Solar powered pond pump?

Starfox

Starfox

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Hey all, I know a few of you have koi ponds and and the like so I was hoping I could pick your brains about a solar powered pump system as I know nothing about them and may even have to resign myself to having a wired pump.

Basically I want to create a little stream and pond set up, something along the lines of this https://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Stream
They don't really give the dimensions there but I was thinking something in the range of maybe 8 to 10 feet total length with a small pool at the top and a larger one at the bottom for fish, plants or whatever. Mine would also not be as steep so probably not have any of the water fall steps.

Anyway most of this all seems fairly straight forward until I get to the pump system, they say they use a 2500gph pump which I assume is fairly powerful and a lot of the listings I am seeing locally or in the UK either don't list the gph or are for fountains and not knowing really what I'm looking at to begin with it's all quite confusing.
If anyone can help me wrap my head around what sort of pump I would need, roughly, and if I can run it on solar power that would be great.

This is an idea for my wife's birthday, she always wanted a Japanese style bridge and well I got nothing else in the way of ideas so I figure I'll build her a stream and plonk a little bridge over it.
 
Ok, less confused now since I figured out why things didn't match up, I was reading US sites and you guys use dodgy measurements. Once I changed gallons for liters it clicked. Lol.

Also found what looks to be a decent solar pump so I'm on it now.
 
I use a 12,000 lph pump for my pond which pumps into a smaller second pool above and flows down a roughly 1 meter wide waterfall back into the main pond. I'm pretty sure you'll want something at least 3,500 lph depending on the width of your waterfall and the height it has to lift the water. Work that out first to determine your pump flow rate. Anything over 3,500 lph though I think a solar power pump will struggle to maintain well.

Second thing to consider is if you are going to run it with a filter within the system - I use a sealed, pressurised filter container on my system so I have to run the pump 24/7 which you wouldn't be able to to with a solar powered one. If you left a system like this to turn on and off for hours at a time then gases build up within the filter because of bacterial digestion and then when it comes back on dumps loads of it into the pond. Smells bad and causes the water to foam/froth underneath the waterfall, also isn't very good for pond health.
 
Thanks for the reply, I have knocked the stream idea on the head for now and will just have a little pond or water feature I think. Probably best to start off small then getting in over our heads.

From what I can tell is the solar pumps really are limited in power, some have a battery to give an extra six or so hours which is probably fine on a small pond in summer here that would nearly make it 24 hours.
It's kinda hard to plan too much in secrecy so once the wife knows we will have to go sort out some of the other things like a filter and what not, she will be in charge and I'm just the hired muscle.
 
Yeah kind of hard to pull off in secret but I like the idea! It took me a whole summer of evenings after work planning, digging to the right shape, laying the stones, building the waterfall etc. Getting the water to flow evenly across a 1m wide waterfall took hours and hours or moving stones a tiny bit here and a little bit there. Im happy with how it turned out but already planning how I'd do the next one when we move to a place with a bigger garden!
 
Haven't you heard?
Coal and fossil fueled things make America great
Solar power is bad and is costing people jobs.
Get a diesel powered pump and make America great again.
 
Starfox said:
Hey all, I know a few of you have koi ponds and and the like so I was hoping I could pick your brains about a solar powered pump system as I know nothing about them and may even have to resign myself to having a wired pump.
Basically I want to create a little stream and pond set up, something along the lines of this https://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Stream
They don't really give the dimensions there but I was thinking something in the range of maybe 8 to 10 feet total length with a small pool at the top and a larger one at the bottom for fish, plants or whatever. Mine would also not be as steep so probably not have any of the water fall steps.
Anyway most of this all seems fairly straight forward until I get to the pump system, they say they use a 2500gph pump which I assume is fairly powerful and a lot of the listings I am seeing locally or in the UK either don't list the gph or are for fountains and not knowing really what I'm looking at to begin with it's all quite confusing.
If anyone can help me wrap my head around what sort of pump I would need, roughly, and if I can run it on solar power that would be great.
This is an idea for my wife's birthday, she always wanted a Japanese style bridge and well I got nothing else in the way of ideas so I figure I'll build her a stream and plonk a little bridge over it.
Click to expand...
As for me I use a 1200 gph pump for a ~1100 gal pond. Works fine for me. But you should obviously pick something less than 1000gph to run solar power.
Did you manage to arrange your Japanese style bridge eventually?
 
I would choose something like a filter kit with a pump already, where system would undergo both biological and mechanical filtration. It's pretty important for me.
 
The pump and filter are the heart of your pond system. Don’t cheap out or under size your pump if you are planning to have fish. Solar will most likely never give you the flow you need to avoid a stagnant algae filled mess. The smaller the pond the more difficult it is to maintain. Do your homework. Don’t put rocks or gravel on the bottom... the limited ability to effectively clean out the debris and waste makes it a biological time bomb that will absolutely create problems down the road.
 
Or don't add fish. Without fish it's much easier to have clear water, nice vegetation, newts, dragonflies etc.
 
While you're at it with the solar powered toys, imagine powering the rest of your household and transportation needs with the same low yield sources. Hmmmmm...?
 
I've seen a lot of resources with pond filters from their manufacturers, but maybe the best pond filters I could find at My Garden Zone site, where they have compared ten different models, and by pros and cons, I can definitely say that POND BOSS Filter Kit with pump model is one of the best over there, in comparison with others.
 
johng said:
Solar will most likely never give you the flow you need to avoid a stagnant algae filled mess.
Click to expand...
Depends on the fish. I have only native fish in our pond and the system is self-sustaining. Our pump is only to have a bit of sound in the garden.
 
