Pebble pond/garden. Solar fountain pump or alternative?
By Shell820810
United Kingdom 
I would like a pebble pond with a mill stone in my front garden, but the driveway is tarmaced between the lawn and the house so we cant get any cables to the lawn for the pump. I was thinking we could clip the cable to the fence, and perhaps drill a hole into the house, but this seems a bit extreme. The other alternative would be to have the cable along the front of the house, right round to the garage where the metre box is.
Neither seem to be ideal.
I have heard that the solar pumps are pretty rubbish, but are there any decent ones. All I need is a bubbling rather than a stream of water. And how does the battery backup work? Is this stored energy it gets from the sun?
Would a pebbled area look ok with the millstone and without any water, or can you think of any other focal point I could put on top of the pebbles?
12 Apr, 2009
Answers
Dont really think this would be possible without ruining the tarmac.
12 Apr, 2009
the cable pumps are always going to be better as they rely on you paying the electric bill lol.i think the cobbles will look fine on there own and the pump will be ok as your not having fish.i would look around for a good price and ask a few questions at the magazine site practical fish keeping they will definatly know.
13 Apr, 2009
A friend of our tried a solar pump which was a total disaster... mind you we tried something similar with a mains powered pump and that constantly clogged up because of the bugs getting trapped in it - now we have a pond but no moving water
13 Apr, 2009
i have a little tip for keeping a clear pump.you buy a largish container depending on the size of your pond.drill lots of holes in it all over.put this on a couple of bricks.you then bye some small cobbles or large gravel.tip some in your container.remove the rediculas sponge all together.put the pump on top and fill the container right up covering the pump.ive got an amphibious pump doing 2000 gallons an hour and in early 11 years i have never had to clean it out.the surface area is so great that the leaves,bugs etc dont get to drawn to it.it works as a good prefilter to as the pebbles stop big bits getting through.i personaly think the solar pumps ive sean have bean rubbish though the tecnoligy is getting better.
13 Apr, 2009
Could you drive a piece of metal tubing under the driveway through which to send the cable?
12 Apr, 2009