Downside of high water fall

[slakker]

Built my first pond(s) and they're connected by a ~2 feet tall water fall... I've managed to contain the splash quite a bit, but the surrounding rocks do get wet and with the hot weather, I'm finding I need to top up everyday....

On the positive side, I get GREAT aeration!

 

[Fishylove]

Lol, yah.... Unfortunate downfall of beauty

 

[addy1]

lol I can understand that, I add over an inch every day. Luckily well water, no chlorine.
Between the bog and bog plants, the water falls the stream the sun, the water just gets sucked right out. The first summer I thought I had a leak cause of the water loss.
Never need to add water in the winter, unless we have constant dry winds.

 

[slakker]

Lucky for me, the city water in our area is very good... no need to dechlorinate for the amount that I add... down side is that it seems like a bit wasteful. I'll be building a rain barrel/cistern system to to use as top up water.

I read on-line that for a 1000 G pond, using a trickle line of 1 GPH will basically do the auto-top up, but also do automatic water changes as well... assuming the pond has proper overflow built in. Anyone do that or tried that?

 

[dieselplower]

I have been wondering about this. My pond seems to lose about .5 to 1" of water a day when it is hot outside. Does that seem about normal to anyone? I have been wondering if I have a hole in the liner? I have water flowing out of both barrels and the koi spitter.

 

[slakker]

What is the surface area of you pond? Any spill/splash out of the pond onto the rocks of pebbles?

 

[dieselplower]

The surface area is about 8' by 9' and yes it does get a little wet, but not soaked, around the taller barrel especially if it is windy.

 

[slakker]

I noticed that in the last while when it's sunny and hot, the dry rocks get HOT... too hot even for the touch almost. So I can imagine that I'm losing a lot due to evaporation off the rocks that do get wet, instead of it collecting and running off back into the pond.

Maybe in your scenario with the heat and wind, the evaporation is also very high off the wet rocks... hence it never collects enough to be soaked. At least a hypothesis...

 

[slakker]

Lol... Well after not getting rain for record breaking month, we got some rain and I realized not ALL of my water loss was due to high waterfall!!!

I had a bad fold in my liner that lowered the water level and that's where a big chunk of my water was going! Lucky it wasn't a leak.

 

[SouthernCross]

I had a bad fold when I first built my pond. Once it was fixed, instead of adding 10 gallons of water a day, I only add 5 gallons a day. I believe it is evaporation since the rocks are hot, but it seems like a lot for a small 350 gallon pond.

 

[sissy]

If the rocks are always wet on either side of the filters and it is hot or windy you could loose that much