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Crazy idea to clear a lake
- Thread starter 673moto
- Start date
aighead
Senior Member
I don't know if they make a more industrial sized one but I just bought a weed razor that is basically a couple razor blades attached to a rake and a rope that you throw out and drag back to remove any crap growing up in there. It's a fair amount of physical work but seems to work really well in my small pond. It may depend on how thick the reeds are and how much access there is but you can throw it a pretty good distance. I've used the backhoe to try to clear out my pond weeds and it probably caused more problems than it solved, perhaps also by lack of reach but I now have some weird shelves that are in there and the weeds are just as bad as ever.
Bls repair
Senior Member
How about a couple machines dragging an I beam with chain attached up and down pond?
Reuben Frazier
Well-Known Member
If you put a mini on a pontoon barge all I ask of you is to please have someone videoing, you know for educational purposes
On a serious note I don’t have any useful advice but I’m interested in your solution. I think I would personally drain it down enough and use mats and an excavator but then again mud scares me lol
On a serious note I don’t have any useful advice but I’m interested in your solution. I think I would personally drain it down enough and use mats and an excavator but then again mud scares me lol
On second thought a mini could work fine. I'd be comfortable putting the swivel at water level, and making it work through the hole in the middle of four pontoons. It's the height and working over the edge without ballast that would get "educational"
I’m not a fan of mud either... but this seems like the easiest idea.
What kind of mats would hold up over mud tho? Maybe fab some steel and expanded metal onto beams?... wondering what would work without getting bogged into the muck
DMiller
Senior Member
Soup like pond silt won't support much of anything, more water than mud.
We had holding ponds for MO River mud we flocculated out of our cooling system water, wondered a long time how long until solids up until a Deer ran out on the crust of Pond one some twelve years out of service and we had decanted as much actual water off the sludge as feasible, crust broke, she disappeared in a blink of an eye, not a chance in hades of walking on that mess.
We had holding ponds for MO River mud we flocculated out of our cooling system water, wondered a long time how long until solids up until a Deer ran out on the crust of Pond one some twelve years out of service and we had decanted as much actual water off the sludge as feasible, crust broke, she disappeared in a blink of an eye, not a chance in hades of walking on that mess.
Reuben Frazier
Well-Known Member
You can buy mud mats made just for this purpose, just have to find a local place to buy them from or if thr to heavy for your set up I would think you could find a small lumber mill and have some adequate sized timbers cut and build your own.
Do you have any pics of what your up against?
Do you have any pics of what your up against?
This but pretty much all around the perimeter... its not that bad tho as far as mud goes.
I’m liking the idea of partially draining and using mats to track out
you can see the water level is already low... draining a couple more feet would be feasible
Reuben Frazier
Well-Known Member
How big is the pond?
~2 acres... it’s not wide but pretty long...(that’s what she said)
long reach would be the way to go but it’s 3 hours away and they balked at 2 days rental... and I don’t mind if I can figure out a solution to keep me here working... things are slow
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Flat Thunder Channel
Senior Member
We used to frequent a local island. The marina / bay area would always get congested with heavy allgy (sp.?). One time during a not busy weekday I saw the machine used to cleanup the area. It was a barge/pontoon structure. In between the tunes it had a wire belt conveyor that dipped beneath the water. On the front it had what appeared to be a homemade sickle bar mower blade operating below the water level. It was putting around the marina with a small outboard motor. The mower blade would trim the growth and the conveyor would lift the clipped weeds out of the water and deposit them on the deck. It was 100% homemade and pretty cool! I'll see if I can find a picture.
I’ve seen something like this locally at a park... pretty cool contraption
Flat Thunder Channel
Senior Member
I couldn't locate a picture too many common searches. I think my brain was turned off I meant sea weed or sea grass not allgy. Drrr
Flat Thunder Channel
Senior Member
You could make one without too much effort I imagine. Post videos / pictures of you do. I'd much rather go this direction than risk getting my excavator stuck. Oops didn't see the size of what we're dealing with until after all my ramblings. Sorry, didn't mean to steer your thread off course.
I've driven two wheel drive backhoes into worse than that. The problem is the reach, you can pile it but you'll have to reach it from the other side and handle it a few times. And the slop doesn't pile very well either.
If you do it with a mini I'd cut up some fuel barrels and have a tractor to pull them out, roll them over and bring them back. And if you do that, you might as well use a tractor like the desilting method and skip getting into the mud.
If you do it with a mini I'd cut up some fuel barrels and have a tractor to pull them out, roll them over and bring them back. And if you do that, you might as well use a tractor like the desilting method and skip getting into the mud.
aighead
Senior Member
Looking at your picture there the weed razor may actually be a decent option... You could definitely throw it over the growth and slice it all down. They make another rake that floats to pick up the junk you just cut down but a ton of money could be saved by attaching a pool noodle to a normal metal-tined rake to accomplish the same thing.
Tinkerer
Senior Member
Dewater the whole thing and go in there with a wide track dozer. You can make it deeper and eliminate the swamp like condition it is in now. IMHO.