Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Fountain placement

For a fountain, that is designed mostly for aesthetics and not good mixing and turnover of the bottom to top pond water, best placement will be where you can see its spray and hear it's sound the best. Remember water weights 8 lbs/gal and 5 gal weighs 40 pounds. How high can you throw that 5 gallons of water? But you are expecting the fountain motor to do that; throw heavy water high into the air. This requires lots of energy in the form of electricity. Using a fountain is not efficient use of energy to move and circulate high volumes of pond water cheaply.

When you get the fountain installed, watch it operate. It throws the water up as high as the motor permits. Then gravity takes over and the energy is transferred and forced straight down into the water and water movement is not very far laterally away from the spray pattern.

The other disadvantage to a fountain is the depth of mixing extends to basically the depth of the intake for the fountain. There is no mechanical action to bring deep bottom water to the surface. Falling warm surface water will not mix very deep because of the density and weight difference between warm water and the layer of colder water below. Thus the mixing area for a fountain is primarily in the near vicinity of the fountain. A fountain is good at mixing and oxygenating the same water over and over. This can be a benefit during fish kills when fish are concentrated at the surface due to low oxygen.