Increase Waterfall Flow? How about Pondmaster Waterfall Pumps?

Howdy, all. This is my first post to this newsgroup. I have done a
little searching and have not found an answer.

Basically, I am interested in your opinions on the Pondmaster
Waterfall pumps -- specifically the WFP2500. Generally, I am
interested in you opinions on my present system and how I might
improve it other than using a Pondmaster Waterfall pump.

My present pump/filter is a Pondmaster Magnetic pump (1200 gph). It
draws through a PM 1000 filter (12"x12") that contains a coarse
polyester pad. The outlet feeds through 3/4" tubing up and around to
my waterfall pan. The height is about 6' above the pump.

Basically, the flow stinks and I want to improve it. I thought of
getting a larger pump and filter box, but my pump should be large
enough now. Perhaps the filter box is restricting the flow. Another
idea is to simply add a waterfall pump (like the WFP2500 I asked
about, above) and redirect the outlet of my filter pump to something
at a lower level.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. I know a lot about
sal****er and freshwater aquaria, but I am pretty much a pond newbie.
I acquired a small pond with my house and I would like to keep it
going.

Thanks,
Scott

Welcome to the group. There are about four things that affect the flow of
the water in the system. One of these is the size and type of pump. The
next is the size of the pipe. The intake resistance of the prefilter. And
the height of the water column. The pumps have a maximum head pressure that
they can pump to, and from the low head with high flow to a high head the
flow drops significantly. You say the height of the waterfall is 6 feet,
and that would be your static head. There is a friction head of the water
flowing through the pipe, and increasing the size of the tubing will
significantly reduce the friction head, and if you decide to enlarge the
pump, you definitely want to increase the pipe size, since the friction head
will go up more with more flow. There are some table on pipe friction on
some of the web pages like the page for the Sequence pumps that will show
how much head pressure you are fighting and what you would gain by
increasing one size or double the size. The Pondmaster website has
performance curves for their pumps that show the number of gallons pumped at
different head pressures. Hope this helps.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html


"Runner" wrote in message
m...
Howdy, all. This is my first post to this newsgroup. I have done a
little searching and have not found an answer.

Basically, I am interested in your opinions on the Pondmaster
Waterfall pumps -- specifically the WFP2500. Generally, I am
interested in you opinions on my present system and how I might
improve it other than using a Pondmaster Waterfall pump.

My present pump/filter is a Pondmaster Magnetic pump (1200 gph). It
draws through a PM 1000 filter (12"x12") that contains a coarse
polyester pad. The outlet feeds through 3/4" tubing up and around to
my waterfall pan. The height is about 6' above the pump.

Basically, the flow stinks and I want to improve it. I thought of
getting a larger pump and filter box, but my pump should be large
enough now. Perhaps the filter box is restricting the flow. Another
idea is to simply add a waterfall pump (like the WFP2500 I asked
about, above) and redirect the outlet of my filter pump to something
at a lower level.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. I know a lot about
sal****er and freshwater aquaria, but I am pretty much a pond newbie.
I acquired a small pond with my house and I would like to keep it
going.

Thanks,
Scott

Scott,

I'm sure others will chime in - your flow rate will be limited by the most
restrictive factor, which could be the height, or your filter (draw), or the
tubing size, or the capacity of the pump itself. All of these together will
reduce the flow, too. You may want to look at this link for recommended
tubing size, I think your 3/4" is too small:
http://www.watergarden.com/catalog/p...mp-tubing.html

What size is your pond, and how many fish? Can you as a test bypass the
filter and see if that increases the flow to an acceptable level? Can you
put filter material/plants in the waterfall pan, or increase its size so it
can be a filter, thus you're not trying to draw through a filter?

Happy Ponding,
Tim

"Runner" wrote in message
m...
Howdy, all. This is my first post to this newsgroup. I have done a
little searching and have not found an answer.

Basically, I am interested in your opinions on the Pondmaster
Waterfall pumps -- specifically the WFP2500. Generally, I am
interested in you opinions on my present system and how I might
improve it other than using a Pondmaster Waterfall pump.

My present pump/filter is a Pondmaster Magnetic pump (1200 gph). It
draws through a PM 1000 filter (12"x12") that contains a coarse
polyester pad. The outlet feeds through 3/4" tubing up and around to
my waterfall pan. The height is about 6' above the pump.

Basically, the flow stinks and I want to improve it. I thought of
getting a larger pump and filter box, but my pump should be large
enough now. Perhaps the filter box is restricting the flow. Another
idea is to simply add a waterfall pump (like the WFP2500 I asked
about, above) and redirect the outlet of my filter pump to something
at a lower level.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. I know a lot about
sal****er and freshwater aquaria, but I am pretty much a pond newbie.
I acquired a small pond with my house and I would like to keep it
going.

Thanks,
Scott

(Runner) wrote in message om...
Howdy, all. This is my first post to this newsgroup. I have done a
little searching and have not found an answer.

Basically, I am interested in your opinions on the Pondmaster
Waterfall pumps -- specifically the WFP2500. Generally, I am
interested in you opinions on my present system and how I might
improve it other than using a Pondmaster Waterfall pump.

My present pump/filter is a Pondmaster Magnetic pump (1200 gph). It
draws through a PM 1000 filter (12"x12") that contains a coarse
polyester pad. The outlet feeds through 3/4" tubing up and around to
my waterfall pan. The height is about 6' above the pump.

Basically, the flow stinks and I want to improve it. I thought of
getting a larger pump and filter box, but my pump should be large
enough now. Perhaps the filter box is restricting the flow. Another
idea is to simply add a waterfall pump (like the WFP2500 I asked
about, above) and redirect the outlet of my filter pump to something
at a lower level.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. I know a lot about
sal****er and freshwater aquaria, but I am pretty much a pond newbie.
I acquired a small pond with my house and I would like to keep it
going.

Thanks,
Scott

I have a 300 gal pond and use a 600gph pump and a 12X12 PondMaster
filter. I pump the water up vertically to about 6 ft. through 1"
tubing and the flow rate seems fine. I'm not sure what you were
looking for in terms of flow rate, but this works well for me. The
only problem is having the intake on the pump connected to the filter.
When the filter gets clogged up, the flow is reduced until I get
around to cleaning out the filter.
Otherwise, all is fine, and I clean the filter out about 1x per week
in the summer, especially at the beginning of "algae season."
Gary

Thanks for the comments and the welcome, all. have already disconnected the
filter and noticed no appreciable increase in flow. And the pump is already
grossly oversized for the filter I am using (at least according to the
Pondmaster data). Thus, I will try and increase the size of my tubing next.
If that doesn't work, perhaps I'll supplement with a second pump or
waterfall pump.

One question still, though:

Even after I bump up the size of the equipment, the flow may not be the
"raging torrent" my wife is looking for. What do you guys think about the
Pondmaster waterfall pumps? I have used the mag pump because they are darn
near impossible to kill -- even running dry. I use them on my indoor
aquariums, too. Are the waterfall pumps by pondmaster as indestrutible?
Even if not, are they better than the competition in the direct-driven
waterfall pump class? I continue to be interested in them because I can get
them wholesale through a relative.

Thanks,
Scott