Waterfall pump calculator or Stream Calculator

Our waterfall pump calculator and stream pump calculator will help you determine the size of the pump required to power a waterfall or stream.

As the width of the falls or stream increases, the GPH that flow over the spillway or flows down the stream will also increase. If the spillway width or stream width increases and the GPH does not increase, the sheet of water or flow of water will become thinner and thinner, not producing the desired effect.

Something to consider before we begin.

• Turn over rate.
  It is best to turn the volume of water that your pond holds through your filters every hour.
  
  This may be impractical for larger ponds so try to achieve a turn over rate of at least every 2 hours. If the pump required to achieve this exceeds the results of the below calculations that the waterfall pump calculator gives you, go with the pump size that will give you a good turn over rate.
  
  If you find that you need a pump that is to powerful for your waterfalls or stream to look correctly, simply divert the excess flow of water, after the filters through a return pipe back into your pond. This is particularly useful if you have an area of the pond that has poor water circulation.

Step 1

Please enter all numbers into this waterfall pump calculator as directed by the text next to each box.

Step 2 (optional)

The numbers above define the GPH required to power your waterfall or stream, but now you have to pump that water up to the falls or stream.

There are fittings, filters, and pipe that the water must pass through and this will effect the performance of your pump. So enter your numbers below to find the true height factoring in the resistance.

Now that you have the results of the two calculations from the waterfall pump calculator above you are properly prepared to make right pump choice.

There is only one more piece of information needed.

You need to know the pumps performance under a load, otherwise called a flow chart.

All manufacturers provide a flow chart for each pump.

But you may not receive this information until you actually purchase the pump.

Forget about being able to look up this information on the internet also, it just dosen't exist or is very hard to find.

So I have given you 3 examples of a relative common pond pump to base an educated guess of the size pump required.

Armed with the information from step 2 let's look at the 1800 GPH pump (in red).

• At 125 GHP per inch this pump will produce a waterfall or stream of 14 inches wide at 2 feet in height.
• The same pump and the same GPH per inch at 6 foot in height (remember step 2) will give you a waterfall or stream of 8.5 inches wide.
• At 12 feet in height (remember step 2) it will produce a waterfall or stream of 7.5 inches wide.

So here is the best advice I can give you!

• If you are planning a waterfall without a lot of tubing and is not very high I would go with your step 1 results.
• If you are planning a stream that has a long pipe to supply the stream or a waterfall that has some height to it I would use step 2 and look carefully at the results.
• If step 2 returns a result of greater than 6 or 8 I would consider doubling the size of the pump that is listed in step 1 of the waterfall pump calculator.

It is our hope that this waterfall pump calculator, stream calculator has helped you select the right size pump for your backyard project.