A FOOL AND PUMP (money soon parted)

[Louis]

OK,
admitting stupidity here,
several, days actually evenings, i filled the barrel part of my filter with 100 to 150 gallons of water, let it sit until the next night then turned the pump on to empty the filter part into the pond. I turn off the pump when the filter is low and fill it for the next night, i thought this better that adding water directly it to the pond, it allows for the water to warm up and clorine to evaporate, as well as check for leaks in various parts of the system.
Well every night the water goes up then comes down?
It appears i'm losing 100-150 gallons a night??
Right after i put it in??
did i hit a preassure point, where the water preasure is strong enough to leak down to a certain level??
a hole at this level somewhere, but where's the water??
losing sleep... is this going towards the house??

results;
3600 gph, emptys the filter in a couple of min.
3600 gal takes more than a few min. to cycle
through a 4" bottom pipe and back to the filter!!
-no preassure here!! the water is raising because of this!!!
and slowly going down as it enters the filter!
now i have a 3600gph running at half capacity or less..

[Jackie Ramo]

Louis I don't under stand your post.

You empty the water barrel into the pond, the water rises then the water returns to its original level? Do you have an overflow spout or whatever they are called...

[Louis]

hey jackie, sorry about the headache..

i was trying to explain that the pump fills the pond
from the filter faster that the water can return from the pond to the filter.

[Ian]

Hey Louis, Is your filter fead by a 4" bottom drain? The max flow rate through a 4" pipe (gravity) is aprox 4000 gal per hr. Anything that makes the 4" smaller will greatly reduce the flow, such as grates, bottom drain lid to low, and even 90's in the construction of the pipe drain will reduce flow. So if I'm understanding your post your drain is not keeping up with your pump.

[Merlin]

Louise rather than limit the output of the pump which will effect its use. put a splitter in somewhere along the output line before entering the filter. Use the splitter to feed a water feature of some description. The benefit is that the filter does not overflow and you end up putting extra oxygen in to the pond via the water feature. :) And no strain on the pump.

[Louis]

that's a consideration, thanks..
even if i split the pump output and loop it back
to the filter for more aereation...

hey ian, it has a few 90s a few 45's, and even 22's
i should have run 2 4"-pipes..

[Merlin]

Confused !wow! if you loop back to the filter will that not cause it to overflow again ??.

[Louis]

no...
it's the pond that's raising too much when the pump is turned on..