This fountain has been running for 4 months now. Some parts work better than others. All told, I am pretty happy with it for a first attempt at something completely new to me.

What works:

Overall, I like this fountain. It sounds good and looks interesting.

The lowest bowl is a big ceramic pot that holds most of the water in the system and the pump sits in the bottom of it. Most of the sound comes from the water falling into this bowl.

The mains powered timer setup limits where the fountain can be placed (needs to be close enough to a power outlet), but works reliably. I am probably going to stick with this approach for the life of this fountain.

What needs work:

The water level in the pans that allows the water to spill out is too close to the top of the pans. The result of this is that a lot of water splashes out. When I put the pour off spouts on the pans, I should have made them 1/2 an inch lower with respect to the rim of the pans.

Algae is a problem, as is the mineral deposits from the evaporating water. The algae gets down in the corners of the pans and is hard to get out. I have been using an old tooth brush about once a month to clean out the algae. The last time I cleaned it, I let it sit dry for a week while we took a road trip. Letting it get really dry made it a lot easier to clean off the mineral deposits. The powdercoating seems to not let it adhere very well. In the old days, people used copper sulfate to control algae, but I have not been able to find it locally. It must have turned out to be some eco-hazard or drug precursor or something. Pool chlorine might work, but it seems likely to attack the aluminum that the pans are made from.

The square pans are a pain to clean and because there are welded tabs on the bottoms to mount it to the fountain, it is damaging the powdercoat in the pans. My original plan for the pans was to use round, ceramic bowls tipped at a shallow angle. The bowls that I got did not have pour spouts, so the water just ran over the edge over a wide and unpredictable arc on the bowls. If I were to do this again, I would find or get someone to make some shallow bowls with spouts. The round bowls would be easier to clean (no sharp corners) and could be removed without dragging the whole fountain out.

The pump needs some kind of an input screen to keep junk out of it.