One of my ponds is set above ground. Fifteen feet away, I have another pond set at ground level. I built a dirt ramp leading from the top one to the bottom, built up the sides with big rocks and some cement, laid EPDM liner in it, and built a spillway coming out of the top pond. Then I put my waterfall pump in the bottom pond, plumbed schedule 40 pipe to the top pond (buried the pipe underground), and stubbed the top of the pipe out for my waterfall at the top pond. I built a rock formation around the stub-out to hide the pipe. I put a valve on the schedule 40 pipe near the top pond to regulate the water so that the water didn't run into the bottom pond faster than the pump could recirculate the water to the top pond. It has worked really, really well. I'm reconstructing my bottom pond at this time, but I will post some pictures in a week or so, when I get it finished.

I'll add this -- having a waterfall at the top pond, a couple of small waterfalls in the stream, and another smooth, low-ripple-effect waterfall going into the bottom pond provides awesome aeration of the water.

Thanks. Sounds awesome. Take some pics when you get a chance. Will probably have to do this myself and not much of a plumber but I guess I better learn, lol.

The plumbing part is pretty easy. Just use pvc pipe, with a few 45 degree elbows (for smooth bends). I'll bet all the plumbing would only run you about $20.00 - $30.00, if that much. You can buy black, flexible, ridged tubing at places like Home Depot, but I don't like that stuff very much -- I had a difficult time getting water-tight connections, and the tubing sprang a couple of BIG leaks mid-run. PVC pipe is white (makes it really stand out), but you can just spray paint it black where it enters or leaves the pond, and you can disguise it with rocks, too.

Matt, could you post some pics or email them to me about how you did yours. I got even stupider and got a 300 gallon one today so now I can have 3 pools and waterfalls going down a hillside in my back yard somehow some day. I have a flat upper yard then it slopes down at an angle to a flat lower yard. Pics please so I can get an idea what yours looks like.

Gosh, it's pretty torn up right now -- I pulled out the bottom preform pond, and am in the process of digging a 1,600 to 1,800 gallon liner pond! I can post a picture of what the stream looks like right now, but it's nowhere near as nice as it looked about two weeks ago (I've removed a lot of the liner rocks, and the water remaining in the little pools in the stream is getting a bit stagnant now). I'll try and post one by tomorrow.

Matt

Lol, its like a disease. I don't know why I keep getting these preformed ones when I know I really want an inground one. If you want to email the pics you can so you don't have to post them. I just need an idea to start with. Should the ponds go from smaller to larger down the hill? I hope so since I would like a couple of fish in the lower one so I can see it good from the patio.

I made a little 20 foot stream that sends water (by way of a plastic hose from the pump in the pond) up into a decorative pot and down a short slope into my 750 gallon pond. The small pump in the pond handles it very well.

But if I could do it again I would build up the dirt to make the top of the stream much higher. As it is the stream only drops down enough to make one little waterfall and I wanted more waterfall 'music' than I have. The birds like it tho, and that was my main goal.

So consider height when you begin to build streams between ponds. Min

Flowers, I have heard that it's a good idea to have your bottom pond big enough to hold the contents of your stream, plus the run-off of your top pond, just in case your pump shuts down and all the water from the stream, and the top couple of inches of water in your top pond, all runs down to the bottom pond. I had some bad wiring on the outlet used for my pump, and the GFI would trip on occassion. When this happened, I would have a boggy flooded section on my lawn where the bottom pond filled up with the stream water, and then overflowed.

Here are some pictures of when I first put my ponds/stream together:

[IMG]http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll184/mattmecham/Twoofthestreamwaterfalls.jpg[/IMG]

The bottom pond was still in the construction phase. From the bottom pond to the top pond, I built up a dirt ramp about two feet wide, and went from ground zero to a height of about 14 inches. I compacted it really well, watered it, let it sit a while, compacted it some more, etc., to make sure it wouldn't slump over time. I then built rock walls on either side of the ramp, mortaring them in place -- the rock walls got shorter as they neared the bottom pond. I then put some coarse sand on the dirt, smoothed it up the sides of the rock walls, and laid my pond liner all the way down the stream. I had basically cut "steps" in the dirt ramp to make my waterfalls, and also to make some nice little pools behind each waterfall.

[IMG]http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll184/mattmecham/Topwaterfall.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll184/mattmecham/Morganbyponds.jpg[/IMG]

There are four waterfalls in the stream. I was able to get that many because my stream has a fall of about 18 inches over about a 15 foot length.

Dog gone it, the pictures didn't show up in that last post. Here they are:

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The bottom pond was still in the construction phase. From the bottom pond to the top pond, I built up a dirt ramp about two feet wide, and went from ground zero to a height of about 14 inches. I compacted it really well, watered it, let it sit a while, compacted it some more, etc., to make sure it wouldn't slump over time. I then built rock walls on either side of the ramp, mortaring them in place -- the rock walls got shorter as they neared the bottom pond. I then put some coarse sand on the dirt, smoothed it up the sides of the rock walls, and laid my pond liner all the way down the stream. I had basically cut "steps" in the dirt ramp to make my waterfalls, and also to make some nice little pools behind each waterfall.

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This is the waterfall at the very top -- empties into my top pond, which now serves as a natural filter (I recently filled it full of hyacinth).

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There are four waterfalls in the stream. I was able to get that many because my stream has a fall of about 18 inches over about a 15 foot length. We started getting some algea build-up as you can see, but over the course of the past year, it balanced out, and is pretty clean now (the dates on the pictures are inaccurate -- should say 2007, haha). This last picture shows a waterfall coming out of the top preform pond -- I used a hacksaw to cut a 5 in. X 8 in. gap out of the lip. I then hung a substantial length of my pond liner for the stream over edge and used sealant to meld it to the preform. Then I found a nice flat rock and cemented it in the gap for the water to fall over. It has never leaked to my knowledge -- always dry as a bone behind the liner there.

Thank you very much Matt and Min. I will try and get a pic of the area I am thinking about putting it tomorrow. I have a daughter named Morgan as well. Yours is a cutie. That gives me some good ideas and I can understand better what you were talking about seeing the pics. You don't happen to have any of the plumbing phase do you, lol? Sorry it took me so long to get back over here. My first grandchild was born yesterday so I was kind of in a state, lol. I guess my husband was right that I have to cut a lip in the edge of the top pond. The way you did it will work well. Thank you very much for the help.
Kristy