I've had several pondless water features and they are an absolute joy. As long as you have power near by they can be very easy. Smallest -------- Bury a 5 gal bucket, or smaller, so the rim is slightly below the surrounding ground. Place small fountain pump in the bottom of the bucket. Remove any filter. Connect a length of hose to the pump out flow. Put some bricks around the pump to form a opening around the pump. Buy a piece of pond liner. I like EDPM but anything will do since it is protected from UV. The piece can be any size you like but the bigger you make it the less splash will be a problem. 3'x3' would cost less than $10. Cut a small circle in the liner maybe 4" in diameter. Position the opening over the bucket and kind of push the liner down into the bucket. Fill in the bucket with rocks which will hold the liner in place. More gaps between the rocks the better. Put dirt under the liner so it slopes to the bucket. Can be flat, slope away is no so good. Berm around the outside to create a lip. Test with water to make sure the water ends up in the bucket. Cover the liner with more rocks, any size and shape. Build your water falls anywhere you want on top of the liner. Med to Large ------------ Basically just like a regular pond. Dig the hole, cover with pond liner. I like EDPM. Cut holes in a 5 gal bucket to let water in. I use a hole saw, 1" or so. Soldering iron will work, torch, or even matches. Nothing fancy. Bucket goes into the pond ideally so the top of the bucket is just below where the rock surface will be. Brick in the bottom of the bucket, pump on top of the bucket. Plumb the pump to wherever the water feature will be. Remove the pump's filter. It serves almost no purpose in a regular pond and absolutely no purpose in a pondless feature. Put the top onto the bucket. I like the screw on type. For snap on I'd just lay the top on for easy access. Fill in around the bucket with good size rocks, hopefully larger than the holes in the bucket. Fill in the pond with rock. I like 2" river rock, sometimes called drain rock. Build your waterfall anywhere you like. Pretty easy to move it later if you think it can be improved. Build it so it will drain when the pump is off and you won't have algae problems. Plants ------ In both setups you can add potted plants that like wet feet. A few plants can really improve the look. Water Source ------------ You can just top off with a garden hose as needed. Or for top of the line... I put a livestock water tank float valve in the pond. Less than $15 at feed stores. I connect that to a sprinkler valve on a timer. I set the timer for about 2 min each day. Water is only added if the float is down enough and the sprinkler timer is on. So if the float fails the worst I do is overflow for less than 2min which is fine. Here in Phoenix 2 min a day is more than enough. Pondless features use very little water. Electric -------- You want GFI protection. For top of the line... Another nice thing is a remote switch. Cost like $10-15 at Home Depot etc... One end plugs into the outlet and the pump plugs into the other end. Little remote control to turn it on and off. Just make sure the plump isn't too large for the switch. For crazy cool... I use an Intermatic lighting controller. I set it to start the pump just before we wake up, off when we go to work, on just before we come home, etc... Way cool but pricy at around $150 for everything. Maintenance ----------- I've been running 2 of these features for more than a year and I've done nothing. For most ponds zero maintenance means a few hours a week. But these pondless deals I've done zero, nothing. I haven't added a drop of water, the auto fill does it. I don't even turn them on and off the timer does it. No string algea since it isn't on 24/7. Most of the water is in total darkness so unicell algae doesn't really grow very well. No exposed water so no mosquitoes. You can put a clorhine tablet in the water once a week if you want but I not had the need. Leaves are no problem. Rake them of the top like the rest of the yard. Birds ----- Birds love the sound of moving water. If you make a place for them to bath you'll have lot's of birds. An easy way is to place the bowl from a bird bath on some rocks and run the pump hose into the bowl. If you drill a hole thru the bowl at its lowest point to run the hose thru you'll hide the hose. No real need to seal the hole since a small leak is fine. When the pump is off the water will drain out back down the hose so the bowl is empty and no algae or mosquitoes will form.

bkay, Yes of course, the birds flock to a moving water feature - the sound of the water attracts them. Used to have this one in my old back yard, about 10'x16' (approx. 900 gallons) and robins especially loved the waterfall and bathed in it all the time. Had about 20 small goldfish and they overwintered just fine even way up here in Canada. As long as they have a 3' deep spot to huddled down into for the winter - they go into a semi-hibernation state, don't eat until the water warms up in spring. Must keep an air hole in the ice too so that they get oxygen, so either keep the ice at bay with a chisel or better still float a little pond heater when it starts to ice. Of course in Z8 or wherever it's warm enough you don't need to worry about that!

I think you could do it without too much trouble. Pumps probably don't do well with sand, but if the pump inlet is not directly on the bottom and too near the waterfall/sand, the sand will settle before reaching the pump and all should be well. I assume ambient water temperatures are tolerable!? Your specific design would require a waterfall that you can get your legs into but on a standing surface that doesn't create too much splashing whether washing in it or not. If splashing is serious, you might lose too much water although you can always add more. But you can't see to check it. The normal design is a big hole partially filled with one or more porous boxes similar to (or even) milk crates. These 'crates' allow rocks and you to be supported above them while they contain excess water and the pump so that there is always more than enough water in the tank AND the falls, tubing and spillways. Running the pump dry is usually bad or real bad. Remember, in your case, at least the one part of the tank with the pump must be away from the turbulent sand/water area. Perhaps you could use two crates with a baffle between them that prevents the first crate water directly reaching the second except around the edges and mainly the top. Actually, this may all be overkill. I imagine that a sponge pump inlet filter would solve almost everything as long as there is some distance between sand and pump.

I have never understood priming for out of pond pumps and can't help there. However, since you need a reservoir anyway, I don't understand why you wouldn't put a pump in it. I have also proven to myself that I don't understand check valves either. I had an out of ground pump for irregation and had put a check valve in to keep water in the line which of course was really stupid and winter ice broke the pump and plumbing. Fortunately, except for time, the pump was a $5 junker to begin with and the plastic plumbing was easily replaced. BTW, I essentially have what you have drawn except that my basin is a pond (with a 27' stream) and of course has a pump in it.