Water Gardening: Building stream/waterfal - need your input, 1 by randbponder

randbponder wrote:
tetleytuna;
kind of small pump for me but if it will pump 1100gph at 7' - -
it should be ok. Distance does enter to the math also. I don't think 30' will make a lot of difference though.
I have two ponds connected in much the same way.
I have a waterfall at one end fed by a 7500 gph pump to be filtered by the falls filter. I had a 3500 gph pumping up to the upper pond. Now useing a 1500 gph as the 3500 quit. It was 6 or 7 years old. I only had to pump the water about 15' with negligable rise. This one is filtered through a skimmer.
The width of your stream sounds like it will be a nice slow moveing one with small falls, sounds great.
I am adding another stream as well which will be fed from the skimmer pump ( lower pond) to a small falls filter about 30' away, also. That stream will run into the upper pond, then back to the lower. My reason for the larger pump was to make sure I had enough water changes per hour for the size of my ponds.
If the pump you already have doesn't seem to pump enough water live with it for a while then upgrade later.
If you are on city water, you can handle this a couple different ways. Fill a barrel with water so it can set for 24 hours. then refill your pond with that water, or get an inline filter for your hose that filters out the clorimines. I just saw that one yesterday. will have to look that one up so I can give you the web site. I have well water so thats one I didn't need.
The stream for 1100 gph won't have to be very wide or deep. the 6" plus the gravel base, sounds plenty. the width any where from 6" to 24" would do. It sounds to me that one reason for the stream may have a twofold purpose. One being to help filter the water more.
Am I guessing right?
Just adding: my ponds are are 10 X 20 x3.5' deep & 15 x 30 x 3.5' deep. the upper is about 1.5' above the lower.