dredging silt

[esherwood]

i have a canal i'm looking to dredge out and figure yall would know more about this stuff then anyone. the bottom is very soft silt and i'm looking to use a trash pump to suck it onto my lawn. it's about a 10X10ft area that i'm trying to make 2ft deeper just not sure what would get the job done best. $1000 is about my limit but would like to spend less if possible, any recomondations appreciated thx

[RKC]

G'day esherwood,

To dredge silt (sand) will require technology different to the dredging technology usually discussed here (gold dredges). Gold dredges are extremely inefficient at moving sand ... most notable they can't move sand any great distance. There are also other problems present such as that gold dredges are very slow to move sand as they are easily overloaded with sand (and when a gold dredge overloads it stops sucking alltogeather). And sand produces significent wear problems on some dredge parts.

The ideal solution to moving sand any distance would be the use of dredges such as these www.piranhapumps.com/mini_dredges.html

But, as you are doing it on the cheap it would be worth trying a gravel pump. The extent you will have to go to with equipment will very much depend on how far the silt has to be transported. So, if a short distance is involved then you could probably inprovise something with a gravel pump. There are contractors who will move silt and this might be the cheaper option in the long run. It might be worthwhile considering using an excavator as its a small area involved and not deep.

Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[esherwood]

Appreciate you taking the time to respond. Yeah I've looked at the piranha pump mini dredge but 10k is way to much for my project. Wish I knew what pumps they where using because I don't need the float I can run it from my dock. I'll look into the gravel pumps

[micropedes]

Rob is right in that you cannot move the silt very far.

I have done something similar using my dredge pump to remove sand from the top of a gravel bar. No sluice. 30 meters of hose. And a little attachment across the nozzle called a bubble ring. That bubble ring injects air into the slurry to decrease its density and thereby make it easier to move. It works better for deep diving, 20-30 meters, but does pretty well on shorter, level sections of hose.  Just an idea to try.  But takes lots of compressor for both the diver and the ring.