Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations waterfall pump and length of pipe

I'm adding a waterfall feature to my new pond. But I have a long stream in front of the pond and I'm not sure if I should pump all of the water to the top of the stream for the whole ride down into the new pond. I've got approximately 200 feet of stream above the pond and waterfall location. Should I pump all of the water to the top of the stream and let it ride its way down 200 plus feet? Or would it be better to pump a small amount of water up to the top and let it trickle down into the pond. Then use a second pump to move the water up to the waterfall location. Doing so would make required pumps to be smaller and perhaps use less electricity and wear and tear on the pumps. In order to pump my proposed water quantity, I'd need a pump with a head amount of 37 feet for 7600 gph. If I do two pumps, one can be a middle power unit for the waterfall and then use another small unit to just keep water moving in the stream during the dry season between may and october. 7600 gph is a lot of water to pump to the top of my hill. Would I be wasting water or electricity moving that much water 200 feet when I could do things differently and only move that amount 20 or so feet?

Dennis

I think you lost me. Can you post pictures and maybe hand sketches of what you are trying to accomplish? Where does the 200' stream come from? Is the waterfall in the stream? Is the stream and/or the waterfall your desired feature? It really all depends on your end goals.

Let me see if I can clarify the site and pond and stream locations. My neighbor to the north of me has a small pond. It is fed by an artesian well. So when it gets to a certain height, it has overflow pipes that drain water onto my property. She has two overflow pipes coming in at two directions. So basically I've built two forks of a stream to combine the two overflow pipes/streams. Then this new stream heads down to my new pond. In the middle of the length I've put in a small wide spot in the stream making a small pond for interest. I wouldn't want a stick of a stream flowing 200 plus feet down to my pond. So in river terminology I have a "Y" forked stream at the top, which goes into a small pond roughly 15 feet wide by 50 feet long. Then the a single stream comes out and goes down to my new pond. The stream ends with proposed waterfall that would be about 3 to 5 feet wide and have a 5 to 8 foot drop. Based on my computations, the waterfall would have to produce quite a bit of water to make it look like a waterfall. Therefore a large pump with a lot of capacity especially if I'm going to move the water to the top of the property and down the entire stream. Which got me to thinking - always dangerous.

My original thought was to pump the entrie amount of water to the top of the stream and let the water flow through the entire stream all of the time. Even when the neighbors pond overflow is not flowing, which is most of the summer months. If I'm going to have the small pond in the middle of the stream run, I'd need water moving in the entire stream to keep things from getting nasty and stagnate. That was the reason for a huge single pump to move that much water up to the top of the streams. But with second thoughts, I'd have to have a pretty well built stream bed to handle 7000 plus gph of water flow. So my second thought was to use two pumps and only pump some of the water to the top for regular water flow in the stream. Then use another pump to use right near the end of the stream just for the waterfall. This pump wouldn't have to lift the water for a 200+ foot long stream as well as the full height of the stream and waterfall.

I hope that clarifies things a little bit better.

My goal is to have a nice waterfall at the bottom of the stream going into the new pond. And have water running year round in the stream to keep anything alive in the small pond and to keep the water from going stagnate during the dry summer months. The streams are only going to be about 5 feet wide, with them more likely smaller when done filling in with river rock for a stream bed. In the end I might need the same pump for the waterfall as I would for the entire stream/waterfall pump. In which case then the question becomes do I pump all the water to the top of the stream or not. How strong of a stream would I have to build to handle 7000 + gph running 24/7?

I can't answer your questions, but I will try to keep the topic active.
If you pump the entire amount to the very top how will you keep from washing out your small pond? Seems like the fish will be washed down to the lower pond. Two pumps sounds more feasible to me.

These are great questions. I anticipate the feedback from experts. I would love to see an article in Pond Boss on man-made streams or water features. I will have a man-made stream from the well to the catfish pond and to the main pond about 100 feet to the first and 200 to the second. A gate will be in place to direct the water to one of the ponds. I have started looking at pumps and lengths etc.. so bring on the experts and in helping DL, it might help several of us.

Looks like we have two threads on the same subject!

Would have had three if I did not catch this. I am way too early in the idea stage. I would have to zig-zag the creek around and it may be around 400 feet long and need two or three bridges. This is a really cool idea. I wont actually know what to do with pumps for a while, but this will be gravity flow from back to front, and I most likely will opt for multiple smaller pumps, and if possible, air lifts.

Really neat idea.