Thanks for the warm welcomes! Here is my big question: I inherited 2 water features that came with my new house; both are creeks with pondless waterfalls. I am reviving them after what looks to be years of them laying unused. I have been successful in getting them both to operate again (it was a big moment to see both running with water and I can't believe how much they add to enjoying the property!) But, in both cases, there remains one very big final challenge - they are both losing water. To the tune of 2 inches every 3 hours of operation (measured inside the pump vault.) From what I've read, I should need to re-fill the basin maybe once a week, rather than every day.
Can you help me sleuth why this might be? I've done this project DIY so far (with big help from reading this forum) and would love to solve this mystery. I greatly appreciate any of your ideas and suggestions.
What I've tried so far is to check the liner around the edge of both creeks for leaks (only very small ones I fixed.) i didn't fully excavate each basin, but enough that I could see that each has a pump vault that has big holes near the bottom where other structures are loosely pushed up against it (like other vaults on their sides with holes, but not like those matrix-blocks.) Water goes down through rocks into those structures and into the pump vault. Below are pics and details of each creek.
Front Creek
55 ft long, 3 ft high. This has a new Beckett 3550gph pump from Home Depot. (too much? Stream flow seems good.) 1.5 inch tubing from pump connects to 2 inch underground tubing to fall.
Back Creek
45 ft long, 5 ft high. This has a new Smartpond 3600 pump from Lowes. (stream seems good when running)
On this one, the pipe goes up to the first fall and has a PVC T connection. This stream works. The pipe continues to another Fall that is controlled with a ball joint, but no water comes from this stream no matter how I turn the joint.
I have been partially successful in my project but am still facing some major questions and challenges that it seems appropriate to post in the newbies section, but just wanted to first introduce myself and say thanks in advance!
