Hey kaysbelle, Usually my water lilies are in pots at about a 2.5' depth while they are actively growing. When winter begins to set in, I move them to the 3.5' depth in a pond. I've noticed some plants overwinter better when moved to lower depths. I also move my lotus to lower depths. Water Hyacinth is allegedly being voluntarily restricted because of problems with people taking their excess and dumping it in natural bodies of waters such as streams and lakes so you will probably find it increasingly more difficult to purchase if not illegal to purchase here in the very near future. Best to take in what you feel you need as starts for next year. It seems to overwinter fine for many but there are those who claim they move it and it's dead. I'd experiment with two clumps in two different areas of your home to see what is going to work well for you. About a week before you intend to bring them in, try floating them in a mild solution of Miracle Grow or similar product. Overnight should be fine. From there try one clump in a small washtub in front of a south facing window and maybe another clump in a less desirable location with fluorescent lights hung over the top of them. Get the lights in close to the plants. Maybe one of those overwintering methods might work for you? I've never overwintered Water Hyacinth but I've used those methods along with placing other tender aquatics in kiddie pools in my basement under metal halides and they made it. Can't try to help with your question about Hornwort because I don't know which one you have but as a rule of thumb fast growing plants such as what you described in small ponds are generally not a good idea in the long run. They can be nutrient hogs. Plants that double their mass in short periods of time often use up nutrients that other plants need to survive and thrive. The Anacharis you have is probably Brazilian Waterweed. I'd be very concerned about that particular plant but if you'd like to check it out on your own to determine what you think about having it in your pond, use the Latin name ( Egeria densa ) plus the word invasive in any search engine and you'll come up with tons of hits but here's a decent site where if you scroll down you can click on anything that might be of interest to you- http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/brazwaterwd.shtml Anacharis can easily overwinter outside in our zone. Problem with it is that it is extremely difficult to control even when it grows in what we believe to be self-contained environments such as a small backyard ponds. Anacharis, like Hydrilla verticillata, can be spread to other bodies of water by birds. http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/PDFpubs/2524.pdf These are the states in which this plant has escaped cultivation- http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=EGDE Got any frogs kaysbelle ;) Frogs are our friends. Just teasing, I know some people don't like them. Hey Zinnia, I have 3 small herp ponds now supporting 5 different species of frogs and toads. I cheated though. Had a few biologists and herpetologists dumping over here. They were scooping up eggs and tads from vernal ponds that they believed were going to dry up prematurely and relocating over here while I was at work. I finally put up signs that instructed them what went in which pond. Basically; toads to the left, frogs to the right, and straight ahead with any bull frogs they might have picked up from other bodies of water. Ended up getting some interesting dragonflies and damselflies too. Species I've not seen over here so they must have come as and added bonus with the herps. It's kinda neat here at night with those dim photo cell walkway lights around the ponds. Those attract the moths and such and the toads just hang out waiting for their meal to come to them. If you don't have one of those cheap KMart type walkway lights, you really need to think about getting one. Just one of those can bring in prey for our little green friends. Time for me to leave to go wetlands exploring.

