Sorry for the top post...I didn't want to post a short reply under all of
that, and I certainly did not want to snip it...

All great information. I think this will help me a lot. I plan to drop the
pipe, and dig the VF deeper to allow for more room. I don't want to mess
with the pond edge, because we have it so perfect right now. I think with
some light digging I can get the 4 inch BD pipe below the water line on both
sides...

BV.

"David Pochron" wrote in message
...
"Benign Vanilla" wrote in
message ...
1) Digging the VF deeper, which means I will have plenty of liner
showing

I'm not sure I can visualize the situation here. How does making the VF
deeper cause more liner to show? If there's too much liner showing at the
top edge of the VF just take the topsoil off the ground until the water
level
in the VF and ground are almost the same.


2) Raising the pond edge, which I think I can do a few inches

That will help.


3) Can I dig the feed pipe down so it is below the water level in both
places?

You can, but it isn't totally necessary if you can get a siphon going.
You
would install a bleeder valve at the highest point in the 4 inch pipe that
runs between the pond and VF, and also install a fill valve to connect a
hose
to the 4 inch pipe. Then block both ends of the 4 inch pipe and open the
bleeder valve to bleed the trapped air inside the pipe out as you fill the
pipe with water from the fill valve. Close both valves, unblock the pipe
ends (and of course make sure both ends are underwater) and the siphon
should
work.
But that's a lot of extra plumbing and siphons can be tricky if there is
an
air leak so if you can just drop the 4 inch pipe so that it is just below
the
water line then that is probably easiest.

The above reminds me that I should point out that if you're *sure* the VF
and
pond are level with one another, and you still see the VF draining when
the
pump is running, you may have an air gap in the 4 inch pipe which will
restrict (or even stop it if the bubble is large enough) the flow of
water.
A bleeder value at the highest point along the 4 inch pipe will fix this
as
you can bleed any trapped air out of the pipe, especially if you lower the
pipe so it is below the water level.

Here's two pics of my fountain during construction to help show you what I
did. I don't have a VF, just a pumping chamber/sediment filter/biofilter
all
combined into one made from a Wal-mart garbage pail for $8. :-)

http://www.mindspring.com/~dpoch/pondview.jpg

http://www.mindspring.com/~dpoch/pumptank.jpg

The second pic shows a closeup of the chamber; I used a 2 inch pipe to go
from the bottom of the fountain drain into the side of the pumping
chamber.
The bathtub drain in the bottom of the chamber drains both the pond and
chamber.

See how I had to drop the pumping chamber below the grade of the ground in
order to keep the water level in both the pond and chamber the same?
That's
because the yard has a slope to it. (In retrospect I should have put the
pump chamber on the low side of the yard, but at the time the slope didn't
seem that great to me until after I started filling everything with water.
:-) I had to strip off all the soil later on to get the top of the pump
chamber at the same grade as the surrounding soil.

I also went the extra mile in my plans and dropped the piping all below
the
bottom of the pond. This was so gravity would drain the pond for me
instead
of having to rely on a pump. (It really makes cleaning a breeze.)
However,
that wasn't so bad as my fountain is only 9 inches deep at the drain so
the
deepest trench I had to dig (by hand - too cheap to rent a trencher) was
only
2 feet deep. I seem to recall you had a much deeper pond in your previous
messages, so I can see why keeping the piping shallow would be better in
your
case.

The bottom line is this: The top of the pond edge and VF should be at or
near the same level if you want to keep water in both of them and you
still
want to pump water out of the VF back into the pond instead of pumping
from
the pond into the VF. The bottom of the VF only needs to be deep enough
to
hold enough water to cover the pump and provide enough space for the
plants.
The pipe running between them can slope any way you like as long as the
two
above points remain true. Water will seek equilibrium automatically.


--
David Pochron