Blackwater Creek Koi Farm located in Eustis, Florida, raises and sells Koi fish to markets in the U.S. and Canada. They require special ponds that are designed to allow the fish to grow in a healthy environment. These ponds need to be cleaned twice a year to remove the waste sediment produced by the koi. The challenge they face is finding a way to do this using the least amount of time and effort.  In the past they depended on centrifugal pumps that unfortunately lose suction and slow the process down. 

 
Joe Pawlak, owner of Blackwater Creek Koi Farm and his crew decided to try a 6" axial high flow volume pump and 24 horse power gas engine power unit from Hydra-Tech Pumps. The pond they selected was approximately 50' x 100' and about 4 feet deep (2-1/2 feet of water and 1-1/2 feet of sludge) with a total volume of about 150,000 gallons.

The first step was to pump the water layer to another pond about 200 feet away. The S6P easily handled this at a rate of about 800 gallons per minute.

Once the water level was lowered, the discharge hose was moved so that the solid material could be pumped to a decanting lagoon.

Then the crew started washing down the sludge from the banks of the pond using water pumps. During this process the S6P pumped varying mixtures of water and sludge. Since there was no suction to lose the S6P was able to run on "snore" allowing air entrainment with the liquids. As the level became lower there was a higher concentration of sludge and by jetting the sludge toward the pump the S6P was able to move this very effectively. 

Over the course of about 4 hours the pond was pumped down and the treating process could then be performed so the pond could be put back to use.

  

When asked about his initial thoughts on use, Joe had said "I really like the fact that we don't need to wait ten minutes for the pump to reprime. If there is water at the impeller it is pumping . I also really like the portability of the unit. Two guys can easily carry it to where the sludge / water is. If we were using our six inch above ground diesel pump, it would take almost an hour to reset each move.  Less chance of injury and more time to get other things done. I wish I had found these pumps 10 years ago."