How can I protect my pump from murky water?

[Catica]

Hi! I'm hoping some of you can advise me... I have a water system that brings in water from the lake I live by. There is a submersible pump that is working well. My water system uses a 30 micron spindown separator before a 5 micron filter, carbon filter and UV bulb. The spindown separator clogs up quickly - about every 2 or 3 days, or more frequently if I am doing laundry. My lake levels vary, and there is slow moving recreational boat traffic in the area my pump is in. I'd estimate the water to be 4' to 6' deep depending on the lake level. I have only been in this house for 6 months, and I did have the pump moved to a new location in case it had settled into the silt. This helped, but not a lot. I am worried about my pump becoming overwhelmed bringing in all that silt. An online search indicated that any kind of screen around the pump could get clogged up, and since we have more winter months than summer months here in Ontario, this would not be able to be cleared if it clogged at the wrong time of year. The pump is on a stand, and my local plumber is of the opinion that standing it in a barrel wouldn't be the answer. Any suggestions would be welcome!

 

[Valveman]

As long as the pump is on a stand and up off the lake bottom, that is about as clean as you can get. Lake water will have silt in it no matter if it comes from close to the bottom or has a suction that floats just under the surface. Instead of a Spindown you might need a Lakos sand separator. Or maybe put a few filters in parallel to make it last longer. The last option would be to use a cistern as a settling tank, then put your filter system on the discharge of the booster pump.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Catica]

As long as the pump is on a stand and up off the lake bottom, that is about as clean as you can get. Lake water will have silt in it no matter if it comes from close to the bottom or has a suction that floats just under the surface. Instead of a Spindown you might need a Lakos sand separator. Or maybe put a few filters in parallel to make it last longer. The last option would be to use a cistern as a settling tank, then put your filter system on the discharge of the booster pump.
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Thank you for weighing in. Do I need to worry about the silt ruining my pump? The Lakos sand separator looks as if it addresses anything bigger than 75 microns, but I believe what is clogging my screen in the spindown separator is finer than that. To the naked eye, the water looks essentially clear with a few small pieces of debris floating in it...

 

[Reach4]

There are backwashing filters that could be of interest. For pure mechanical filtering, you could use sand. However that takes a lot of gpm to backwash.

There are a lighter versions. Clack Filter Ag is one. Search out discussions on that. That still might need 8 to 10 gpm for a 10 inch diameter tank. http://www.aquascience.net/downloads/dl/file/id/2132/product/0/filter_ag_plus.pdf

Some other media do that kind of filtering as a side job along with H2S or iron removal.

Anyway, the filters are usually programmed to backwash every so many days. The system would look like a water softener minus the brine tank.

The softener forum on this site is where water treatment and filtering discussions would usually go on.

 

[Valveman]

Yeah silt isn't good for the pump. They even make a Lakos that fits over a submersible pump, but I think it needs to be installed vertically, which you wouldn't have room for. You can also just put and automatic purge on the spin down filter. Put it on a timer and have it flush every couple days.

 

[Catica]

There are backwashing filters that could be of interest. For pure mechanical filtering, you could use sand. However that takes a lot of gpm to backwash.

There are a lighter versions. Clack Filter Ag is one. Search out discussions on that. That still might need 10 gpm or more for a 10 inch diameter tank. http://www.aquascience.net/downloads/dl/file/id/2132/product/0/filter_ag_plus.pdf

Some other media do that kind of filtering as a side job along with H2S or iron removal.

Anyway, the filters are usually programmed to backwash every so many days. The system would look like a water softener minus the brine tank.

The softener forum on this site is where water treatment and filtering discussions would usually go on.

Thank you to you and Valveman for your input. Much appreciated!