Waterfalls are designed to provide aesthetic appeal, some oxygen, and to create a circular motion in the Main Pool to direct floating debris into the skimmer. Falls don't add much O2. Directing pump output directly into the pond creating a current moves more water to the surface where gas exchange happen. Falls only improve gas exchange in the sense that you need moving water to create a fall, it isn't the falls directly. That's just kind of nitpicking in your case because you sure shouldn't have any O2 issues at all. It's only in high fish load ponds that a keeper would rather use a tangential pond return to create a stronger current than have a falls. But a person can improve total gas exchange and still have falls for the same costs. I call this a waterfall catch basin. Installed: The idea is to direct all the water from the falls to the pond bottom which pushes low O2 water at the bottom to the surface where gas exchange happens. It also calms the surface of the water making fish view better. It also catches foam that can be produced by falls that float around the surface. You still get the look and sound. Falls don't really direct stuff to the skimmer (although many web sites say different). Skimmers work because of surface tension. The Helix skimmer can house a submersible pump beneath a single blue matala pad, but it is my understanding that external pumps in flooded suction applications are more energy efficient and last longer being they are not constantly submersed in water. I've never noticed any difference in life span. Some pumps last a month, some seem to last forever. My best lasting pump was a 900 GPH mag drive. Raccoon pulled it out of the skimmer once and I found it laying on the ground the next day still running. Put it back in the pond and it ran fine. Submerged pumps are made to be submerged. A mag drive for example doesn't have any seals to wear out. Energy efficiency I don't think has anything to do with external vs submerged. Pumps vary a lot in that regard. So you can find cases where one or the other wins. Where you really win energy wise is picking the right pump. Low head when appropriate for example. But also the size. ...into one or more plastic drums filled with possibly lava rock and/or a series of matala pads to enhance water quality. This is a really old type filter. There are much better. I would not bother. I don't like cleaning mats, especially when they don't improve the water. I think you'll falling into a trap that I and pretty much every other pond keeper falls into. Laying awake at night dreaming of magnificent filters and clear water? Most filters do nothing, yet many owners will say the reason their water is clear is because of their filter(s). This is especially true in the DIY world. They see what they want to see, that their invention is the best thing ever created. Get yourself a UV filter, installed, sized and maintained correctly and you'll never have green water, 100% of the time. Longer term water can get a little crappy. Water changes takes care of all these causes. In fact, there is a newer type system a few people are using that's based on the oldest fish keeping practice, 24/7 drip water change. A drip emitter runs 24/7 into the pond and an overflow takes away the extra water. IMO there is no better system based on what keepers have long said about normal water changes. If the overflow is directed to landscaping that would normally need water there's no extra water cost. People using this system have also not seen green water but too early to tell if this is always true. My next pond will be 24/7 drip for sure. By running the 3" pipe under the Upper Basin, I can keep the water in it protected from freezing. I don't think pipes can be protected from freezing since ground freezes to some depth and the pipe are above grade at some point I assume. Freezing pipes in ponds aren't generally an issue because they're open to the air. Closing them will valves can create a problem. ...submerged oxygenating plants. They produce O2 only when the sun is out. At night they consume O2. The net result is they are a negative. They're also ever difficult to keep alive. The drums I mentioned are only to be used to cut the discharge velocity to That can be addressed by changing the pump size or simpler ways. If you really want drums then cool. I used to love drums, had them all over the place. I slowly got over the thrill of lots of complex plumbing and started removing stuff. Turned out I didn't need any of it. I'm not saying you shouldn't have complex...it's fun for awhile...you learn a lot...but there are other options. You mentioned two pumps: one for the skimmer at 2000 gph (more or less) and a 2nd one pulling a slip stream directly from the pond, mid-depth. I have a single 20A circuit for power. I agree that I want the weir floating and not being sucked full down and so two pumps might work better, but there would be no filtration for the 6000 gph pump to supply the waterfalls. That concerns me. Why the concern? You mean no pre-filter? External pumps can have a strainer pot before the pump to protect it. But a mid level pickup normally will be pretty clean water. Submerged pumps can be placed so clogging is reduce. Placing them on the bottom is bad imo, get empty the pond. The helix skimmer is rated at 8000 gph and I might be able to use two of them side-by-side with a 4000 gph pump for each. What about that? I