Monday, March 12, 2007

Pond Pumps


There are hundreds of pond pumps to choose from. Which one to buy? Inline? (What does that mean?). An inline pump is placed out of the water, a submersible one goes in the water. You just learned something.

When I started building ponds you went to the plumbing supply store and bought a sump pump, swimming pool blue in color, threw it on the bottom of the pond with some hose attached to it, ran it over your waterfall and that was it. Suddenly the pond craze caught on, rather like the hundred monkeys phenomenon and companies started making pumps. So now we can have mag drive pumps, pumps with oil, pumps without oil, solar pumps (my personal favorite.), pumps with filters, without filters, and everything in between.

Pump rule number one: Your pump must turn over your water every two hours. That keeps sufficient oxygen in the water for your fish. If you are using filtration, it also pushes or pulls all the water through the filter every two hours and keeps your pond cleaner.

Pump rule number two: Don't buy a pump that is too small or one that is too big. A pump that is too large will suck your fish in, send them through the impeller and over the waterfall as gefilte fish. Not what you want.



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