could my pump be too big ??

[mogsie]

so i drained my pond so i could clean out the debris that fell in and decided to time my filling time to get a approx measure of how much water it holds, and it doesnt hold as much as i thaught it did, worked out around 2000 litres, now the pump i am using is 3200 litres/hour so is this too big or is it ok ?

 

[koiguy1969]

no the pump isnt too big, its fine..... you can always put a ball valve between the pump and filter (after the pump anyways). to control the flow. and /or split the flow so you can control how much goes thru the filter and how much goes directly to the falls; this may be a good idea if you use a smaller filter. a ball valve or 2 would be a very good idea to regulate flow more precisely

 

[mogsie]

so restricting the flow after the pump will not damage the pump, or then i could just open the air valve on the built-in venturi as that reduces the flow also !

 

[DrCase]

Restricting the flow wont hurt the pump ,, but you want to valve the flow at the filter for better filtering.. and let the excess water return to the pond over the water fall or into the pond for circulation to get the best bang out of the pump

 

[Shdwdrgn]

No he's not saying to *restrict* the flow from your pump... Rather you're splitting the pipe so you have to separate outlets. One outlet goes to your filter, the other goes to your waterfall or some other feature. You use the ball value to control the flow on one outlet, but you still allow unrestricted flow through the other side.

You do not want to restrict your pump output, if you can help it. Restriction causes the pump to work harder, and will shorten its life.

[EDIT] ok so maybe it won't hurt the pump. Just seemed like a logical conclusion to me.

 

[mogsie]

thanks for the advice guys, that is something i will look into doing very soon, if i split the pipe and take 1direct to the waterfall and the other to the waterfall via the filter,

 

[DrCase]

You would be able to fine tune each outlet if you have a valve on each one
If you think about it a lot of pumps come restricted with step up outlets ,and you cut the outlet tail to fit your pipe or hose..to max out the flow you need to cut off every size up to the largest size on the pump outlet :surfing: