Pond construction begins

[bekko]

KFG,

Is this a new well or an old well? Do you know how deep it is? Are they calling it a shallow well or a deep well?

If new... Professional well drillers are regulated these days and there are certain things they do. They give you a stratigraphy log showing what they drilled through and how deep. The also do a 24-hour pumping test. The pumping test should tell you what the well can yield. In addition, you usually get a water quality report.

If it's an old well, is there any information on the historical pumping rate? Probably not, but you never know.

It is entirely possible/probable that the well never has and will never yield any more water than it does now. There is not much you can do about it except drill another one.

There is one trick that the old-timers used to rejuvenate a well which had stopped yielding as much water as it had in the past. They take a 12 gauge shotgun and fire a high-brass shell or two down the well. The concussion would dislodge fines and precipitate and allow more water to flow. I would never suggest anyone try this and offer it as a bit of historical trivia only. I watched my ex-father-in-law do this once. He is not my ex-father-in-law because he was killed in the incident (although that seemed like a distinct possibility at the time); it's just that I'm not married to his daughter any more. In that case, it worked. This was before the days of steel shot and concerns over lead in drinking water.

I assume this is an above-ground pump and not a submersible pump. Correct? If you were sucking the well dry you would lose prime on the pump and the flow would stop completely instead of tapering off. The flow tapers off because the water level drops in the well and the suction head on the pump increases. The reduced flow is all the pump can pull up from that depth. A larger pump would suck all the water out and lose prime.

There is a remote possibility, but it’s highly unlikely, that something is becoming lodged in the foot valve. You would have to pull the pipe up to check it. The symptoms sound like you are just pumping the water level down.

I suspect that what you get now is all you will ever get out of the well. Therefore, you might want to think about getting a smaller pump. To get the maximum life out of the well, it’s better to pump it slow and steady rather than continually pumping it down too far and having the water level jumping up and down too too much. If that's not possible right now, they you should at least get a timer with more of those little tripper things so you can run like one-hour-on and one-hour-off. It will be better for the well, better for the pump, and you will get just as much water. You could also just slow the flow with a valve. However, the pump will still draw the same amount of electricity and you would be wasting energy.

Since the ponds are new, you are probably getting quite a bit of seepage. As things become water logged, the seepage will slow down. Did you put that hay in the pond? I was not convinced that was a good idea, but as the hay breaks down it will help seal the bottom too.

You should measure the flow from the well, calculate the pond volume, and determine how long it should take to fill the ponds if there was no seepage. This will give you some idea of where you stand.

Have you thought about pumping water over from those large ponds/lakes? Once the small ponds are filled and become sealed, the well will probably be able to keep up with seepage and water exchange. This is not a terrific option because you would also be pumping bugs, fish fry, and etcetera from the larger ponds. If you do it, put a fine-mesh sock over the pipe outlet to screen out the creepy-crawly things.

There are several threads here about putting down your own shallow well points - in case you're interested:
http://www.click2roark.com/cgi-win/w...ion=wbgetindex

-steve hopkins

[ranskye]

sounds most like the well might not be able to keep up that supply you need, surely it mightnt have been sunk deep enough to supply other than house and garden needs...but it could be your pump. do what steve suggest and pump water from your other dams. screen to under 100 micron. you will apreciate being able to fill them much faster.

i hear that our farm pump had be be lowered deeper once and its never ran out since then.

[koifishgirl]

Cant pump from other ponds because they are about 10 miles away from this place. I have been running the pump for long periods of times with the valve open all the way. I can run this well at least 6 hrs wide open with no problem except for the volume of water goes down about 40 mins after it has been running. I believe that I have the water in the well to fill the ponds, I think it is just that after your post I may be running it to long. I am going to try and run one hour on and one off and see how this does. I think you may be right steve that this would be better, that way the well is not being pumped down so fast and I should get a good supply of water this way. I will open only half way and see what happens. It has been kind of dry here lately and that may be part of the problem.. The pond was filling good untill this last week and when I went to check it had went down some instead of up. You may be right about sepeage, and no, I did not put the hay in the ponds but if it will help I will. I do believe since this is a new well I will have to learn the well and find the best way to fill my ponds. I am going to give this a try and if it does not work Im going to have my water hauled in to fill the ponds and just use the well to keep them topped off. The well is around 300 feet deep and the pump like I said is 8.2 amps and I dont know if this has anything to do with it or not.

The well will pump 10 gallons a min. and then after one hour it drops down to about 5 gallons a min. The pump is a above ground pump. I hope this help to determine what changes I might make to help me.

[ranskye]

a 300ft deep well? and above ground pump of 8.2 amps.. i dont know if thats how its supposed to be. my though was that when your suction head would be too great. we have a pump its a metre long and about 4 inches diameter and made for such drilled holes. about 4 kilowatt. we have 240v i think you guys are 110v.

either way i think its a small pump pulling a long way up. ask around and see what others are using to pump from their wells not for home use but on the nearest farms or maybe ring a company that doies the wells. better than a one of haulage.

