SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers

Part of our recent landscape and irrigation project is a pondless waterfall. Anyone that wished to see it may do so by going to youtube and do a search on spinman1949. You will see some of my work with Halloween props. Since you are into hydrodynamics you may find my sump pump water driven pop up interesting. It is like a pop up sprinkler head on steroids. I do not show it in the video but I did a test with the pump pushing water and it will lift very rapidly about 15 pounds. This is going to be used for a Trashcan pop up this year. But I digress.

Here is what I observed. The pump I am using for the pondless waterfall is an Aquascape Aguasurge pump. 4000 to 8000 GPH. Remote adjustable. The video shows the range of flow. The head on this waterfall is about 12 feet. What is odd is that the flow at the lowest setting is non consistent. Yesterday and today it has been quite hot. Over 100 degrees in San Diego. Not common. Plus I believe we are seeing a Santa Ana condition. So when I turned the pump on early this AM the flow was like you see in the video at the lowest setting. But when it heated up the flow drops. And it drops by quite a lot. So my question is. Is this heat related or is it barometric pressure that is causing this? It is easily remedied by bumping the power a bit, but I just find it odd.

The contractor that built the waterfall had no idea. Oh and even if I run the pump at full force and bring it down to the lowest setting if the condition prior was the low flow it goes right back to that. Now there is one other possibility. The remote control is currently out in the sun and heat. So perhaps it is internal resistance related based on the heat?

Todd,

Install is literally a few days old. Only filter is the one on the pump. No chance of any clogging debris with a pondless. Pretty hard for anything to get through layers upon layers of river rock and gravel. Plus the flow is not restricted all the time. As I type the waterfall is running on the lowest setting and the flow is quite substantial. 9:00 PM Pacific. It may very well be the speed control. Possibly during the hot midday sun it is getting hot and thus is providing less current. With the heat the utility may be dropping the supply voltage during peak usage as well. It is a mystery. Did you check out the video on youtube?