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This is just something i have thought about before in systems with multiple system that say turn one off in the winter how long does it take the water in the system to go stagnant
Now i am sure this will be different depending on the systems as say a shower will not be much of a problem i would think as the media would just dry out but there would still be the water in the pipes whereas a multi-bay or bead for instance will have a bigger body of water in contact with the air.
But what I can tell you is I recently failed to re-open one of the valves on a side drain when doing some work on the garage system. So the line was probably left closed for some 6-8 weeks. It's a 2 meter run of 2" pipe.
Not wanting to risk anything, I un-did the valve and flushed the water out. It stunk. Hydrogren sulphide style. Then for good measure I popped a couple of virkron tablet up the pipe and let them dissolve.
I had a bad experience about 10 years ago. Thought I'd heat the pond with free heat from the sun. Laided a 35mm black water pipe out in the sun and on sunny days switched on the pump which indeed heated the water up a treat. No sun for 5 days and then switched pump on the 6th day. It must of pumped in 30 liters of water charged with bacteria. No difference for 2 days but then lost all the Koi over the next 5 days.
Kicked myself very hard and now pay to heat the pond
I'd say after a few hours it'd be a good idea to flush the water left in the pipes to waste and give the damp media a quick rinse in pond water before flushing that away too. I wouldn't leave any media sat in pond water to store it for any length of time without keeping water going through it.
I thought it wouldn't be long before the water would be off and have to say i have left my pump off before now to the shower (there are two pumps on each leg over the shower) when been out messing and they have been off for a few days and then realized and switched it back on and often thought i wonder what the water is like but touch wood i have had no problems but i better be careful.Luckily the pump that i seem to leave off will only have about 4ft of water in it so what with the other flow and then the new water i doubt it will make to much of a diferance...................................i hope
The amazing thing is i know a few people that do switch some of there pumps off during winter and a mate of mine even turns his filter off and then switches it back on in spring when it warms up and always says its all OK just it all goes cloudy for a few days can you imagine the "stuff" that he is pumping back into the pond
I`m not so sure you should call it `aged water`really, after a few hours sitting around without moving and starting to smell, `Geriatric` water would be a better term.
Interesting subject as over the summer months when i'm feeding heavy i have the objection of feeding the skimmer rather than the koi. So i set my skimmer pump via timer to turn off between 5am and 10pm. It only runs overnight for the months April - Dec. I find this enables me to feed heavy and leave pellets on the surface of the pond and not lose them to the greedy skimmer as currently i don't use an autofeeder.
I have never noticed any ill effects from doing this as yet.... maybe set the skimmer to turn off for shorter times as maybe an autofeeder fires?
this is because of how we term "stagnant water" in hydrology terms "stagnant water" means simply, Motionless water no longer flowing , nothing more than this.. the dictionary reference to stagnant does not imply water that has nasty side effects, thats a slant we have put on it , that covers a whole host of problems but nothing specific what we are refering to what ever that may be certainly has no bearing on the term stagnant
I have a separate pump for the waterfall and it has its own in line filter. Last year I turned it off for the winter and it was stinking by the spring but luckily I ran the water or was it pure H2S to waste.
This winter I put a cheap clock timer on the waterfall pump and it runs it half an hour twice a day and this weekend when I checked it was fine.
Nature abhors stagnation (like in the appendix) or diverticulum (which translated from the Latin means "a wayside inn of ill repute") I will leave you to translate the translation into English. If there is no flow there is the potential for the accumulation of nasties and the build up of bad bugs.
When was the last time we all ran a cleaning rod up some of our long runs of pipe (including the flexible ones)? I pulled through a large bottle cleaning brush through one of mine and was surprised at the C%&P that came out. I learnt that from my time as a student working with real ales. We always kept our pipes clean !
