We have talked about this many times before, I’m only here to help. If you want to hire a professional or do it yourself. It doesn’t matter to me, I just want you to do it right. I just found a company selling kits for DIYers and there are selling kits that just don’t work. When it comes to pipe you can only push a certain amount of column through it.

This is the chart and no matter how hard you try it won’t change. Let’s look at the 2 inch pipe, 45 gallons a minute. That is 45 x 60 minutes = 2700 gallons. You can’t buy a pump for anymore than 2700 gph rating for that size pipe PERIOD.
Why buy this with a 4200 gph pump the pipe will only push 2700 gph. If you buy this kit upgrade the hose or decrease the pump. If you didn’t know this you would have just got ripped off. This happens with landscapers everyday.


This one is even worse 2700 is the max gph. Where does the extra 3300 gph go. It goes to over working your pump so it will burn out twice as fast. This is what landscape companies do to customers everyday.

Just always remember to verify what pump goes with what pipe. It makes all the difference when it comes to the final product. This is also a great question to ask of the landscape company that is trying to sell you a water feature. You will already know the answer, you will find out how experienced they are or are they trying to rip you off. Most landscape mark up the products by 30% so selling you a bigger pump is more $$$ in their pocket.

It took me many years to master the art of ponding. I made the same mistakes I’m talking about. All I can do is hopefully fix the problem of pump issues now that I know the truth. I almost made this mistake the other day, I’m glad I caught myself. For pondless water features it is not as much of a big deal but for ponds it is. Ponds have to be circulated at least once every hour, 2 hours at the most. If you build a 10,000 gallon pond and buy a 10000 gph pump to circulate the pond properly but space off and buy a 2 inch pipe. It would now take 4 hours to move all the water in your pond and you will burn out that $1100.00 pump in just over a year if not sooner. Come back and use the pipe and pump chart anytime you want.

I hope this reached you in time.

Happy ponding

Mr. Waterfalls