New waterfall... How to soften

[bodsworth]

Hi Pond People

I need some help and advise. I recently had a new pond installed. When it first went in we loved it. It looked great and sounded great. I had quite tall waterfall installed so it looked more of a bigger feature. Anyways all was well and I said the the pond guy it would be interesting to try a bigger pump to be able to turn it up when having partys for bigger effect. Anyways long story short he told me he was trying different pump along with hose to change the water pressure .. what he actually ended up doing was CHIPPING the main stone at the top to make it go directly into the water. This was much louder and ruined the tranquil noise. It also looked terrible. He said he was just trying to take the initiative but ultimately ruined what we already loved.

Since then he have replaced the top stone twice. It's never looked as good and now I'm in a place where I have tried to put stones at the top to try and adjust the flow (never needed this before). I have the pump on the lowest setting.

Not sure what else I can do but I ended up turning it off last night because I just feel bad for the neighbours (no fish yet). I have gone from loving our new pond and water feature to hating it.

If I need to find another pond expert I guess that's what I'll have to do. However this hasn't been cheap and I just want to make it quieter. Is it better for the water to hit slanted or flat rocks etc? Should I try putting more stones towards the back of the "cave mouth" to slow the water more? (I put that piece at the bottom there to try and help for now)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[j.w]

@bodsworth

 

[Phaewryn]

That's barely a trickle. That's loud? I find it hard to believe. But, if it's too loud for you, try adding some plants in planters under it. That little trickle won't hurt them. Try creeping jenny in planters of pea gravel placed so the gravel is just at the surface of the water. I have it in my waterfall with probably 5 times that velocity and it's fine.

 

[cas]

Sorry you aren't getting the sound that you like.
Water hitting flat stones will cause a lot of splashing. Water hitting slanted stone wont splash as much, unless the water is dropping from a significant height.
I don't know how you can do it with the setup you have, but having the water drop into a smaller pool of water before dropping into the pond would help quite the sound.

 

[jgrandmont]

Have you considered installing flow control valves in the plumbing? That's what I did. With a combination of them, I can fine-tune the flow to my main waterfall, secondary waterfall, and spitter.