I have the old pebbles from the former bog on the ground around my pump to help keep my feet from getting muddy and to facilitate drainage. Yesterday I noticed that my pond’s jets were not outputting any water, so decided to unscrew them to see what was blocking them. Somehow several pebbles had gotten into the piping and were blocking the 3/4 inch opening. I can only assume they got in there when I redid my piping last fall since there is no way they could enter through the bottom drain then pass through the pump’s leaf basket to enter the output areas. Else the fish are playing basketball and dunking them in against the current. I guess I am lucky these weren’t smaller pebbles which could have been shot out like a canon to injure one of my fish.
So as a reminder to all you pond building newbies out there (like me) , block your pipes when working on them. But also remember to remove whatever you blocked the pipe with when reassembling.
Another pond building tip: for you return lines if you plan to use jets, build it with 2″ pipes and use threaded fittings to get the size down to 3/4″ for the jet to thread into. You can then always undo the fittings then clean out the larger pipes.
