Brendan Hughes

There's been many a pond discussion recently, I'll try you all on this one.

I've put a little formal pond at the end of my garden - 120cm x 80cm x 50cm deep. There should be a statue behind it (when I find the right one), which I would like to illuminate with an underwater spotlight in each corner. I would also like to put a fountain in there, perhaps up to 50cm high.

a) Anyone know if I could get two reasonable spotlights and a fountain pump that are solar powered? I can run the cable to the side of the garden to a battery +/ solar panel which will collect a lot of sun (I'm not in UK remember!). Would solar be enough, from a panel maybe 2ft square?

The only decent stuff I've found here is called Heissner but seems to cost a fortune, and it doesn't look like it's solar powered either.

b) What's with filters? I have no fish. Would a filter stop the water going murky, and is it necessary to have a lot of energy to power it? Or does the fountain pump act as a filter?

Yours clueless
Brendan

Chip Sengravy

Doubt it very much, you will find it cheaper to run an armoured cable down the garden. Pull the cable and dig in yourself, get El Sparko to connect it up. Solar panels are mega bucks, your pump /filter UV is going to be 150 watts minmum.

David Lock

Got a thing about fish then?

Brendan Hughes

I already have power quite close to it (10ft away) so I don't think that would be a problem, I just didn't want to a) pay bills and b) go to the hassle of switching it on and off. Suppose that could be sorted by a timer... <sigh>

David - that looks like the continuation of a joke, but you've lost me?

Chip Sengravy

if its abroad, its sunny...and that means algae....you dont want to be turning the filter off unless you want a pool of stagnant water full of mozzies

David Lock

Brendan - no sorry, no subtle joke. Just a flip comment in that most people put a couple of fish in their pond, hence my words.

Regarding the solar stuff I think you will be disappointed with results. But I should say that I haven't tried solar stuff with pond applications. Way back I wanted to try and use it for village water supply in Africa but the costings never worked out and there were other hiccups like the panels getting covered in dust that they don't tell you in the brochures.

A UV light will get rid of the green water but popping in the right plants may also do the trick. Look up OASE as they are big pond players in Europe (German). david