Good website

[Bullfrog]

I wanted to share this website, the have concrete molds and a lot of pond supplies. http://www.gardenponds.com/molds.htm

Also I answered my own question about pumps losing life when I went to that site, they explaing the loss of lift with easch pump, the prices seem good too.

I do have one question though, when I looked at their skimmers they didn't seem to include a pump. One that I saw had a pump down in the basin of it. They must have a pump right?

[Bonnie]

Yes, skimmers need pumps unless they are gravity fed....


I'll check out the site... thanks

[Rocmon]

No skimmers don't need a pump inside it. Many folks plumb their pump out of the water—external. They are much more energy efficient, and generally last longer.

Pump GPH is measured in height of head loss—say a pump puts out 6000 gph at 5' of head. This is how much water it will pump when encountering 5' of head pressure. That can be pumping the water up hill 5' or, it could be small diameter pipe and a bunch of fittings that add up to 5' of head height—that's called friction loss. You have to account for both when calculating how much water you need your pump to push.

Probably more than you wanted to know...

[Bullfrog]

No skimmers don't need a pump inside it. Many folks plumb their pump out of the water—external. They are much more energy efficient, and generally last longer.

Pump GPH is measured in height of head loss—say a pump puts out 6000 gph at 5' of head. This is how much water it will pump when encountering 5' of head pressure. That can be pumping the water up hill 5' or, it could be small diameter pipe and a bunch of fittings that add up to 5' of head height—that's called friction loss. You have to account for both when calculating how much water you need your pump to push.

Probably more than you wanted to know...

Not at all Rocmon, I need to learn it all as I'm going to be doing it and I want to do it right. The website I posted has a chart that shows the loss of flow with each pump as more head pressure is encountered. I'll also look into the external pump option on the skimmer, thanks.

[Ky Kim]

Very interesting site.  Wait till Tinker see's all those molds....she'll be    But she very creative on her own, the things she makes are remarkable.

Kim

[Esther]

Skimmers do not come with a built in pump as far as I know. Whether you use an external or submersible, doesn't matter much but something has to pull the water in. From what I have noticed, people with bottom drains often have a larger pond, let's just say over 2000 gallons. When the pond is real big, they will have more than one bottom drain even. So if they have a skimmer and bottom drain both, they have to put a Y in there somewhere to pull from both places. I didn't want to have a vortex and external setup so went with a submersible and no bottom drain. My pond is in the front yard and there would be no place to hide the out of pond stuff.