[Stonehenge]

What are the basics of a pondless waterfall? Just create a shallow pond filld with gravel? Where/how is the pump located? Buried out of site? How do you create a place the water will flow into the pump chamber (skimmer box in Aquascape kits), without filling up with stone?

[Will Pacala]

From what I understand there really is no filter except that of the pump. The waterfall drops the water right in to the gravel filled lined hole. At the bottom sits a plastic Thingy and the pump inside that thingy. I'll try to get pictures to better explain.

[Stonehenge]

Please do. It sounds like that system would require removal of all the stones in order to pull the pump come winter. I'm hoping that isn't the case.

[chesie]

It has a "vault" with the pump in it. So when you need to remove the pump you pull back a little gravel to expose the lid and pull it up out of the vault


I know alot of guys say you can build these systems yourself and get these parts here and there but I like Aquascapes or similar systems. They pack everything together and you cant possibly forget anything cept a shovel, rock and water.

[Bill Schwab]

Jeff:

Just imagine a sump pit from a basement, the pump lies within. On thop, a screen that supports the weight of gravel. Then the gravel. The only tricky thing is in the use of the pump. Too much pump and you will suck the pit dry before the water falls and trickles into it. Not enough pump and you will change the effect of the falls dramatically.

One way we have been able to conrtol this is by using an in line ball valve as a flow restrictor on the outgoing line. If the pit pumps dry too fast, crank in a bit until you get the effect you are looking for without pumping the pit dry.

These types of water gardens work best in indoor, and courtyard spaces, along with these disgustingly small back yards of the new 800K plus tract homes in Southern California. My thoughts are that if you are going to do a water fall, do it right, allow polants and fish to be in the pond as well. But, that is jut me.

[Stonehenge]

These folks want as small a water feature as they can, sans pond - and they have one of the smallest backyards I've ever seen.

Thanks for the info.

[diginahole]

Restricting the outflow on a pump will wear it prematurely. I would rather see you tee off the line and put some back into the pit if it is flowing to fast. Less stress on the pump equals longer pump life and happier customers. Of course choosing the correct pump would be the best option.

[jwholden]

I thought that most of Aquascapes stuff came 'prepackaged'. You choose the package that meets your requirements and they can help you choose the size pump if neccesary. I know they tell me their customer service department is more than happy to help with questions like this. You may want to try giving them a call, and let us know how you make out.

[dan deutekom]

On commercial fountains they quite regularly restrict the flow of the pump. I can see the added stress added to a positive displacement pump but I can't see how a centrifugal pump would be adversely affected. Restricting the flow would be no different than having a higher head. Most of the pumps used in water features are centrifugal.

[diginahole]

Higher head will wear a pump faster too. Or at least this is what my buddy the pump technician always told me. If a motor works harder it wears faster, seems logical to me, but I have been wrong before.

The bucks ADI wants for the snorkel and centepede doohickey seems a little dear to me. I think some corrogated sewer pipe or culvert might do the trick a little more economically.

[dan deutekom]

My understanding is that if you restrict the flow in a centrifugal pump the water just spins around within the housing instead of moving out of the outlet. This won't cause any additional wear. In fact you won't even hear the motor slow down if you restrict the output. You will notice that centrifugal pumps usually have a high gallon per hour output but do not produce high pressures. The opposite is true of positive displacement pumps. Restricting the flow means that the water has no where to go, so the pump begins to work against itself and creates a higher pressure or stalls if there is no outlet at all.

[diginahole]

Now you have piqued my interest. Is a jet pump a positive displacement pump or centrifugal? I would guess it would fall in the centrifuge catagory albeit a high pressure variety. You can sure hear the motor whine as the load increases on a jet pump. I am thinking a diaphram or gear pump would be the positive dispalcement type, correct?

[diginahole]

Hmm..... I don't think teeing off the outlet would gain us anything anyway. It wouldn't matter if we were dumping the water at the top of the falls or the bottom it is going to refresh the pump at the same rate. It will only make less water flow over the falls. We would need a bigger pit or bigger holes in the pump vault to feed water faster to the inlet of the pump. Unless we could just slow the pump down by restricting the outflow, but that still doesn't seem like the best option to me.

[Bill Schwab]

If you use Oase, Nautilus or Barnes pumps, they are centrifical forced pumps. Also, they use electromagnetic bearings, and are virtually bulletproof.

If you use a Little Giant, or install a sump pump, or many of the external pumps simialr but not necessarliy those sold by Aquascapes they use ball or needle bearings, which heat up and burn out faster. Pumps that are not submerged also have a tendency to heat up fast as well, and resticting flow will burn them up.

I agree with Digin, on using a T rather than a ball valve, however, there are many situations where T's will not work because they are going to take too much flow away from the pump and you will loose effect.

I have found that by using other sources and piecing together pond kits by using roofing suppliers for linings and adhesive, going directly to the pump manufacturer and buying or using JD Landscapes, formerly Century Rain Aid, or pool suppliers and getting accessoroes like skimmers, you can install for less cost than getting the whole thing from one supplier. You can create masonry boxes and fill them with sand/gravel for your own filters, and use a slower pump to feed the filter space. Kitty litter boxes work great for installing oxygenating plants, and if you want to save excavation time, rather than digging shelves in the area under the liner, you can spray paint 8-8-16 building blocks or use natural stone and set plant pots on them. Fish love to swim through the holes of the building blocks. We even took a 24" cement culvert pipe, cut it in hjalf the long way, and created a tunnel for the Koi to hide in from the Pelicans and Heron.

Aquascapes makes ponds easy to build, but, the challenge of making a unique pond with ingredients that you put together is more fun, at least to me.

[scl]

I think there's an article in the latest issue of Pro magazine, and I'll bet Jeff's got an issue on his nightstand!