The original question was asked back in 2018, so probably all a moot point now. Still gonna have fun with it, though.

Would a simple siphon hose or two do it? So long as the the pressure from the weight of the water at the bottom pond is great enough, you should, theoretically, be able to get the thing started and it keep itself running for some time just on gravity.

Also, tiny water wheel generators along the stream to feed power to the pump in addition to a solar panel or two?

Maybe a bit of all of these?

Too perpetual-motion-ey?
 
ShadyStump said:
The original question was asked back in 2018, so probably all a moot point now, but would a simple siphon hose or two do it? So long as the the pressure from the weight of the water at the bottom pond is great enough, you should, theoretically, be able to get the thing started and it keep itself running for some time just on gravity.
Click to expand...
What do you mean? I must misunderstand. You are not suggesting you can siphon water up..?
 
leatherback said:
What do you mean? I must misunderstand. You are not suggesting you can siphon water up..?
Click to expand...
Well, not just a normal syphon with just a hose, no you couldn't, but add in a bell syphon or some other ventury effect producing gizmo, you might get just enough pressure to produce a trickle from small diameter hose. Or perhaps a circular system with hose running from the top pond down to the hose in the lower providing additional pressure, the two hoses being connected by a valve of some sort that would pick up fresh water from the lower pond?

I'm really just having fun brainstorming ideas. 😛 I used to want to be a landscape architect, building all sorts of low maintenance, self sustaining systems. But I can't even draw for crap! 😋
 
ShadyStump said:
Well, not just a normal syphon with just a hose, no you couldn't, but add in a bell syphon or some other ventury effect producing gizmo, you might get just enough pressure to produce a trickle from small diameter hose. Or perhaps a circular system with hose running from the top pond down to the hose in the lower providing additional pressure, the two hoses being connected by a valve of some sort that would pick up fresh water from the lower pond?

I'm really just having fun brainstorming ideas. 😛 I used to want to be a landscape architect, building all sorts of low maintenance, self sustaining systems. But I can't even draw for crap! 😋
Click to expand...
I think you are trying to beat fysics. Unless I understand what you mean wrong, it will just not work.
 
ShadyStump said:
So long as the the pressure from the weight of the water at the bottom pond is great enough, you should, theoretically, be able to get the thing started and it keep itself running for some time just on gravity.
Click to expand...

Water always finds its own level. This is a fancy way of saying that the force exerted on water by gravity does not change whether the water is in a pond or in a hose. A siphon only works when the water at one end of the hose is higher than the water at the other end... and the water always flows from the high end to a low end.

I actually utilized this concept when building my pond to ensure that one side of the pond was EXACTLY the same level as the other side - even when they were 20' apart. Take a hose, and attach a short section of clear tubing on either end. Fill the hose with water. Tie one end of the hose to a stake on one side of the pond, and then snake the hose to the other end of the pond. Raise or lower the second end of the hose so that you can see the water level at both hose ends. They are both EXACTLY the same level... regardless of what the hose does in the middle, whether it is lying in the bottom of the pond, snaking around bushes, etc. You can move the hose around the edges of your construction site to ensure that your layout stakes are perfect. It is highly accurate - much more so than trying to use a standard level.
 
Bonsai Nut said:
much more so than trying to use a standard level.
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when I was putting in my pond I considered something like this; exactly that principle:

Cellfast Schlauchwasserwaage aus hochwertigem Kunststoff es hat bruchsichere Trichter mit Millimeter-Skala, erleichtert die Nivellierung der Punkte, 15m 22-100, grau : Amazon.de: Baumarkt

Cellfast Schlauchwasserwaage aus hochwertigem Kunststoff es hat bruchsichere Trichter mit Millimeter-Skala, erleichtert die Nivellierung der Punkte, 15m 22-100, grau : Amazon.de: Baumarkt
www.amazon.de
 
I guess a better explanation would be contriving a system using gravity to produce a motion in the water, and thus inertia that might be used to move some volume of the water uphill. Would likely only work at certain scales, if at all.

It seems that a bell syphon (or similar device) with a long enough downpipe that moves enough water should be able to produce enough pressure that some of that water might be pushed through a hose uphill by virtue of the inertia behind it. It almost certainly wouldn't be able to maintain the motion of the water by itself, but in conjunction with the originally mentioned small solar powered pump ought to be able to do the job.

It might work better if we don't try to maintain the motion at all, but do it in pulses. A float valve connected to the bell syphon could open it only when there's a large enough volume of water in the lower pond to produce sufficient inertia, triggering a venturi effect akin to flushing the toilet, with significant drop in water level in the lower pond at that moment (or build the syphon/valve mechanism in it's own little overflow box). The water in the system is then pushed up to the upper pond by this sudden inertia, then is allowed to trickle slowly down the stream back to the lower pond. Eventually the lower pond refills and triggers the mechanism again. The stream between ponds would appear to run constantly, while the water is actually being moved in pulses. The same float valve could also be tied to a refill water source, thus maintaining proper overall water volumes like you would normally use it, and adding extra oomph to the system at the time of "flush" by adding additional pressure.

Yes, I'm aware it'd be a great over complication of a simple pond. I have fun with this stuff though.
 
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