Water pump capacity / flow and pressure question

I have a frame made up of 1 1/2 PVC pipe that is in the shape of a U. The 2 short legs are approx 12 feet in length, and the long side is 20 feet. It is a total of 4 feet high. There are vertical supports that support the bottom portion of the frame as well as the top so there is approximately 160 feet of PVC pipe in this frame all connected with glue joints and typical PVC pipe fittings. Its purpose is to enclose a section of my larger pond so I can keep my KOI and Goldfish safe from the bass that are in the pond. Currently I have a much smaller enclosure. ANyways we have a pump (typical 1" HF clear water pump) that we use to push a fountain head, as well as two outlets for a water fall and bubbler.. Instead of running water lines from the pump on the pond bottom as they are run now I was thinking of usiing the frame made of PVC pipe as a sort of manifold. . Will I loose performance or would it be about the same.........I owuld think once the frame is full it would be no different than if it was just a regular run of pipe, and where it would tap in to feed the frame from the pump the runs would actually be shorter to the fountain head and such. Good idea or bad. None of the devices that are pushed by the pump are high flow, and all are controlled by ball valves, which for the most part are closed pretty well down so the pump has pretty good pressure. Just how will the water in the frame act, since it would only have 3 or so tap offs to power I would not assume every piece of pipe would actually flow water........
Also if a pump is rated at being able to pull water from a max of 10' , if I was to submerge a pipe used for suction 50 feet out into the water so I could pull coldder water from the middle of the pond, but the pnd itself is within 5 feet of this pump and thats where water would flow to in the suctioin pipe normally without the pump running, would I be pulling 50 feet of watr or would I only be pulling 5 feet, and do you think this extra length even thoughi ts vertical in the water and always full would drastically affect the pump performance? I know that there is more friction but atmospheric pressure is also going to help somewhat I would think.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com Opinions expressed are those of my wife, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy.

Hi Roy, As I understand everything, it should work just fine. You're pulling from the bottom now, right? What do you strain the pick-up with? A well point? The pump will do 10 feet, that's 10 vertical feet right? It doesn't matter for horizontal runs except for friction and constrictions.
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On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 00:28:14 GMT, "Tom Gardner"
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Yes, I am puilling intake water from the bottom so my depth at which I am pulling from will not change, just the distance from the pump to the inlet will be increased not by much anyhow, perhaps a foot.
I have a filter I made out of extruded poly net material that looks like those plastic filter baskets seen i swimming pool filters and gas tank fill neckson garden tractors etc. You can get it in diameter of 1" to 4" and larger on special order. Its made to slip on the same sized PVC pipe. It comes in lengths of 44 inches long and already formed round. You use a nylon tie or hose clamp to secure it to the pipe. I used a 4" pvc pipe section about 5" long and adapted it down to fit 1" pvc pipe, and capped the opther end of the filter media with a 4" piece of PVC pipe and a standard PVC pipe cap. I cut it to 22 inches overall length (so I have a spare as well) so I have lots of area for filtering the trash out and not get blocked as easy as I have lots of area on the filter.....The inlet side of this filter has a standpipe that gopes up 12 inches so no sediment will settle in the inlet opening, and this filter assembly stands vertically when in use.
The pump is a HF 1" clear water pump. I had gone through 3 of these pumps as after about 1 or 2 weeks of use, they wold not prime anymore, no matter what you did unless the pump inlet was right at water level, and you did not have any amount of lift involved. Or they would just slow down and reduce output. I had chalked it up as being typical china made junk, but HF replaced them without a hassle. The last one I decided to see eactly why it wold not work. I did not take the other ones apart, just pulled them and returned them. I found the impeller is just a slip fit in the pump housing, and is not secure in place, and is free to slide side to side in use. What was happening is the water load would load the impeller and make the impeller scrub on one side causing it to wear out, by thinning out the impeller, so the cleanance would increase sufficiently to reduce pump performance. I solved that problem on the pump I had by maching the face of the casting so it brought t close to the sides of the impeller, and machining a gloove for a snap ring to hold the impeller in a fixed position. Its been running close to 2 months now without a problem just fine. It runs 24/7. I have since bought another pump for a spare and imediately machined a groove in that pumps shaft to secure the impeller in position as well. All it would have taken is 10 cents worth or machining and a snap ring to make these little 1" pumps a trouble free item. I have faith in these pumps now that I know a bit more about them, and have a fix. I have been running one of these on my miling machine for a long time, without problems but then I am pumpiing oil so that may have made the difference there in wear..... Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com Opinions expressed are those of my wife, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy.

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Should be the same
I owuld think
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The water will flow from the pressure source to the taps, it will follow the path of least resistance.
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You'd only be pulling 5'. There will however be some head loss due to the friction of the water flowing in the pipe. Considering that your pump is not running at max flow (as indicated by the throttled down valves and your statement about the pump making pretty good pressure) if you stick with a 1" suction you'll be fine.
and do you think this extra length even thoughi ts vertical in
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On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 02:05:02 -0400, "Shawn" <shawn_75ATcomcastDOTnet> vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:
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More pedantically, it will flow in inverse proportion to the resistance of each path. Every path available will contribute _some_ flow. ***************************************************** It's not the milk and honey we hate. It's having it rammed down our throats.

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 02:05:02 -0400, "Shawn" <shawn_75ATcomcastDOTnet> vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:
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Sorry. Posted too soon. What I said could be more than pedantry.It may help to decide where to place the pump outlet in the piping syste, so that the highest flow outlet has the shortest run, etc. ***************************************************** It's not the milk and honey we hate. It's having it rammed down our throats.

On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 00:00:00 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Roy) vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:
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If you are pulling from 10' below the pump and the whole thing is underwater, then you are pulling only against the friction in 50' of pipe. That 10' of lift assumes that the lift is through air, not water.
In other words, basically the only bit that matters is what's out of the water.
It's not atmospheric pressure, but water pressure, that is going to help.
As I say, you will lose something in that 50' + line. Make it as big as possible.
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***************************************************** It's not the milk and honey we hate. It's having it rammed down our throats.

On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 00:00:00 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Roy) vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:
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1.5" pipe is probably 8 times as efficient as 1" pipe for water flow.
It depends on flow a bit. But using the Engineering Power tools programme, for all flows, the loss in pressure per 100m (same as per metre when you are comparing pipe sizes) shows 40mm (1.5") pipe to be around 8 times as good as 25mm *1").
It also seems to me that since, as far as I understand your description, you have two "U"s, you have two lots of 1.5" pipe. You will lose a bit round corners over flowing bends. I guess it depends on distances, bends to the outlet etc. But it sounds as if you should walk it in.
Since you already have to cut down the flow with ballvalves, it sounds as if you also have a lot to play with.
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***************************************************** It's not the milk and honey we hate. It's having it rammed down our throats.