Troubleshooting & renovating water feature

10 years ago

Hello, all:

This was installed by the previous owners and now it's leaking. The water normally overflows out of the blue urn into the catch basin, which was filled with stones.

I checked for moisture, but it's a moist spot in general and no extra-moist area is evident.

Then I removed most of the stones and water from the basin and turned off the power. The water from the filled urn drained into the basin. I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to work. Is it?

I let the water sit in the basin overnight to see if that was the source of the leak, but in the morning, it had not leaked. So the basin does not seem to be the problem.

After reading here, I assume the problem is either loose or cracked fittings on the pump or in the urn. Please scroll down for details.

Pic #1: Water feature with most stones and water removed.

Pic #2: This is the pump in the basin, partially exposed.

Pic #3: This is a view into the urn. Notice that big tube? It's cracked (see next photo for detail).

Pic #4: Closeup of cracked tube.

Is that cracked tube the likely problem or do I need to keep digging out the pump to check the fittings? I do see now that the water in the urn leaked down to below the level of the crack, but it seems to me that it's draining back into the basin so it's not the source of water loss.

What else I should be looking for?

Thanks!
Jay

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Comments (4)

chas045
10 years ago
I don't have actual experience in Pondless Waterfalls; that is essentially what you have. I agree with you that the broken hose shouldn't be causing your leak, but it sure suggests that other things could be broken on the way to the urn. Unfortunately, I think you should dig up and rebuild the whole thing correctly. Hopefully, someone else with actual experience will chime in too.

I just copied an old response re. a pondless waterfall.

The normal design is a big hole partially filled with one or more
porous boxes similar to (or even) milk crates. These 'crates' allow
rocks to be supported above them while they contain excess water
and the pump so that there is always more than enough water in the tank
AND the falls, tubing and spillways. Running the pump dry is usually
bad or real bad.

The other odd thing about your system is that the pump appears to be way too big for your urn. It makes me wonder if the water is pumped to a second location that you haven't noticed. Of course, since there is no Vault, it seems unlikely that there would be a second area.
jgitomer
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks! I thought that pump looked big. I'll continue the excavation and post here when I uncover the next big mystery.
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chas045
10 years ago
Yes, if it really is just the urn, you can or probably should use a little pump that almost fits in your hand. They are not expensive.
User
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
Hey, try looking up Aquascape products. They have a lot of pondless waterfall parts and kits and information on their site. We are re-building our water-feature from scratch. We are pond-less! My husband refuses to have fish and a pond again--we rented a home with one once and kept losing our fish to racoons and bears--despite every trick we could implement.

We were initially working with a 6' run horizontally, but I really wanted more oomph, so we are building up vertically and increasing our gpm on the pump to 6000 gpm and putting in a 2" line now (versus the 1.5" previous one and 3000 gpm). Our buddy--a pro landscaper--swears by this company and products so we're re-buying our new pump and stuff through them.

See if you can pick somebody's brain at your local pond supply store for free. Good luck!

Oh yeah. Keep digging the whole thing up. You may have a problem somewhere in your sump or external drainage. Because where does the water filter through or connect to your water source?

For a small water feature like that? Best idea is to re-do. It could be that the pipe fittings or seals are leaking. Maybe try adapting the old water with dishsoap trick. (Hopefully it will work??) If something is leaking air, you should be able to see bubbles where it's leaking. Like putting a bicycle tube in water.

Is there a hole in your liner?