smbnobles, We love the colored lights - definately worth the money. Even though our color wheel has clear white light - we never set it on that. The colored effect is pretty dramatic. Also, there may be a way to add fiber optic lighting to your bubblers - you might check in to it. Right now its raining and the pool cover is closed, but by Wednesay it should clear up and I'll try to get some more photos.

kgolby- Can't comment on the cost of Rico Rock vs sheer descents for your part of the country. I'm in Louisiana and knew I wanted Rico Rock for the natural look I was after. After working closely with Rico Rock on the selection of boulders/waterfalls for my design, they provided a list of local builders that have experience with their products. Rico Rock only sells to distributors/PB's and the price of their products are region specific. What I like about Rico Rock is their natural look and exact dimensions so you can design the "look" of your poolscape on paper and know exactly what you are going to get. Also, their waterfalls work great and are designed to sheet perfectly at specified gpm's and drain down when off so there is no standing water. It all depends on the look you want. Personally, I think sheer descents look to contrived for a natural poolscape and they go better with symmetric roman style designs but to each his own. My experience was the Rico Rock product was about twice as much as natural boulders or other type of water features such as sheer descents. The PB told me that they double the price of the waterfall kit to account for installation, labor and materials for a structural kit. I did not have any modular kits, because I didn't like the look of them as much as the structural, but I would expect the labor to be less because they are easier to install than the structural kits. The structural kits require more concrete, rebar, shaping and custom mortar work. It took 3 guys plus me an entire month to finish all the Rico Rock waterfalls and boulder placement around the pool! They commented if the waterfalls were modular, it would have taken them 1 week tops to complete everything and move on to the next job. Hope this helps!

A water feature like this can impact how you use the space in the pool and immediately adjacent to the pool. It can also look really cool and make you happy every time you look at it. Without seeing the drawings and getting a sense of what you're like and what you're after, all I can say is - think about those things. Only thing I would toss out there is to think about scale and proportion when deciding what to do. An 8-10' wall w/ 12" sheers would work on a smaller pool. On a bigger pool, it's going to look a little dinky. Where are you in the process? Still at the planning stage? If so, I'd suggest pulling in a landscape designer asap. Landscape designers make pool builders look like rock stars!

As a pool designer/builder I would probably install the 6'. The scale to the pool length looks better than a shorter one IMO. You may want to do a mock-up of the long wall with the waterfall in place. Some thin pieces of wood set up work fine. Then you can see it real-time. The Sheer Descents requires 12 GPM per ft. So a 6' requires at least 72 GPM and a 4' requires 48 GPM. We always use a separate pump and small cartridge filter when installing these, or any deck or laminar jets. We won't tie it into the filtration system. Piping must be sized accordingly to move the water and accomplish the proper look. Hopefully your PB has experience in sizing piping and pumps for applications such as this. The water fall should not be any higher than 3 1/2' above the water as the sheet will break up.