem it into the pond!

It is theoretically possibly to install a funnel type of affair on the bottom of a restricted flow section (the river squozed between two boulders for instance or in a suddenly narrow gorge such as the Strid in Bolton Abbey woods) with a hose leading away although the extra pressure is unlikely to be enough to raise the water very high at all above the river surface unless indeed your house is right next to the strid!

Donley turning a wheel to move a ropechain of buckets?
« Last Edit: April 26, 2015, 11:22 by hamstergbert »
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Dantheman

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2015, 11:31 »
Hi,

You could try a bilge pump (for a boat) these have good flow rate and can pump uphill, to power it use an old car battery, you could charge at home it or rig it up to a trickle charger.

Hope this helps.

Dan
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cadalot

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2015, 11:51 »
If you only want to do this once in a while take a look at http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Drill-pump-heavy-duty-for-oil-and-fluids-suitable-for-all-drills-TE472-/141202201459?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20e04e9b73

Battery powered hand drill and your not mixing water and electricity.

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Kristen

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2015, 12:04 »
Whatever happened to the coil-of-pipe-on-a-cylinder which was rotated by the flow of the stream (which I saw on Tomorrow's World 40-ish years ago?) Looks like it might be  a Wirtz Water Pump:


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cadalot

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2015, 14:28 »
You mean the variation on an ancient theme

A-xPRbj88V4

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Kristen

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2015, 14:51 »
Indeed, although Archimedes Screw always seemed (to me!) to lose loads of water falling back down the screw, whereas the enclosed rotating pipe doesn't have the same issue (or maybe, at high pressure, some of it does "run back" rather than "be forced up"?  I mean  ... water doesn't compress very well, does it? :D

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Goosegirl

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Re: Syphoning water from a river to top up my pond.
« Reply #11 on: June 26, 2015, 12:49 »
Another option could be using a water butt that collects rain water from guttering that is connected via hose pipe to an aquarium float valve in the pond that automatically kicks in when the water drops to a certain level. I have one recently installed in my water feature and it works fine. Just depends on how big your pond is.
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