I am building a stream with some waterfalls to connect two small ponds. The top one is about 15ft across and 18" deep and the bottom is about 7" and about 18" deep. I want to connect the two. I have a pump that says it is 1100 gph with a 7ft lift. The grade is not very steep but it is about 30 ft between the two ponds. Will this pump work? How deep does the stream need to be? I have dug it about a foot give or take and expect it to be about 6" deep after the addition of gravel and rock. It is a couple of feet wide. How do I make the connection to the two of them without flooding out the bottom pond or poisoning my fish due to adding water from the hose to fill the stream? What else should I be concerned about? I have never tried this before so ANY help would be appreciated.
Building stream/waterfal - need your input
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.
Randponder, thank you so much for your reply. I was not at home when I wrote the message and when I reviewed the box it says the pump is 1800 gallons per hour. I don't know if that makes any difference. I remember seeing the post about the chlorine filter that you connect to the hose and think I will try to get one of those. I had not thought about a stream acting as a filter. Do I have to do anything special to it for that to work?
The gravel in the stream will give the good bacteria a home.
All the little nooks and crannies in the gravel will collect what isn't taken out before hand and the bacteria will digest most of it. If you have a pool or two with some plants that will also help.
1800 gph isn't that much more and should still be good. If it is too narrow the water will just run a little faster, provided you got all the slope needed.
The formula to use for sizing of the pump is to figure how many gallons in the pond and that number of gallons should be changed out by the pump at a minimum of once every hour.
You find the gallons by takeing the width x length x average depth x7.5 = gallons. But don,t worry too much your doing fine
I have seen ponds with little or no flow. another factor is how much cover you have. Floating plants and or lilies or lotus. the more area covered the less water you need to move. But keeping the pond clean is a must. don't let leaves lay in the pond and rot. all the excess debris that lies in the water and rots. harbors parisites and fungus and a hoard of nasty stuff when it comes to the health of the fish. The pond is your own little ecosystem and needs a good balance.
Happy ponding Russ.
PS I'm not an expert. I've just picked up a lot of stuff mostly by trial and error. Then pick up a book and read about my mistakes ((*-*))
Finished digging the stream. It ended up between 13" and 16" deep (depending on where your measured). I filled it up with the hose for the first time and because of the slope that bottom third was overflowing while the top two thirds were still dry. I went ahead and put three water falls at intervals along the stream and though the top of the sections is still shallower the bottom parts look good. I dug up some of the cement cobblestone walkway that I had in the garden from a couple of years ago and cemented them in place and then topped with flat flagstone. I found a 4500 GPH pump on sale online and plugged it in today. The stream is nothing like I envisioned it would be, but I really like it. Since the water level is somewhat uneven parts of the black liner will always be exposed, quite a bit in some places. Do I need to worry about it degrading because of exposure to the sun and weather?
This message was edited Sep 23, 2006 7:32 PM
Tetley, the sun will eventually cause the liner to degrade. You might want to consider lining your stream with river rock so that it is not exposed. That's what I did with mine. At first I was worried that it would make the stream harder to keep clean - trapping debris...but I have had absolutely no problems with it. And the gravel provides extra biological filtering.
Believe it or not I painted some exposed liner on the sides of a very tiny stream with Benjamin Moore exterior latex paint custom mixed to match the surrounding rock. The exposed liner virtually disappeared.The paint dried to the liner very rapidly and has stayed put to this day, even in places where the water or rain hits it. There have been no effects on the fish or plants whatsoever. I also painted the black foam I used to build the back of the watefall. It made all the difference in the world in appearance. I know it sounds crazy but it worked. I just redid this waterfall and tiny stream this spring. I hav'nt gotten around to taking any photos. (Chipmunks had made so many tunnels and burrows under part of the foundation that I was forced to tear a lot out the rock work because the liner had sagged and I had a heck of a leak.) I will post pics tomorrow. Honest, you can paint it.
Here are the pics: This is the upper waterfall, pool and tiny stream.
This is a closeup of the exposed liner that was painted. It is in the first turn coming off the upper pool.
The whole enchilada. We havn't seen the sun here for days. :
Snapple,
How cool is that! I just love the frog statue. I had not considered painting because I did not think the paint would adhere to the liner material. I also have a big pile of rough limstone rocks some of which are pretty big. I may do little of both. I am so grateful to the generous folks at DG. You all always seem to have the answers. Well, I guess I am off to work on the stream some more! I have put a good digital camera on my wish list........santa, are you listening?? lol
SongsofJoy
Very interesting landscaping and plants looks great, and natural looks like it belongs there.
Maybe get Snapple45s frog in there hee hee hee. Both your ponds are very attractive. I too like an interesting frog or turtle along side. Kudos to you both.
Tetleytuna sounds great I'm sure you will work out any problem areas maybe with a small rock dam will raise any low or shallow spot, making it more to your liking. though it probably isn't necessary. Just trying to invision the stream.
I had to put a hold on my planed stream bed as where I had wanted it, would not give enough roon to get behind the garage to work on our well. Which incedently had to be done this last week. Had to pull the pump and replace the couplings on the well pipe. Now I know I won't put anything perminate in the way of that. I will instead have to run it from another direction. Oh the woe's I could have created!
Are you thinking about putting any fish in with those shallow depths?
