I have a few, hopefully simple, questions regarding a siphon overflow system. I'm in the early stages of building a pond(design stage actually) and my obsessive nature makes we want to know everything about it before I begin. If you haven't guessed I'm an engineer but don't hold that against me. I've ordered Otto's book and subscribed to the magazine and can't wait to get my hands on them, maybe some of these questions are covered in one of those places. Here goes.

I recently put in an offer on a piece of property and hope to be able to put a 2-3 acre pond for recreational use with my family; fishing, swimming, boating, etc. The proposed pond site is downhill of a spring so there would be water constantly feeding it; flow volume currently unknown.

My first question is: with a siphon overflow, is there a way to create a more steady outflow from your pond as opposed to the more on/off characteristic that comes with a siphon? I don't see a scenario of when you're just getting a trickle through them and the size of pipes I'm(at this point) guessing I'll need will flow a very large volume of water. That brings up the question of what happens with the ponds downstream(there are a few)? If this siphon came on once a month their water levels would also vary. This may actually be my main concern. I can see a pond across the street that's maybe just under an acre and looks to be in really bad shape. It always looks several feet low so I'm betting it was just a hole dug in the ground and leaks constantly. But, it's someone's pond and they would probably appreciate it if it maintained some level of water. If I put in a pond upstream and suddenly they were getting water occasionally as opposed to a steady flow would the water level drop enough to cause problems? Or worse, when my siphon kicked on and my 3 acre pond came down 6 inches in a short period of time into a one acre pond what kind of havoc would that cause? I know no one can answer that question but that is what is giving me the desire to have a more steady flow of water out of my pond.

There are still a ton of variables in the air so I can only guess at how often the siphon would operate and how big a system I would need. Could you size the siphon tube appropriately so that it's almost at equilibrium with the inflow? If you did that would you put a larger siphon slightly higher than that to handle scenarios when you get additional inflow(I actually like this idea). Or just let a spillway handle it(want to avoid water going over dam obviously)?

My next question has to do with dropping water levels during the winter or to work on the shoreline, dock, etc. If I wanted to drop the water level by about 4 feet, I understand how to do that, but how do you get the water level to maintain that for extended periods of time? In this case, where I have water constantly coming in, wouldn't I need to drain it back down every time it filled up? Again, I don't know yet how often that would be because I don't know how long it would take to fill up.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience with me.