Waterfall - What's the best angle?

[Austrian Fish]

HI guys,

Well, my waterfall/biofilter build is well underway, and i got to the stage of trying out the waterfall yesterday.

I'm using a thick piece of scrap wood angled at 30 degrees as the waterfall runoff. This works well, but i'm finding that a lot of water gets to the lip of the wood, and then wicks back along the underside, instead of shooting off in one smooth flow.

Does anyone have an experience of this? I'm going to play around with the angle at the underside of the lip and see if i can improve this.

cheers,

Andy.

 

[koiguy1969]

thats not a waterfall you have there...its a waterslide!! put down some liner from inside the pond and up to your outlet and build your falls. if the wood your using is treated get rid of it. until you figure out what your gonna do run a peice of pipe out above the pond and let the water fall into the pond it will aerate the water as it falls in. the further it falls the more oxygen it will supply the pond, but dont splash the water out either.

 

[koikeepr]

I'm a little concerned about your use of wood. The small piece of wood plank jutting out from your barrel, is that pressure treated lumber? If so, you do know that pressure treated wood (made to be used outside), contains many toxins that is harmful to fish such as arsenic, etc. I'm not sure if your "slide" is pressure treated wood...it doesn't appear to be. But in general, I don't see how wood is a long term solution in this application.

Why aren't you using something like plastic sheeting or even aluminum sheeting if you have to do it this way?

As koiguy states tho, this isn't exactly the best setup. If water is just sliding into the pond, you are missing the most important aspect of a waterFALL, which is water falling from a distance so that it creates movement and oxygen in your pond.

Unfortunately, your barrel is above the pond, so you've got quite a drop. What if you had a second barrel or proper waterfall lower down. You could pipe the big barrel down to the second area, which could then fall into the pond from there? You can buy waterfall containers pretty inexpensively on ebay...or even make one. You can google search how to make a pond waterfall and get ideas.

 

[koiguy1969]

heres asimple drawing to show an option... you could use it for a fines filter opr put more bio media in the second tub,can or whatever. it will aerate falling in the second tub then again falling in the pond. the fines filter you would just fill with pillow stuffing or quilt batting to filter out smaller particles your bio filter misses. rinse it out once in awhile or replace as needed...its really cheap!!

 

[koiguy1969]

if you have any..you dont have enoigh bio media in that filter... i full screened it and blew it up 400%.. cant see any media..

 

[aviator79]

in your drawing, I dont know if I agree with the way the 2nd bucket is set up as I would worry it could easily overflow. Im sure you did it fast, but im still trying to design my fines filter so it caught my eye. Im thinking for that design you would have to have the "overflow" be below the grate along with possibly a cut out on the top incase it did clog due to neglect or something so at least the water would overflow out the way you want it, not backwards. In the design in your pic the water would be nearly up to the top of the bucket before there would be enough pressure to push the water out your drain and because the water weight might be less in the fines material (think density would go down) than it really needs to have the drain be like halfway up the bucket rather than how close you have it.

 

[koiguy1969]

you can easily move the out pipe down some, the drawing is for general design. but..the filter being last in line would take quite a bit to get clogged,your bio filter will remove 99% of solids, and you dont pack the batting in. a quick checking every couple of days would let you know if a cleaning or replacement is do. and for added security you could put a second outlet(no inside plumbing) right next to the functioning one. dr.case has his lower because he runs his fines filter independantly from its own pump from pond... not after the bio filter.

 

[koikeepr]

I agree 100% with koiguy's design. Of course the second bucket will overflow--that's what a waterfall is! What you're looking for is a controlled overflow where the water goes back into the pond and not all over the place. Koiguy's design or a variation of it does just that.

You could get a bucket that has a wide spill lip on it instead of a pipe, too. The water will simply spill over the lip and into the pond.

Google search DIY pond waterfall and you'll get a lot of ideas. I think I remember seeing a you tube video of someone that made a waterfall out of one of them rectangular buckets that costco sells kitty litter in. They simply made a spill lip out of plastic or thin sheet metal.

But again, you can buy cheap waterfall spillways on ebay too.

 

[koiguy1969]

the simple replacement of elbo with this tee will keep the water flowing where its wanted even if the batting clogs!! i am sure anyone can see this concept.

 

[aviator79]

Yup, thats cool. I was just trying to state a point in terms of the orignal drawing and a possible problem. Again just because I am still undecided on how I will be doing mine. I posted up my ideas, but no one has replied.
And back tothe OP, the problem is definitly partly due to the lack of lots of flow coming out of that filter as seen in the pic. When I did a test on a rock I was thinking of using I had the same problem because I was just using a garden hose with little flow and not a "sheet" of water. I do think that if you made something more like what koiguy has drawn and use a couple of rocks it will work better as im nost sure if you put the wood there just temporarily for testing or what.

 

[koiguy1969]

even the original would probably have never caused a problem.. like i said this would be after the bio filter, so most particulants would have already been removed..this is for the finer matter..it would probably take a long time to clog exspecially once the water got cleaned up! but it definately looks like he needs some more water flow!!

 

[Otter]

Getting back to Andy's original question:

HI guys,

Well, my waterfall/biofilter build is well underway, and i got to the stage of trying out the waterfall yesterday.

I'm using a thick piece of scrap wood angled at 30 degrees as the waterfall runoff. This works well, but i'm finding that a lot of water gets to the lip of the wood, and then wicks back along the underside, instead of shooting off in one smooth flow.

Does anyone have an experience of this? I'm going to play around with the angle at the underside of the lip and see if i can improve this.

cheers,

Andy.

I have a piece of flagstone at a much smaller angle, and nearly all the water launches cleanly. I don't fully understand the dynamics of waterfalls, but my best guess is that your waterfall is too wide for the flow. Try a narrow trough or a bit of pipe or tubing.

 

[Austrian Fish]

Hi Guys,

wow. I wasn't quite expecting this many replies :banghead3:

To answer some of your concerns.....

@koiguy, koifeepr.... The 'Waterslide' is temporary until the rest of the area around the biofilter is finished. I just rigged this up so i can have the biofilter running. The wood is not pressure treated, so there's no nasty chemicals to poison the fish.

@otter... thanks, i'll try to narrow it and see what happens, but i'd really wanted to keep this width as it seems to fit with the overall look.

All the ideas for a second pond/filter after the biofilter are interesting. My plan at the moment is to have the biofilter spilling into a second smaller pond that has lots of plants in it, and then that spills over another waterfall into the pond.

Googling for DIY waterfall ideas is a good idea.

I'll post more pics as it progresses.

cheers,

Andy.

 

[koiguy1969]

like i said in my first post..put some pvc pipe in those outlets, till' you figure out your waterfall the falling water, will also allow gas exchange and aerate your pond, but it needs to break the waters surface, not just trickle pace slide in.

 

[aviator79]

even the original would probably have never caused a problem.. like i said this would be after the bio filter, so most particulants would have already been removed..this is for the finer matter..it would probably take a long time to clog exspecially once the water got cleaned up! but it definately looks like he needs some more water flow!!

Your right, Im thinking more on mine where a seperate pump going to it so the water likely would be dirtier than that designe would be. I replied in the other post, but ya I think maybe I will use that design compared to my original idea. Sorry for taking this a bit off topic.