Hi Two years ago I put in a waterfall in the shadehouse, Uses a 150 gallon aquarium as the reservoir. The falls are four feet above the aquarium ,7 feet wide. I use a 1600 gph pump that acts as a filter as well as supplies the falls. . I used a fiber glass tarp under a "rock wall" made of expanding foam.. Several thing have went wrong with it .The most important is that the plants ate right through the tarp and or divert the water .lol I can lose 10 gallons in about 5 hours . Obviously I can't run the falls 24/7 already. The evaporation rate is about 3 times what I expected even in winter. So the answer to what size reservoir depends on the water loss.. With 20 galls youcan't lose a drop lol. gary

I have often considered a pondless water feature. Your idea sounds great. Yeah, $500 each for the color changing lights would deter me from using them too. Are the spillways pipes coming through the wall or like shelves (sort of like a dustpan)? I don't know if you are wanting to make the spillways yourself or if they are kits. To get an idea, I just checked the Atlantic site and saw the Colorways system. Is that what you are talking about? I can't answer about the LED lights. I don't think the strips are expensive but you have to know how to connect them to a controller of some kind if you are DIY. My boyfriend uses the LED strips for projects but he has experience. OH.. I just re-read your post and you want only information from people who have done this. Never mind. My information would be only from ideas I've had.

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I always remove prefilters on pumps. They clog, stress the pump, I don't see their purpose beyond marketing. There's nothing particularly good or bad about 600 GPH in a 500 gal pond. Depends more on filters and how you want to run your pond. For example, UV filters have flow rate specs. Bio filters can generally handle high flow rates, or I should say good bio filters. In my experience I've never found one maker of pumps to be better than others. Seems to be more about luck. I did have one pump that ran 24/7 for at least 8 years, could still be running. It even got pulled out of a pond by a raccoon and ran for hours dry. But that's just a single experience, next pump from the same company could bust in a month. I've had that experience too. The only sure way to eliminate green water is a UV filter. For a 500 gal pond they're cheap. And you normally only have to run them for a few weeks. That gives the bacteria that kills algae a chance to get established. Before that the algae produces a chemical that kills the bacteria. Getting that bacteria going in a Skippy is very hit and miss. Fine for nitrifying bacteria, not so much for algae killing bacteria.