Choosing A Pump for Your Garden Pond
Are you considering adding a fountain or waterfall to to your pond or water garden? Apart from the beauty, the splashing effect is amusing as well and it is amazingly easy to accomplish, once you set your mind to it.
To add a waterall or fountain feature to your water garden you’ll first need a submersible pump. Pumps power the water. There are many pumps suitable for the task but your final selection will depend on the number and size of the effect you desire.
Pumps are divided into two main categories, submersible pumps and surface pumps, both are powered by electricity but are now also available in solar versions.
Surface pumps are installed outside the pond or water garden. Surface pumps draw water from the pond via a strainer and a suction pipe, and then deliver it to the fountain or waterfall outlets through polythene tubing.
You will need also need to select a suitable size pump for your project. To have efficient delivery of water to a fountain, half-inch diameter tubing is generally adequate. Waterfalls, however, require 1 1/2 or even 2 inch internal diameter tubing.
I recommend keeping all surface pumps in a dry, ventilated brick-lined pump chamber. Situate the chamber to ensure that both suction and delivery lines are kept as short and straight as possible for the best flow. Many pumps for water gardens now come with a chamber or housing unit.
In order to avoid flooding make sure that pump chamber floor has a drainage hole to a soak away. Avoid waterproof lining in the chamber as the result will be heavy condensation inside the pump which eventually damage the pump.
Unlike surface pumps, submersible pumps are designed to operate under water, so there is no need for pipe-work from pool to pump and back, or for a pump chamber like the surface pump.
Submersible pumps works differently from surface pumps, it simply sits in the pool sucking in water through a strainer and pushing it up through a fountain jet or through tubing to the head of waterfall.
One of the advantages that submersibles have is that some are capable of supplying both fountain and water fall simultaneously. Submersible pump kits are ideal for small to medium-sized ponds with a fountain, waterfall or both.
How to Choose A Water Garden Pump
Pumps are also used for water circulation within a pond with no visible water movement. They also vary in size most often marked for specific pond size in gallons.
To have visually effective and free water flow in waterfall, 100 gallons of water per hour per inch of water fall width is needed. A waterfall eleven inches wide needs 1100 gallons of water flow per hour or more.
To determine the outlet height you measure the vertical lift from the pond surface to the height of the top spillway. One foot must be added for every ten feet of distance from the pump to the top spill way.
Comments feed
