I've seen people use two buckets, where one can flow into the other, in the top few inches of 'clean' water, using a fixed tube. I've read that you can use panty-hose over your pump intake to help it not feeding you dirty water. Also you could make a screen-cage for the pump which will help. I, too, wonder if I should do more to preserve my pump. I'm using a pool-cover pump, so it's made closer to the dirty end of things in its design.. I'm wondering if a pantyhose 'sock' over the end of the sluice might help, to catch ALL the tailings. My bucket sluice is run inside a rubbermaid. I put the pump, then bucket, then a big gap - the bucket is in the middle of the rubbermaid. If I'm careful, I can make a couple simple plastic baffles, to stop material from getting back toward the pump. I'll put a couple drainholes in the top of the baffles, to let water drain back toward the pump. One thing I did do was put all the tailings get caught by an scoop I have, to redirect the tailings toward the middle of the bucket & away from the drain holes of the bucket. I also use a huge rock in the bucket initially, so it will not float. I fill in the rubbermaid with clean water each time I start. It takes around 16 gallons of water to get rolling. I just don't like seeing the dirty brown water in the top of the sluice. It makes it hard to see gold in the riffles of the bucket sluice when the water is brown and dirty.
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