[koifishgirl]

Sorry guys I posted wrong. The pump is a submersible pump. I think I have found the problem, I cut the power off last night and went back this morning to cut it back on and the switch that controls the well would not work until I gave it a good wack. I have lost a good bit of water in my pond due to this, but we are going to change the switch out tommorow and see if I can get the pond full. I believe I have plenty of water in the well because I can run the well over 6 hrs without any problems and I still really did not have a problem then, I just got tired of waiting for the well to go dry and cut it off and left I dont know what happened to my post but I typed this and thought I posted but guess not. Anyways I dont like the idea of leaveing a well running 24/7 without a good break, you dont ever know what will go wrong. My luck I would burn the pump up. I wish I could keep the water coming from the well at a good force for longer than 40 to 45 mins. If it would not drop it would not take so long to get them full. I guess you can have everything you want

[ranskye]

i know that one of our pumps would and can fill three million litre ponds, each one takes about 2 days max. the flow is fast through a six inch pipe. so its a big pump compared.
hopefully you have a well that can supply that if youd like otherwise youve got a lack of good supply.
i imagine that our water table is large ie it might only take 2 inches off the table as the water table goes and goes underground for a large surface area.

yours could be the same or different, your supply might be over a small area and sucking dry.. hopefully maybe its not the case.
seeing as your just new to doing this, youll just have to go through all the things that can make you wonder until you fix it and then you shall know.
welcome to the world of learning and creating remedy for the problem.
best of luck.
a good pump and wiring will show you what the capacity of the well is.
weve got a another pump in a different well that fills a 300,000 odd litre pond in a few short hours, the pumps half the size of a man, for that i am hugely grateful. its still going strong after 15 odd years.
someday you might try a bigger pump and feed line to save the week youd otherwise lose in production. for us itd be the difference between two fingerling crops and getting three in during a breeding season.. so in that it is well worth it for us.

[ranskye]

I just read one of your older posts and it might be like steve said in that it has junk on the walls of the well stopping it flow into the cavity as quick as it could, i imagine if your pump goes dry after six hours pumping through a one and a half inch pipe your pumps on the surface of a small table or its being restricted or its a pump problem or.. jeez it could be either of the three or another reason.
have you got a steel cable to haul the pump out? or can you lower it some more. whats the well diameter? 300 feet deep is pretty far down for filling ponds quickly either way.
your timer might be no good also. sometimes they get stuck and confuse you.
clunk the pump on without the timer and see if the water flow slows still and then get back to us.

[koifishgirl]

My pipe going down in the well is only a 6 or 8 inch pipe and I am not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. The well does not go dry after 6 hrs run time, I still have water but this is using a hose pipe. I put a 1 and a half inch pipe in a I lost water after about 1 hour. I think it might be the switch like I said Im not sure. It was filling good for the first two weeks but after that the water level started droping, thats when I noticed that the switch was giving me a problem. Its raining today so I dont know if I can get out to see about the switch. You may be right about the foot not being deep enough in the water. I am going to call the man that put the well in to see how far it is in the water and see if I can have him lower it some and maybe that will help. What about the tank that sit on top of the well does that have anything to do with the amount of water that I am getting from the well? I have heard that I need a large tank setting on top, what this has to do with it I dont know. After the 40 min run time for the well to drop it only takes about 15 mins for it to recover, so that is what leads me to believe that I have a good supply of water. I just have to figure out how to get it out and how to set up the timer. I think the one hr. on an one off is going to do the trick.

[ranskye]

sounds like your pumping the cavity dry, as it was pumping half the amount... could even be that the soil around the well is slow to release the water into the cavity as opposed to just the walls being clogged. like im on sandy stuff, yours could be more clay and the water doesnt flow as freely.

if youve got a six or eifth inch run up out of the well and then a 1 and a half into your header tank thats not right. im not sure hoew it goes exactly,you dont want to restrict it. i guess why they said you want a big tank is to put pressure on your littler outlet to make it run out faster.. i spsoe youd have water spilling everywhere if your outlet wasnt keeping up.
hopefully your six inch pipe would be have the water fall into the top of your tank. if this is the case your tank doesnt need to be big if your outlet keeps up. if your pumping into the base or more directly into the 1 and a half incher the is back pressure on the pump and itll wear and not be efficient in power costs. have a quick read up on friction losses, heads heights.. suctions and elbows and minimal pipe diameter, tapering and reducers..and lenght of pipe runs.. they all cause losses.
that is why you should pump into a tank unrestricted with the same size pipe that comes off your pump. then ensure your can drain out as quick as your tank fills.

[koifishgirl]

I checked the switch today and it is working ok. so I fixed the timer to where it would come on one hour and off one hour. If this does not work I guess I will have to call in the pro. This is really being to stump me as it was working fine the first two weeks and now the bottom has fell out from under it. Just cant figure what is happening.

The recovery time is very fast on this well so the water I think is there. I just got to find the problem. How can it work fine for two weeks and then just stop. When I am there it preforms as it alway has. I just noticed the problem with the switch after I cut the water off for the night and went back the next morning to start it back up and it would not start so I gave it a good wack and it started working. I going to get me a new switch and if this does not work, thats all I know to do. I really believe this is the problem. I just wish I could get more water out of the well. Was hopeing that it had something to do with the holding tank