cali guy,
presumably, you have bumped into the
PVC Trees thread . Take a step outside the box with me...
What if you did the same thing I did with the 4" dia pipe trunk, but don't cut the 10' length in half. Make the tree 10' feet tall and populate the branches on the top half. This would be perfect in your 12- 15' depths. The issue would be keeping it upright. OK, a little further outside the box. You do a cluster of 3 of them, setting the 5 gal buckets on the bottom in a triangle pattern. Leave the top 2 "limbs" off of all 3 trees. Put on a PFD, get in the water, and slip a full 10' long PVC limb from one tree-top to the next, connecting the triangle of trees from the top. You may want to use heavier pipe (1" dia +) for these top connectors because they will create the framework that allows the trees to "lean" against each other without falling over.
