Need pump advice quickly

[livetogarden]

Our pumps are 5 years old this summer. Both are barely functioning. We have our son's graduation open house this weekend. We figure we can leave them off most of the time until then so we are assured of getting enough use from them to make the waterfall look great for the festivities. But we need to buy new ones. When we bulit our pond 5 years ago we pretty much did a 'fly by the seat of our pants' type job. Not much local help and hadn't found this forum yet. So we just bought what the closest garden center had on hand for immersible pumps. Knowing more now, we sure would appreciate your expertise so we don't just trust the local garden center clerk.
Pond is 18' x 15' and 2 1/2' deep, 5000 gallons. Waterfall spillway is probably about 10' above the level of the pond so the pump needs to pump up to that. Stream is about 23' long (winding). So........give us your advice on what and where to purchase, etc.
Thanks!!!
Cath and Rich

[Double S]

Don't know if it was the best or not....but we've had zero problems in a year now. We use a Pondmaster HyDrive pump (submersible).  Our pond is 35' x 23' and 2 1/2' deep.  Feeds 2 waterfalls (one with vegie filter) and a stream. Never measured the length of stream before, but probably 20'.  With all that we still have very good flow coming from falls ansd stream!

We only have goldies and plants.....no kio in it.

[livetogarden]

We only have goldies and plants also. Thanks for your input.
Cath

[Pa Nancy]

I think lots of folks purchase from AZ Ponds.  Gotta love the free shipping. 

[Jerry]

Az is good, so is Gene at Koi Village, see our links.  I got the highly thought of Sequence Pump from Gene.  Smooth sailing for 2 years now. i had fits with Cal pump and Laguna.

[Rocmon]

Tsunami is supposed to make really good submersibles. Sounds like you need a pump to push 5000 gal at 11' or more of head. You will find if you install an external pump your electric bill will give you a noticeable reduction in operational cost. You mention pumps not pump. What circuits do you run them on? Do you have a pressurized filter?

Figure 5000 gph for the pond volume (one time per hour turn over), 10 feet of head for head height, you need to add up the length of your pipes and fittings, and include pipe diameter, then check the chart for friction loss. This will tell you what gph pump you will need at what head loss—height plus friction loss. Do you run all the pond water over the falls?

Most reputable pumps will have a chart that shows gph vs height of head.

http://www.aquaart.com/pondFLC.html

Yes stay away from Cal pumps...

External pumps: W. Lim or Artesian are good.

[LeeAnne151]

I have been very pleased with the price and service from Koi Village.

[frloplady]

Pondmaster pumps have worked great for me as submersibles, and some models can be used later as an inline/external if the demand arises.

External the WmLim pumps are great.  I even tried to run one of mine as a submersible this week 

Mary

[livetogarden]

We would like to get in to external pumps. It's a real pain dragging them out of the pond when need be.
Rocmon.....we had an electrician run power out to the pond so it has its own circuit. Lower electric bills sounds good to us.
I did mail Gene at Koi Village. He suggested Pondmasters.
Our filter stinks!!! It's a submersible and has 3 bags of tiny pebbles for the crud to filter through. It's a pain too, have to unlock the lid, drag all 3 bags out and wash them thouroughly, put it all back together. If we had only known about this forum at the time.
Cath

[perplexed ponder]

Cath-
Our tsurnumi has been running faithfully for 2 years now with never a problem.

[Bonnie]

I'm surprised that Gene didn't suggest going with an External pump instead.
Pondmaster pumps are decent pumps for a submersible but I suggest going with ONE Sequence Pump instead of 2 Submersibles. 

AZ Ponds evidentally doesn't sell Sequence pumps anymore but Webb's does.  Truthfully Webb's has given me better customer service anyway..
http://www.webbsonline.com/catalog/pumpsext/index.html

Truthfully if you don't plan on changing your filtration, there's no need going with such a big pump and worrying about the water turnover rate...  BUT it's always good to plan ahead.

[livetogarden]

Bonnie,
  We definately want to change our filtration methods. You don't want to be around when hubby has to fish the filter out of its spot to clean it, it's heavy and a real pain to drag out. Neither of us ever swear but he is not a happy man at that point, just the grumbling and growling sends the rest of us searching for something else to do...far, far away!!!!! 
Cath