Frogged,

To help you I need a little more information. What is the rise from the surface of the pond? What size pipe are you using for the run from the pond to the filter and the size of the 4 pipes from the filter to the waterfall? How much higher is the 4 exits in the filter to where the water exits the waterfall? How much can the water in the filter rise in the filter without overflowing? Are you wanting to put a submersible pump in the pond? Is this pump going to be contained in anything in the pond? How wide is the weir on the waterfall? How high can the water rise in the waterfall without overflowing? How is the piping going into the filter going through the wall of the container? If it is a bulkhead fitting how is the piping connected to the bulkhead? Is there any plumbing in the filter?
I would guess the size of the pond between 2500 to 3000 gallons.
Mike

Hi thanks, Yes this will be a submersible pump sitting in the deeper half of the pond. Right now my pump is not contained in anything. The piping is plastic hose/tubing which is 1 1/2 inch. It is the same type that is used for sump pumps. The hose goes up 2 feet from the water's surface to the base of the filter( which is more than I originally thought in my first post. It enters a straight fitting just long enough to go through the barrel 3 inches give or take and inch. Same size Then there is not any pipe or tubing the water flows up through the lava rock and filter material Just short of a 3 foot rise to the openings at the top of the filter. There are four 1 inch diameter openings where the water leaves falling down into the 1 1/2 inch tubing over to the waterfall. This is about a 3 foot drop that carries is to the falls. The tubes/hose then elevates a bit to go under the rocks and the water falls out there. The highest rise here is maybe a foot. Gravity is doing most of the work I think bringing the water from the filter to the falls. Currently in the filter the water flows mostly through the lower opening and just barely though the higher ones. (but when the pump first starts up it overflows the whole filter then slows down after running for a minuet or so) you can see in the picture there is about and inch from the top of the higher openings to the edge of the filter. The filter is 18inches across. Hope this is clear? thanks
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Please ignore the mucky water I have a algae and silt problem as well.. oh ponding is sooooooo much fun...

Frogged,

Am I correct in thinking that each of the 4 1" exits has it's own 1.5" hose going to the waterfall. If this is correct than the max flow that you can expect through these pipes is about 3000 gph. To get this flow you will need to drill a small hole in the top of each elbow to let the air out. The other thing I do not know is you say the pipes go down and back up to the waterfall. That can and will form a air bubble that will slow or stop water from flowing through the pipe. With the 1.5" pipe it may not be a problem or it could be a major problem. If this becomes a problem it can be fixed by either taking the low out of the piping or putting a tee at the low point and running an air tube from the tee up to the high point of the filter. The holes in the elbows will stop the filter from overflowing. One thing that didn't mention is do not drill a hole on the lower outlet pipe unless I have more information on this piping as you could have water coming out the hole in this pipe.

Now as far as a pump goes if you want 3000 gph moving you will need a pump that can pump 3000 gph at 13 ft of head pressure. If this is a bigger pump than you want to go with at 7 ft of head pressure you can get 1800 gph through the piping.
Mike

Great thanks for your help!!!

Me again so I have been doing some searches on line trying to decide on which brand to get. And you can likely guess that my head is spinning. I have eliminated some based on comments I read here and names I have never heard of. I think that I have narrowed it down to the Pondmaster ProLine HY-Drive, and the ShinMaywa Submersible Pump. Both of these brands have been suggested here before. The Shinmaywa a bit expensive and Im having trouble finding a Canadian source. I found a couple sources for the
Pondmaster but is the hy-drive as reliable as the meg drive and cost efficient. Thanks again for you advice it is appreciated.

with your size pond i would go with an external pump.i have a performance pro 1/4 hp that pumps 4900 gal/hr,9 1/2 ft. high with out loosing an pressure.it uses about 300 watts. you want to turn your pond over at lest 1x/hr.for your size pond a 4900 would be fine.

frogged,

The problem that I see is that the pump is going into the pond. I assume that there is or will be fish in the pond. That means that a pump in the pond will have to have a strainer on it or enclosed in something to keep fish out of it. A strainer on the pump will clog up fairly quickly. Depending on an enclosure around it may or may not clog quickly. In either case the pump has to be easily removable. Both of the pumps that you mention are about same as far as gallons per watt used. Neither are close to what the performance pro pumps deliver. In tests that I have done external pumps deliver twice as many gallons per watt used. If you have a problem finding ShinMaywa pumps in your area let me know and I will call my friend, the sales manager for fielding pump. Fielding is the North American distributor of ShinMaywa pumps and find the closest distributor to you.
Mike

I did not have any issues with fish and my old pump. There is no info on the pump(little giant) as to its flow rate but I assume it is way under what a new pump would be. So I think I will need to create some type of enclosure. I have been looking some more online. Seems that on line at least in my area preforma pumps are not sold. My local pond store carries SICCE SyncraHF 16 which can be uses in or out of the pond and looks to be about the same price as the Shinmaywa, but no idea of the quality. I would be very interested in any thoughts on sicce products? I would hate to spend the amount they want only to have issues with it later. Mike I may need that info if the sicce pump gets poor reports, thanks again Kim

I have a slightly larger pond and I use a Artesian Performance Pro 1HP Dial-a-flow. You would think I am over-engineered, but I could have even gone bigger. None of the stats take into account what happens in a mature pond when algae starts to build up in the filter and the intakes and the strainer basket. You really want to oversize your pump to push water strongly in all conditions. And I would never use a submersible pump. External only. You want to be able to service and replace and you do not want to be pulling the pump out of a the pond. External pump, external filter, and external UV is the only way to go. Do not save money. Spend big, over engineer, over size and over plan. Your fish will thank you, and you will thank yourself.

Shalom - PLAN AHEAD, as aquarterium said, it 's going to be pay me now or pay me later - speaking from the school of hard knocks - I now need to repipe, cost of the pipe is one thing, but removing and digging for the new at 70 is not exciting. "THINK AHEAD" Amen.

post note - remember ease of maintenance, even a clean out in the pipe system - one day it will be needed and hat blessing it wil be when needed.