I need a pump to remove a layer of deposited silt from silted up ponds in my garden. The 4 ponds are only small (perhaps 3 cu m each) and cascade from one to the next. With recent rain and silt washed down from the feed stream, they are now basically full of silt and beyond normal clearing. I want to clear them out to prevent serious overflow if ( ) or when we get more rain...
Ideally a portable sludge pump (diesel / petrol / elec...?) with perhaps 25m of outlet hose to take the sludge away to the bottom of the garden is needed. There is no serious solid waste (ie no rubble, stones etc - it's just sand, with some floating leaves...)

I am new to this so looking for any experience, advice, recommendation and any known hirers / sellers of such an item.

Thanks! ...

Be true to yourself. That way happiness lies...

haven't a clue, but edited your title to make it clearer for what your needing as i opened the thread thinking there was another pump on my car  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Excellent - Thanks!

Yep garden pond advice needed! ...

Be true to yourself. That way happiness lies...

If you've got a good equipment hire shop near you just go in and ask - they may have just the thing, and if not they can probably advise better than we can. That's what I'd do, but then I'm lucky enough to have such a shop not too far away.

I have one of these

http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=1...tAodriQA3A

been excellent, can run for three hours at a time non stop. Dont buy the flat hose though, 38mm is useless as it wont go round bends.

I do the floor of mine with this, only to get what doesn't go down the bottom drains, I don't have sludge on the bottom but it pulls the crap up from the bottom and its over 5 foot down.

http://www.bradshawsdirect.co.uk/oase-pond...enance-kit

Thanks all for the advice & experiences... I honestly never considered (eg) HSS as I thought that a sludge pump might be a bit specialist but HSS DO have one... but I AM tempted to buy one like ad210358's so I always have it to hand... ...

Be true to yourself. That way happiness lies...

Ordered pondvac4... I figured that buying is a better idea than hiring. That way it's always on hand to keep on top of the sludge problem. It will pay for itself inside 3 hires

Thanks for the pointers, all ...

Be true to yourself. That way happiness lies...

It should be fine, don't drain the ponds down, just let the vac suck up the sludge and the water together it will make it easier, just remember to put the waste pipe somewhere as it is a dual chamber vac, one tank fills up, then it switches to the other tank whilst the first tank empties.

We've abandoned our pond owing to continuous leakage, so have a PondVac going spare if you're interested?
Russ