Need a pump for a pondless waterfall

I'm building a small pondless waterfall in front of my house. I've been looking at Aquascapes products, and their pumps are a bit pricey ($350 for a .5hp submersible).

So I'm looking for alternatives. The pump will be installed in a burried basin that is covered with a screen and rocks on top to create the "disappearing" waterfall effect. Total head should be less than 5ft. According to Aquascapes literature I need somewhere in the range of 2000-3000gph.

This is the pump that aquascapes recommends: AquaSurge 3000

Looking at lowes/HD I see a lot of sump pumps in this flow range, but I'm thinking that they are not designed to run continuously?

2900 GPH at a 5' head. This is like filling a bathtub in one minute. . .?
For my 1' high waterfall I used a bucket to simulate the waterfall effect and estimate the GPH. My wife at first thought the noise at 15' away was too much but now she likes it.

You may be able to use two pumps, in parallel to get your GPH or in series to get your 5' head, and still make out better pricewise.

Google
"pond pump" price hp

If you graph the resultant prices vs. hp using Excel you will get some idea of a reasonable price, a great buy, and choices to be avoided ["outliers"]. It's a price vs. performance graph.

Here's one for computer CPUs.
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/...g-price-vs-performance-for-amd-and-intel.aspx
This graph shows eleven choices that seem to be overpriced for the performance they give.

How did you estimate your GPH?

At the irrigation place where I was pricing the Aquascape products they have a waterfall pretty much just like I am building (only a little longer) and they use this pump that is rated at 3000GPH at 5 feet. It seems just about right, maybe a little loud but I wouldn't want much less.

blown said:

How did you estimate your GPH?

At the irrigation place where I was pricing the Aquascape products they have a waterfall pretty much just like I am building (only a little longer) and they use this pump that is rated at 3000GPH at 5 feet. It seems just about right, maybe a little loud but I wouldn't want much less.

Click to expand...

I steadily poured a 1 gal or 5 gal bucket of water over the flat angled stone that we use to get a waterfall effect.
1 gal in one minute is 60 GPH. If this is good for a 1' wide waterfall and my waterfall was 3' wide then 3 GPM/180 GPH would be my optimum rate.

You can always slow down an oversize pump or reroute some of the water around the fall to reduce the fall's GPH, so you might as well try it.

This second pump seems to use twice the watts as the first pump. . .?

Thatguy said:

I steadily poured a 1 gal or 5 gal bucket of water over the flat angled stone that we use to get a waterfall effect.
1 gal in one minute is 60 GPH. If this is good for a 1' wide waterfall and my waterfall was 3' wide then 3 GPM/180 GPH would be my optimum rate.

You can always slow down an oversize pump or reroute some of the water around the fall to reduce the fall's GPH, so you might as well try it.

This second pump seems to use twice the watts as the first pump. . .?

Click to expand...

I think the first is 1/4hp and the latter is almost 1/2hp.

The 8' stream kit that Aquascape sells uses the first pump. The one they had set up at the store wasn't from a kit; they just pieced it together, using the larger pump. It's a bit longer than the 8' kit would get you, but still only a few feet high.

Go to a pool site and look at spa pumps or pool pumps. CHEAP and reliable.