I recently read Mike Ottos' new column on pond contruction where he mentioned several do's and don'ts; one of the don't was never to build a pond on top of a spring or down into a spring(I am paraphrasing)which I found very interesting and wanted to know if you guys have any more advice on this subject. Mike, Bob?

Hi Mark I got your email an sent you a reply and hope it helps.

The short answer is that a spring is where an underground aquifer runs out above the ground. So you are building a pond with a connection to another body of water below the ground. Water is heavy. The pressure of your ponds water column might not allow the spring to flow but make it suck. Now wouldnt that suck. Your pond would have a drain.

Or it might work fine at times of the year, and suck water from your pond at dry times. Or others might have wells that tap into the aquifer, and your pond would provide a supply to them.

Too many potential problems.

Oh yea, forgot...

The way to do it is to place the pond below the spring and allow the spring to run into it.

Seems like I saw an example of that right here in Tenn. in the latest issue of Pond Boss. They had done a great job of bringing in big flat rocks to form a little water fall or creek from the spring into the pond. I need to look at that again. Thanks

This what I have in my one acre pond, the spring is right at the top edge with willows growing up around it, it flows down over a big rock into the pond

Whoa, this is an old thread.

DairyFarmer: In your new pond, make sure the Spring is above the high water level. If not, and the water pressure in the pond is greater than the water pressure in the Spring, then the Spring becomes a drain.....

esshup, In my new pond the spring lies lower than the new pond, and will be out side the pond, Im trying to come up with an energy efficient idea to pump the water up an over to the pond. I have a 1200 gallon tank and a 250 gallon tank, Im considering using the 250 gallon tank to sit outside the spring to act as a sump, then pump the water up to the 1200 gallon tank buried on a hill overlooking the pond, then using a solar powered pump and let the pump run all day and then the water would run into the pond, and the 1200 gallon tank will act as a reservoir, something like this, as one can see I havent got all the bugs worked out. I know at high water times, like spring, early winter the spring can reach 75 gallons a minute, but at drought times it can drop to 20 gallons a minute, or less, so thats why I was thinking of putting the 250 gallon tank to act as a sump, then use a sump pump, or something similar, but it needs to be able to run hours on end without burning up.

Why would you bother putting in the 1200 gal tank and solar pump? I would just pump from the spring straight into your pond splashing it on rocks to add do2.
Unless I am missing something. Fill me in

Blair, the spring is below the water level.

I got that part of it I think but he wants to pump from the spring with a sump into a 1200 gallon tank and then pump it from there with solar pump into the pond. I think

Ram pumps have been discussed on here before. You should look into one of them. They don't require power and are driven by the current of your spring. I'm not sure if your spring would have enough flow to run it though

A link to a nice video on ram pumps and formulas for understanding it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4y_WWxWdn5A

Its been a while since I reviewed it, but you need volume and the elevation/drop. I wonder if a tank that would hold the water could be taken advantage of in creating more pressure to get the ram pump to work better...?

The spring itself dont have enough head for a ram pump, and your right I dont really need the tank on top of the hill, maybe I should use the 1200 gallon tank as the sump ? but where I want to pump it is up a hill that separates the pond from the spring, then let gravity carry it to the pond, I was thinking maybe a kind of siphon effect could be created,

This might be a longshot but I've seen drawings where an underground funnel was installed to funnel the spring water into a central location (kind of an underground diversion on the spring. At the center was a plastic culvert, buried vertical, with the top sticking out of the ground and a bunch of holes in the "upstream" side of the vertical culvert. The culvert would fill with spring water up to some equilibrium level. If you've got a spring that truly flows 20GPM minimum, then it might have enough pressure to fill the culvert completely. If the new surface of the water in the culvert is above the water level of the pond, bingo, gravity feed. If not, you have quite a storage tank with the full culvert that you can pump into the pond. You could automate the pump with a float switch.

Hogfan I like that idea, though it wont rise far enough to gravity flow I wouldnt think, I need to figure this picture thing out, I will work on that today