You can't use a wheelbarrow to move material? That's how I move most material. But I've done the bucket procedure too. It's certainly work, but doable. Good work out. Like I said, I wouldn't buy the manufactured systems either. Just cheaper and easier to built it myself. I like doing this type of work. The main issue I think you would have is the speed at which water could flow between rocks for such a high GPH. 2" drain rock and a 5 gal bucket is OK for say 2000 or 3000 GPH. Of course you could just use 3 or 4 pumps. What I would do for a single 10,800 GPH pump is dig the basin and lay EPDM liner. Then a 2" thick floor of concrete, no steel, over the liner. You can get a little fancy and form a trench for the pumps if you like. Dig a V type bottom before laying the liner. Then final form with concrete. Then I would dry stack concrete block to form open areas. I'd cover with 1/2" Hardie board. JamesHardie sells in the Netherlands but there are no doubt other sellers of cement board in your area. The blocks are stacked so the board on top doesn't have to span more than say 6-8". The board is not rated to span any distance, but I find it OK for 6-8" spans for occasional walking. Certainly OK for holding up even 6" deep layer of stone. When I back fill I place rocks large enough to block gaps between blocks, and then smaller and small stone until I get to the top of the blocks. Then the cement board and then cover with the final layer of stone. You don't have to cut holes in the cement board, should be plenty of gaps around the edge. I do cut a small piece of cement board to cover the pump or pump intake so that's easier to get at. That should get you 500 gals of water easy which should be way more than needed. You can install 2 or 3 submersible pumps instead of one external to get the amount of water you want. Getting the sound of a waterfall the way you want it can be tricky. Many people do want Niagara falls. And they love it when it's turned on. But about 2 minutes later they realize they can't hear anyone talking unless they shout in their ear. Then they realize they can't turn down the flow and are not happy. Not saying this will be true for you, but it happens a lot. And there are different moods you may want. Sometimes a tiny bit of noise, other times a lot. Multiple pumps can provide that. And three 4000 GPH submersibles can be cheaper than a single external to buy and run. The biggest factor to me is pump noise. I've read many times in forums where people said their external pump was quiet, and they can be. But a water feature in a small space the last thing I want to hear when I turn it on is the customer say "what's that hum?" I don't want them to hear anything other than water. Also a super cool piece of equipment is a remote control switch. These are only $10-20, plug into an outlet and then the pump plugs into that and you turn it on and off with a little remote. Way better than having to plug cords in an out and even better than wall switches imo for the cool factor. You can also buy more complex controllers so the falls can switch on automatically just before you wake up in the morning or come home from work. They're kind of expensive, like $100-200.

donaldb, Ccoombs1 is right. Cold water has a lot of O2 in it so O2 isn't usually the problem. The problem is the other gases that can be produced in a pond. These include CO2 and HS both of which are poisonous. Then there can also be a build up of ammonia. The ammonia usually won't be a problem with the build up of CO2 the PH will drop and the ammonia won't be toxic. With the waterfall running the CO2 will be released into the air and the PH will not drop. The HS will be released into the air and won't be a problem. The bacteria on the pond walls maybe able to take the ammonia out of the water with the circulation. The problem with the waterfall running on a 600 gallon pond it will drop the water temperature but the frogs will be in any debri in the pond. This debri will produce heat as it decays and will keep the frogs a little warmer. In that small amount of water there is no way to know what the final out come will be. I have an outside pond at my shop that is 800 gallons. It is 18" deep above ground that is totally exposed to the weather. Last winter I used a pond breather for the fish and frogs in it. One frog did not make it but at least 15 did make it. A pond breather is a small pump that pumps water up an inner tube where it flows out down an outer tube above the water in the pond. There is a smaller heater to warm the water back up as it flows back into the pond through this outer tube. There are holes in this tube to exchange gases. It uses 40 watts of power. Good Luck. Mike

Hi Scott, The size of the rock waterfall and the use of real rocks (not faux) are stipulated in the agreement...not a specific design. Having said that, I'd think that the waterfall should not have the back exposed, where the white PVC pipe is visible from the ground up to the top of the wall, and I can see the cinder block that was placed behind the rocks. Also, the back has a loose pile of crushed stone visible, along with chunky patches of mortar spread out. There are also several rocks that the waterfall contractor didn't use in the wall, but left behind. It looks unfinished to us, and several people, including our landscaper, who also does pool waterfalls. We paid for a 3x5x3 custom rock waterfall (custom, in that we design it with the actual contractor). The rock waterfall as built is 1.5'H x 7' L x 1.5'D . So, in my mind, and others as well, it was not built to spec. Am I being unreasonable in thinking that they should rip out the crappy wall that's been built, and rebuild it according to our actual specs? Thanks. Steve

This is probably a silly question, but... If you have a pool w/ attached spa that has a cascading waterfall feature, doesn't that make the heat pump for the spa work harder as you are constantly losing so much heated water into the main pool...or is there a trough that catches the heated water and pumps it back in to the tub? Just wondering how it works. Thanks!