# A cheap DIY rain system



## zaroba (Apr 8, 2006)

made a rain system in my viv a few days ago. its simple and it works well. better then expected actually.










all it is is a simple pond pump pushing water threw two garden sprinklers attached to the top of the tank. thought i'd need a large pump but the single 12ft head 250GPM pond pump i have already has no trouble pushing water to both. also didn't even have to adjust the valves to direct the water to the the further sprinkler. despite how it looks in the above pic, the water actually covers nearly all the plants and landscape due to it splashing off the taller plants and logs.


















approximate costs:
2x round garden sprinklers - less then 5 bucks
15ft section of hose (for this viv anyway) - less then 10 bucks
splitter and hose ends so it could be screwed together - less then 10 bucks
250gpm 12ft head pump - think it was around 25 dollars (a smaller rain system would need a much smaller pump though)

having it all work perfectly fine without a single issue or other problem the first time you set it up and turn it on....erm...unexpected


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## VanillaGorilla (Mar 11, 2007)

Nice viv bro



zaroba said:


> 250gpm 12ft head pump


BUT WOW a 250 gallon per minute pump? that seems like it would turn your viv into an aquarium in about 2 minutes...

Do you have a valve that is adjusted back and what is your water source, directly from a hose bib or a reservoir? Be carefull you could have flooding problems if not watched properly...


Nice viv tho...


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## zaroba (Apr 8, 2006)

for the water feature the pump needs to be limited to 3/4ths output.

but for those sprinklers its not being limited at all. any less pressure and the water will quickly reduce its spread.

the 250gpm rating assumes no height. since it can only push up to 12ft high and to pump to the sprinklers its going up around 7ft (around 6ft for the water feature), its not moving anywhere near the 250gpm rating. can say from watching the reservoir level (which holds about 40 gallons) it might not even be moving 1 gallon per second. if anything its going at 30 or less GPM due to the height. but now you have me wanting to time it for a min to get an estimate on the gpm its moving


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## tzen (Nov 22, 2007)

I'm really impressed. 
Pretty cool idea for your big tank.


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## Goanna (Jan 17, 2008)

I made a rain system once out of PVC pipe and I had it hanging in the tank, but I had the spray facing upward so it would coat the top of the tank (glass canopy). The results were droplets accross the entire tank that looked like real rain, not like a steady stream of water. 

Only bad thing would be if you ever forgot to close the canopy and the rain system turned on, you'd have a pretty wet floor, lol. Luckily I never did that .


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## zaroba (Apr 8, 2006)

i had thought about doing it that way too, but the top of the tank isn't water tight around the edges.


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## MonopolyBag (Jun 3, 2007)

This might help when I make my rain chamber.


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