In over my head, building a huge waterfall. Need pointers.

[combatwombat]

thats awesome. I'll hit you up if I am ever down that way. My father in law lives in Longview.

Rock on. I grew up across the river in Rainier.

 

[Tjsherrill]

Quick update here: Went out to the place I get rocks. If you are in the northwest, Marenakos is amazing.

Put in the order. It iss somewhere between 14-16 tons of rock. Also set up the rental for the Excavator that can lift these babies. May 12th I am gonna pull most of the previously built crap apart. May 13 I am working with another guy to get rid of a bunch of dirt and the rocks come. May 14th I begin building the waterfall.

 

[Tjsherrill]

Rock on. I grew up across the river in Rainier.

thats cool. Keep it up man, I am following along on Youtube...

 

[cas]

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

 

[Lisak1]

Now you're cooking with gas! Those rocks are gorgeous!

@GBBUDD - have you seen pond builders use scraps of underlayment to do bib liners to create pooling? The fabric initially will let water seep through, but over time will get clogged with tiny debris and hold water as good as any EPDM. (We found this out when we built our rain exchange and thought layers of underlayment would make a great addition to the filtration... nope.)

We tried this on one bog wall where we had water seeping over height of the liner and between the rocks and it worked like a charm. Foam the area up really well and then stick the fabric to the foam. Unlike EPDM, it will grow moss and blend in better if it's exposed.

 

[GBBUDD]

One huge over look to fabric I'd a foundation for roots to grab ahold of .even moss will grow on it to the right of my main waterfall I have a Boulder that was loaded with character but was shorter than I wanted to like any place where ledge is sticking out I placed fabric from the waters edge to the base of the boulder a foot and a half of exposed fabric . If you looked at it today there's moss and creeping Jenny all over it .
. This will both glue it in place and make it closed but still leaches over night
I would still prefer to make the bib out of liner. I hear you on the clogging it doesn't take long . But it will never be water tight.

Another way to speed that fabric to hold water is a blast of foam under the fabric

 

[Beercan31]

if and when this gets done I'm quite sure its going to be AMAZING. like the responses that have been posted previously you have a lot of research and work ahead of you. like all projects you must start somewhere.

lets start at the bottom. your are going to ask a pump to lift a column of water 20', regardless of how its plumbed you are going to have a loss of water flow. for example if you are going to plumb your system with hard line IE sched 40 or 80 you have to calculate that ever 90 degree adds 5 feet and a 45 degree adds 2.5 feet in total length that will needed to be calculated in to the system. even with "flex line" you are going to have line loss.

at best try not to get a pump that will be working at its maximum limit 24-7, it will not last.

 

[GBBUDD]

For tall falls such as you have there I believe I mentioned before is to cheat . Have the upper part of the falls drop into a catch pool half way or so up /down and have a second pump this way you don't have extreme high demand for one pump to push that much water that far costing a small fortune in power. In the some impressive pond build thread I started the very first video is 150 long and has a lift of probably 12 to 15 feet and that's exactly what they did.

 

[Tjsherrill]

if and when this gets done I'm quite sure its going to be AMAZING. like the responses that have been posted previously you have a lot of research and work ahead of you. like all projects you must start somewhere.

lets start at the bottom. your are going to ask a pump to lift a column of water 20', regardless of how its plumbed you are going to have a loss of water flow. for example if you are going to plumb your system with hard line IE sched 40 or 80 you have to calculate that ever 90 degree adds 5 feet and a 45 degree adds 2.5 feet in total length that will needed to be calculated in to the system. even with "flex line" you are going to have line loss.

at best try not to get a pump that will be working at its maximum limit 24-7, it will not last.

@Beercan31 thanks for the tips. I have a pump and I think 50' of 3' piping. The total height I have to hit is about 16'. Will this do it? Or am I missing something here?

 

[Tjsherrill]

For tall falls such as you have there I believe I mentioned before is to cheat . Have the upper part of the falls drop into a catch pool half way or so up /down and have a second pump this way you don't have extreme high demand for one pump to push that much water that far costing a small fortune in power. In the some impressive pond build thread I started the very first video is 150 long and has a lift of probably 12 to 15 feet and that's exactly what they did.

so get a second pump and pump from the bottom to the middle and middle to the top?

 

[GBBUDD]

Yup and for the amount of flow I'd guess you'd want to see coming down that hill a minimum of 2 10,000gph if you look at my videos thats with the two falls and two return jets but they are only 3/4 inch openings so I'd guesstimate what your looking at is about 9000 gph. For a realy dramatic tall falls wide and lots of action takes a lot of water.

 

[Tjsherrill]

Yup and for the amount of flow I'd guess you'd want to see coming down that hill a minimum of 2 10,000gph if you look at my videos thats with the two falls and two return jets but they are only 3/4 inch openings so I'd guesstimate what your looking at is about 9000 gph. For a realy dramatic tall falls wide and lots of action takes a lot of water.

I think the thing that I find most wrong with my current setup is how wide the falls are that the guy last summer had laid out. My thought is to move toward narrower sets of falls. More similar to this video.

Does this make sense? and will I still need another pump?

Finally, I have 11 aquablox which would be like 330 gal + 40 gal pump vault. Is that enough reservoir?

 

[GBBUDD]

IT CAN BE OR IT CAN BE WAY UNDERSIZED IF YOU LOOK AT YOUR VIDEO AT 13:42 THAT section of falls you can see each of the falls drops into a pool if that pool is not water tight and each pool drains into the catch basin it will quickly fill up 150 gallons because you need to keep at least that in the pump vault to push water up the hill . there's some videos my modern design aquascape mater in motion i would highly recommend it . i would be willing to bet you'll need to at least doble that volume

before you start on the hill maybe do a trial somewhere .

Atlantis water garden is probably making some of the most naturalistic falls i see in videos today. i'd watch as many videos and read the blogs for falls building by the pros. i hyave some videos here that i found impressive
https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/some-very-impressive-pond-builds.26353/

The video on page two the one before and after has my favorite falls not because it has huge flows but because it has natural looking and the falls split. One bigger while another goes around a boulder and creates just a trickle. Get creative with your height and width PLACE A BIG TREE STUMP.
Maybe make a cave that's not facing so much directly down hill but one that you can just see it's there with a trickle of water make islands that are not IN a puddle but that have damp soils that are within the liner for a mass planting. just saw i pointed that video out before .

@combatwombat used a similar block wall in his pond and i thought having the wall and rock insect each other would make for a great look in other words maybe have the block come into the falls have boulders stick out intercepting the block have a small falls . then some more block and another waterfall and more block . tie them both together it will look far more appealing then just cutting the wall in two. The rule of thirds

ok i hate typing thats enough for now

Look at everything as a set of funky stairs . but steps that rocks and pools will sit on. it makes it so much easier to know what size rocks your going to use lets say you have a 12 inch drop but you only have 10's place the smaller rocks under not on top of the boulder Or use three rocks staggered both side to side and inward and sticking out . quite often the well that won't work but this is different turns out to be unique and catches the eye

 

[GBBUDD]

This is the same waterfall i love so much but narrated by jack from atlantis water gardens he gets more into the details

I want to be 25 and build ponds and waterfalls for my life

 

[combatwombat]

Depending on what fittings you use, looks like you'll have somewhere in the realm of 18 - 22 ft. of total head and will be getting somewhere between 6-8000 gph with that pump.