Water inlet pipe for your pond

Ideally if you are refilling your pond using tap water, the water should be de-chlorinated before adding the water to your pond as chlorine harms fish. For me, I would add tap water directly into the pond when doing partial water changes of less than 20% of the pond volume or just topping up water lost through evaporation.

Having a water inlet that leads directly into the pond would save you the trouble of pulling a long garden hose to your pond. So, consider including this feature in your pond design.

 

Ideally, the pipe should be terminated with a float valve (commonly used in cistern) that automatically shuts off the tap water flow when the desired water level is reached. For my second and third pond, the inlet pipe is located in the first chamber of my in-ground filter as shown above.

I have a bad experience in my first pond where I do not have such a feature installed and I was using a garden hose. Topping up the water in a large pond could take longer than an hour and it is common to leave the water running unattended …and horrors, completely forgotten. This leads to waste of water as excess water goes down the drain through the pond’s overflow pipe. In the worst case, too much chlorinated tap water entering the pond could result in fish harm or death from the excess chlorine in the water.