Final pump

[buckry]

Ok, so my pond is 3400 gallons and I have 2 900gph pumps pulling water through inpond filters and then combining that water in my waterfall. I then have another 900gph pump pulling water into the skimmer and then jetting it across the pond. This makes a nice little current which then drives more debris back to the skimmer, and the fish love diving in and out of it.

I want to get started on my skippy filter but am trying to decide if I want low flow, high flow, or about the same medium flow as I've got now. I feel like another 900gph would be about perfect, but I don't know, maybe I need more, maybe the skippy needs less.

What do you guys recommend?

The other option would be to get rid of the jet from the skimmer and let this pump run the skippy, but my feelings about that are that I'm already pumping surface water from the top back down to the bottom, seems self defeating to pump it from the top back to the top in anothre part of the pond. That's why I feel like a 4th pump makes more sense.

I'm going to hook up the pump to a rain barrel using the front drain spigot and garden hose, then I will have a 1 1/4" flex hose route the water back down to the waterfall. If I add another pump I'm going to make a prefilter box out of two of my 10" water plant baskets zip tied together.

I just need to know if I should do 900gph, 1800gph, or what. Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[buckry]

Or should I just use one of my 2 existing filter pumps? I could plumb one or both of them into the skippy before it returns to the waterfall. I would love that actually, adding another pump can't be good for the electric bill.

 

[addy1]

I am not sure of the flow rate, I made one just to get rid of pea gravel dirt when we first fired up the pond, had a real low flow pump go through it, ran it for 3 days have not used it since last year lol. I would take one or both of the water pumps have them go through your skippy type filter than to the water fall. I would not add a new pump.

Your electric bill will become an ouch! lol

 

[buckry]

Ok, that's the realization I came to over night. This is at least a starting point. If it seems to not work, adding a pump is always an option.

 

[DrCase]

I would split the flow of your original pump and run about 900 gal per hr thru the Skippy back to the fall

 

[buckry]

Ok, great, that's perfect. I'm probably going to use the pump in the 4' deep end for this. That's awesome, going to save a ton not needing a new pump, the cost of the rain barrel, and some fittings. Don't even need to buy hose, have exactly what I need for my existing pump in the shed.

 

[addy1]

Great makes it nice to have everything you need........keeps the pocket heavier.........well thicker with dollar bills lol

 

[HARO]

You still have dollar bills??? We got rid of ours long ago, now have $1 and $2 coins. The wallet may be thinner, but my back pocket has ten pounds of change in it! :grumble:
John

 

[sissy]

BUTT HEAVY

You still have dollar bills??? We got rid of ours long ago, now have $1 and $2 coins. The wallet may be thinner, but my back pocket has ten pounds of change in it! :grumble:
John

could be a challenge sitting down LMAO

 

[brandonsdad02]

You still have dollar bills??? We got rid of ours long ago, now have $1 and $2 coins. The wallet may be thinner, but my back pocket has ten pounds of change in it! :grumble:
John

Not sure if I would like having coins instead of dollar bills. I used to carry a wallet, but my Dr. Back cracker kept on telling me to get rid of the wallet and I would have to visit him less. He was right. Now I just keep my wallet in my Jeep and just carry what I need in cash.

 

[addy1]

Not sure if I would like having coins instead of dollar bills. I used to carry a wallet, but my Dr. Back cracker kept on telling me to get rid of the wallet and I would have to visit him less. He was right. Now I just keep my wallet in my Jeep and just carry what I need in cash.

cards only, just carry some emergency cash, don't even have a check book. I have not had a check book for over 5 years now.

 

[buckry]

Well, decided afterall to add a 4th pump. My inpond filters are slowing my pumps with algae and I think this is probably about their normal operation, and due to this, I'm not happy with my waterfall volume. Adding another equal pump for the bio filter will boost my waterfall output to make it look a lot nicer. So I'm going to build a small prefilter box, drop the pump in the deepest part of the pond and pump that water into the bio filter. I have some really awesome ideas to make this easy and cheap, first off the output of the danner pumps I've been using are normal garden hose fittings, and the container I'm building my filter in is a rain barrel which already has a garden hose spigot on the front. I'm just going to make a female to female garden hose and hook the pump to the barrel, then do the normal skippy stuff on the inside. The rain barrel is going to cost $100, but everything else should be under $20. I hate spending so much on the barrel, but it's just going to be sitting on the deck, I want it to look presentable.

 

[sissy]

I saw one done with a wine barrel and they put boards on top for a table .The sealed the inside of the wine barrel with some kind of black stuff .Could have been that spray on rubber stuff not sure .Not sure I was just there to pick up a friend who was dog sitting and her car broke down .No one to ask .

 

[buckry]

yeah, Home Depot has 2 styles, one is a wine barrel and the other is just sort of a pretty container similar to the wine barrel. Both are fake so they're totally waterproof, I haven't decided which one I want yet, probably let the wife decide, both will work just fine for my purposes.

 

[taherrmann4]

Well, decided afterall to add a 4th pump. My inpond filters are slowing my pumps with algae and I think this is probably about their normal operation, and due to this, I'm not happy with my waterfall volume. Adding another equal pump for the bio filter will boost my waterfall output to make it look a lot nicer. So I'm going to build a small prefilter box, drop the pump in the deepest part of the pond and pump that water into the bio filter. I have some really awesome ideas to make this easy and cheap, first off the output of the danner pumps I've been using are normal garden hose fittings, and the container I'm building my filter in is a rain barrel which already has a garden hose spigot on the front. I'm just going to make a female to female garden hose and hook the pump to the barrel, then do the normal skippy stuff on the inside. The rain barrel is going to cost $100, but everything else should be under $20. I hate spending so much on the barrel, but it's just going to be sitting on the deck, I want it to look presentable.

I know you don't want to spend more money but running 4 pumps is going to cost you a lot of money to run. Why not invest in one larger pump and split its input and outputs. Have two inputs, one from your skimmer and the other from somewhere else in the pond, these would then feed to your pump. From the pump you could split it several ways one way go to the skippy and from the skippy you could have a weir which would flow down to your waterfall. The other could go to the pond and spray across it like you have it now and you could even split it again and have it go straight to the waterfall. This would prevent you from running too much gph through the skippy yet it would give you the amount of water going over your waterfalls that you are looking for. The pump would have to be an external, not sure you could use a submersible pump to have two different inputs, but not sure on that.