No, I will not intentionally put any fish in there. The goldfish I have in the bottom pool have discovered however that they can "jump the falls" and get into the lower pool. They seem to enjoy going back and forth. :-)
Tetleytuna; I noticed you said you were going to use some lime stone rocks. The limestone will change the PH of the water considerably if run off from them goes into the stream bed or if they are a part of the decore partly in the water. It may be some thing you would have to compensate for. I only know I was warned about useing limestone., Guess I would advise to check further at any rate. Russ However goldfish seem to be a little tougher than KOI so I don't know.
Koi and goldfish are not extremely sensitive to ph, however they do best at 6.8 to 7.8, 8.0 tops. Limestone will definitely raise ph. Ammonia becomes more toxic at higher ph levels. Fish are stressed by a sudden swing in ph by as little as .5 in a 24 hr period. In ponds with plants Ph normally drops during the night and rises during the day. Keeping Ph stable reduces stress on fish. I would avoid the limestone. Did you try a fizz test on the stone? See if vinegar fizzes on the dry stone. If it does you have rock that will add alkilinity to the pond. Some sources say to use muriatic acid for the fizz test to be absolutely certain. I have used vinegar for aquarium rocks and found it tough to tell for certain but I did get a slight reaction. Muriatic acid is dangerous and as I have no other use for it I don't keep any. Laguna makes peat granules for use in pond filters to lower ph. You replace it monthly and it isn't expensive. I have used peat in an aquarium to natrually soften and lower Ph for a tropical tetra tank. It stains the water an amber color but after some trial and error does a nice job on acidifying water. Certain plants and fish love it. May God Bless our municipal water treatment plant.
I dont like messing around with chemicals a lot to manage Ph. You can have a lot of dead fish in a hurry doing that. We have really difficult water here for ponds and aquariums. It is softened (Kh 1)(Gh7) at the treatment plant with an astonishing high Ph of 9 when it comes out of the tap! The high Ph is a temporary buffer the municipality adds to keep pipes from corroding. It drops naturally to ph 7.6 in about 24 hrs. Try managing that! I have to put 30 gallons of water in a barrel and let it stand overnight before I add it to the aquarium for the weekly water change.
I had not thought about doing any water checks. The two small ponds I have now did not have any stone in them that would change the ph levels. I have just made sure that the ponds stayed full and let them take care of themselves. What kind of testing should I do and how often? I had thought about putting a koi or two in the lower pond. This one is fairly small...... about 400 gallons. Would it be big enough for koi? I have a rose arbor and bench right next to it and it would be a nice place to sit and watch the fish. I had planned on getting a lotus plant from Texas Waterlilies this spring to put in the center of this pool and take out the waterlilies and other plants. That would make the fish more visable so that I could actually see lthem when I sit on the bench...... no place for them really to hide that way. I really appreciate all of your input!! :-)
Ahh, tetleytuna I'm afraid the koi will not be happy in 400 gallons. Full grown koi can get 24". They also need as much water depth to swim vertically as horizontally. They are an active athletic fish that need highly oxygenated water and plenty of room. I'm not sure what zone Columbia MO is. Depending on your worst winter low temps there are some fish besides koi and goldfish that might be OK. Check out your local pond store and see what they sell for pond fish. Sarassa comets are gorgeous small pond fish and Bristol shubunkins are very colorful too. Your setting sound really, really nice. As for the Ph testing get some multipurpose test strips that give Ph, Kh, nitrite and nitrate. One dip and youv'e got your info. Don't over stock the pond and you won't have an ammonia spike. Two or three fish to start is plenty. Wait until the bacteria comes in in the filter, about 4 to 6 weeks, then maybe if no problems add a couple more fish. You could test for ammonia too (separate test kit) at the start when you first add fish to be on the safe side, but if you go slow this shouldn't be an issue. I can't stress enough about not overstocking, especially at start up. Too much fish poop can overwhelm even the best filtration system.
Snapple
Thank you for your advice, I so appreciate it! I am in the same hardiness zone as you are. I think I will stay with the goldfish. I had wanted Koi because they seem to be more people oriented. The goldfish seem to want to swim away from me and the koi that I have seen seem to actually swim towards me. Maybe next year I will work on building a bigger pond. I actuall had a bulldozer in a few years ago that dug one out but it did not hold water and is now overgrown with various weeds. I may work on cleaning that out and lining it.
There are no stores that know much about outside ponds around here but there is one pet center that specializes in fish. I will see if the test kits they use on aquariums will also work with ponds. If so, I bet the same things that work to keep levels correct in aquariums might also work in ponds.
For color and beauty and hardiness if you see sarassa comets or bristol shubunkins dont hestitate to put them in your pond. It is too late now to add fish to an outdoor pond in zone 5a unless thay have been outdoor acclimated. They couldn't take the temperature shock. If a friend /neighbor offers any from their pond you are OK. I use aquarium and pond test strips and ammonia tests interchangeably. No problem that I know of. It isnt necessary to get too worried or carried away with the mad scientist bit. Some basic testing to see what you have in your water source and then go from there. Most of all try to have fun with this. Go slow, add fish sparingly, dechlorinate new water, keep the filter clean and don't allow debris (leaves) to rot in the water. Keep part of the water shaded in the summer with water plants. That's pretty much it. One other thing, if you start with "feeder comets/goldfish" from the pet store a certain percentage of them will die no matter what. It wont be anything you did or didnt do. They are really abused in the shipping process and furthur insulted at the pet store when they are crammed 2000 to a tank. Don't name anything for two weeks. You will have a couple of funerals to go to. LOL