I am waiting on my liner so I figure I might as well be thinking on other aspects. I would like to put a light around my pond or IN it. Not sure about what. I dont know anything about lighting. Any tips would be appreciated, would love to see your pond lights. Post night time pics! Im thinking about putting a light behind the waterfall, would that look stupid? Then would I still need a light IN the pond? I'm concerned about maintaining the light, changing bulbs cleaning algae ect if it is in the pond. Maybe around the outside edge of the pond would be better, Do they make pond lights that float? Ideas please!
Pond lighting
I have some pond lights inside the pond and am in the process of having the ones outside the pond put in as I type. My in water ones (6 total) don't light up as much as I had hoped they would but "pond guy" is fixing and adjusting that today and I may buy more lighting to fix my "need for light". As far as the waterfall, my pond guy advised me to light it with a low voltage spotlight thingy.
I've seen some submergible lights, but I'm wondering how deep you can set them? If they are 3 feet deep will the light reach the surface and look right?
I have nine lights submerged at all depths. I cut off the individual transformers and connect them all to one of those power supplies with two built-in timers, etc -- one for the 12 VDC circuit and one for the 120 VAC stuff. The supply is heavy duty and can easily handle the wattage consumption of the nine lights in parallel. These lights ("egg Lites") come in 10 and 20 watt bulbs. Nine 10 watt bulbs would use 90 watts. I'd avoid 20 watt.
Better yet, get the type that use LED bulbs -- very low power consumption and much less heat.
Here's what I found: Visibility is directly proportional to the turbidity of the water, as well as the depth of the light. My lights at one foot are clearly visible and, placed under the waterfall, give it a dazzling sparkle. At two feet, they are clearly visible and sshining under the lily pads makes the pads glow. At three feet the lights are visible but the light very diffused and cause the water around the light to glow, but there are no beams of light visible.
Now, I should point out that the water in my pond is clean, but turbid and the color of iced tea. If your water is different, you will have different results. At three feet, the bottom of my pond is hardly visible and objects on the bottom are not discernible.
Jim
Merchantville, NJ