personally wouldn't. It would work of course, but then you have 2 skimmers to clean out. Extra $500, extra install time, another thing to go south. I like simple. If you want 8000 GPH for aesthetic you should absolutely have 8000 GPH. Ponds should always be built to want the owner wants...it's the whole point for building a pond. But if this is mainly to create water flow for filtering or driving stuff to the skimmer or because someone said a falls should have 150 GPH per inch then you have options. For example, I had a pond once that was 7600 gals, 6 connected ponds, 2 skimmers, one waterfall, all driven with a single 900 GPH 42 watt pump. The waterfall was 2' wide, but the water sheet was less. Much higher fish load than you, no bio filter. Aesthetics totally aside, this functioned fine technically. Water was clear to 4.5'. It took me awhile (several years) to figure out how it get the water clear (this was before UV filter were cheap), but it is possible with a lot less flow. One thing you might consider for example is making the 3 outer pools into a single pool and maybe going for 1 waterfall. Again, I really don't want to talk you out of your vision...just not sure if aesthetics or technical issues are driving the design. I know it's partly both, but is there room to down size the pump? 8000 GPH for this type of pond is a lot. Which is fine if that's what you want. The plants, the bio filter stuff...if you want all that because you want all that then cool. I love stuff like that. But don't be fooled into thinking this will all give you clear water or make water cleaner or improve fish health. Plants add more waste than they remove in total. There are certain things some plants do remove, like nitrate, which is cool. But with a couple of goldfish you are never, ever going to come remotely close to having a nitrate issue. Plants like the Iris will need to be fertilized, which will add nitrate to the water. Not a problem, but don't believe people that say these kinds of plants remove waste. Waste water treatment plants do use vegetation to reduce some chemicals. But these are huge and nutrient levels very high which they're only trying to knock down. Backyard ponds aren't in that ballpark. Also, you mention that Helix 8200 is a high head pump, I wasn't aware of that. How can you tell? The max head is over 20'. A low head pump the max head will be 10-15'. There are even very low head pump schemes where the max head is an inch or two. You also see the difference when you compare GPH per watt, although pumps vary because of other things. Lower head pumps should be higher GPH per watt, otherwise they're really bad pumps. Lastly, I was not planning on any compressor for subsurface air. I'd prefer to rely on natural oxygenation and purification of the water, if practical. Your pond doesn't come close to ever needing more O2. For comments on the plumbing I'd need a diagram. Text is too hard to follow for that. But in general, I'd just pump directly into the upper pool. Like make 2-3' of total pipe, maybe one 90. Instead of a drum you can just build a rock/block.brick wall inside the pool, on top of the liner...I should draw this.

Thanks! We don't have many mosquitoes here. Sand flies, by the millions though. I try to clean out/change the water on my bird baths/pools every few days and just about every day when it's hot. I have a regular bird bath (pedestal and dish) then various other saucers and old glassware pots about to a total of 6 or 7. Even with the lake right here, they see a LOT of use in the summer! I added two this year (this one and another in a perennial bed) to the four I had last year. In the hottest months, I would come home to empty saucers last year from the water being splashed out/drunk (drank?). I might add another regular bird bath still, and maybe another old pot (pyrex), I just need to determine a place for them. Well, and maybe a bigger water feature with a pump in a "problem" bed that would take up space from annoying plants like lily of the valley!

All the obsession with Canada Geese seems weird...seems like that should be the least of your problems. Yes, if you have a pond you WILL have geese, but that doesn't seem like a big issue. Even small dogs have a decent chance of scaring off Canada Geese. One warning: Ducks have been known to lure dogs far out into the water in the hopes of tiring them out and drowning them. Pros: 1.) Gorgeous Views 2.) Great for birdwatching 3.) Water source in case of Zombie Apocalypse. 4.) Source of "Grey Water" to water your lawn 5.) Fireflies 6.) Natural swimming pool Cons: 1.) Wetland Protection laws may make parts of your land protected wetlands you can't do anything with 2.) Drowning Risk for kids 3.) Mosquitoes 4.) Means high water table...Flooding risks? (The pond could cause flooding it it is near the house and overflows. A bigger concerns is the springs suggest a high water table that could cause flooding. ) Things to Ask: 1.) How much land is a protected wetland? 2.) Does the basement flood? (Look for signs of flooding) 3.) What were the results of a perk test where the house was built? The septic tank? (Maybe do a perk test?) 4.) Any possibility of putting in a well to water the plants during a drought? 5.) Does the pond overflow in the rain? How far? 6.) Any signs of erosion? 7.0 Does the appraisal value reflect unusable wetlands? This post was edited by edlincoln on Tue, Sep 2, 14 at 16:25