Little Water Feature

[TrickyDick]

I'm building a small water feature (which I am refering to as my trout pond) in my yard. It will be maybe 5-600 gallons total consisting of two pools connected by about an 8 foot stream. MAybe a foot of drop with a fairly broad falls into the pool....maybe 18 to 24 inches. I've built a few ponds but nothing this small so I need some advice. I was thinking of using a 1200cfm Savio pump and a Savio skimmer. Does that sound reasonable? Overkill? I think the pump needs to be about that size to get any decent flow over falls but I'm not looking for a torrent....just a gentle fall. Do I even need a skimmer for something like this or could I get away with something like a 750cfm pump on the bottom with 3/4" hose?

Thanks

[Stonehenge]

lol - I didn't want to do the math conversion for cfm to gph so I searched Google for 1200cfm savio pump, and my first results was this thread.

I ended up finding a converter, anyway. 1 cfm = 448.8 gph, which makes your pump a 585,600 gallons per hour pump. Either I'm reading something wrong, or you probably shouldn't stand near those falls when you turn the pump on, because you might get blasted into the next county. By my calculations you could suck your 600 gallon pond dry in just under 4 seconds. That seems like too much power to me.

So for now I'm going to stick with a familiar measure for me, GPH. For smallish ponds like this we usually use something around a 3,000-4,000 gph pump. Makes a decent falls for a pond that size. To have a bit more capability than you might need (which is never bad), maybe a 5-6000 gph pump would be a better fit.

[TrickyDick]

hee hee...

Sorry my brain was thinking air compressors while my other brain was thinking pumps. You'd think two brains would make you smarter but alas....

Anyway- are you serious or are you just trying to screw with me cause mixed I mixed up my flow units? The last pond I did was about 4000 gallons, I used a 4500 GPH pump and it has plenty of flow. Maybe I'll go with the 2220 and makes the falls a little narrower.

[Mac]

dont they say you want to turn over the entire volume once every two hours or is it twice per hour... I dont remember exactly but its something like that.

[Stonehenge]

I thought it was once per hour for smaller ponds - bigger ones it's just not practical.

@TD - nope, not screwing with you. Though we just finished a small pondless waterfall with a 2200 gph pump and I was disappointed with the flow, so we swapped out the pump with a 3600 gph pump. Better, but 5000gph would have been even better. So our recent project is probably tainting my advice.

[Green Man Envy]

For filtration, you want to cycle through the entire volume of the pond every 1-2 hours.

[TrickyDick]

I'm only going to have 2 feet or so of head so I won't lose much flow. Even a 1200 gph will turn the water over twice an hour so I guess it is all about the width of thye falls. I read that 100 gph give a half inch deep/ one inch wide flow so 1200 might be a little lite. Not a big price jump from 1200 to 2200 but the next step up is double the price.

[Malrex]

I'd try the 2200 pump. As for a skimmer? I'm a fan of skimmers even though they can be spendy. I think they make a pond project neat and tidy. You have easy access to the pump and can keep things clean, and the box is semi-easy to hide. If you just have a pump in the pond, then you got to try and hide it, have to worry about it clogging up more, and it can be a pain to access it....this is just my opinion. Have fun with your pond project!! I always have a blast building them, just built a fountain out of a basalt stone, and plan to put 2 ponds in my yard soon.

[links03rjean]

post deleted

[Keith N]

We always start with at least a 3000 gph pump and go up from there and add a ball valve to control flow if we mess up our calculations. I've never built anything smaller than a 11x11 pond and our waterfalls always need at least a 3000 pump.

[livingwaters]

Stick with the Savio Skimmer for sure. The savio box is the best in my opinion.
Going without the skimmer will be something you regret later. It will save the pump from sucking in debris and make maintenance much easier. As far as pump size, I would go with a 3500 gph. But I like lots of flow over the falls.

[Rebecca_C]

dont they say you want to turn over the entire volume once every two hours or is it twice per hour... I dont remember exactly but its something like that.

I think Mac is right. I have heard this as well.

Let us know how it turns out!

Rebecca

[BlueThumb]

Savio does make a nice skimmer but I prefer the PondBuilder skimmers. One nice feature is they come with a natural cover lid so it hides nice from view. There are lots of great skimmers out there and you'd be doing yourself a great service by installing one. Without them pond maintenance is much more difficult.

[Tadpole]

I'm building a small water feature (which I am refering to as my trout pond) in my yard. It will be maybe 5-600 gallons total consisting of two pools connected by about an 8 foot stream. MAybe a foot of drop with a fairly broad falls into the pool....maybe 18 to 24 inches. I've built a few ponds but nothing this small so I need some advice. I was thinking of using a 1200cfm Savio pump and a Savio skimmer. Does that sound reasonable? Overkill? I think the pump needs to be about that size to get any decent flow over falls but I'm not looking for a torrent....just a gentle fall. Do I even need a skimmer for something like this or could I get away with something like a 750cfm pump on the bottom with 3/4" hose?

Thanks

The inclusion of a Skimmer should be a 'no-brainer'. A definite must.

I am a little concerned about your planned total capacity of 500-600 gallons divided between 2 ponds. At least that is how I read your post. 500-600 gallon capacity for one pond is small, divided between two ponds is going to severely limit both the quantity and type of plants that can be accommodated, not to mention that your only viable option on fish are just maybe a handful of Goldfish. Koi are out of the question.
In any case, if this is the ultimate plan, be sure to make the upper pond smaller than the lower pond or you will run into problems if power is interrupted.
A pump rated between 2000-2500GPH should be more than sufficient.

[UNL]

I agree on the post of a pump larger then you think you need, ball valves to control the flow rate and a skimmer is a must have as posted above. Better safe then sorry, you wouldn't skimp on a pond for a client and you are your client.