 The fountain nozzle will determine the overall look of your finished fountain. You can combine many different types of nozzles to achieve the desired end result. Cascade, Foam, or Frothy nozzles produce a single column of water shooting straight up in the air, while other nozzles combine several different spray patterns into one nozzle.
The first step in designing your fountain is to determine what type of spray pattern you want. Because the type of nozzle, quantity of nozzles, and the height that you want your water pattern to go, will ultimately determine the size of the pump and the power of the lights that you will need to put into your fountain. The overall size of your fountain pool or basin will also be a determining factor in how high, and wide you will be able to spray your water while keeping the water in the pool.
As a general rule of thumb, water has the ability to splash the distance it falls. This holds true up to about eight feet. So if you have one center column of water shooting straight up four feet, in theory you will need an eight foot diameter pool in order to contain the splash. Everyone wants to cheat on this basic rule.
The final decision or question is how much splash out, are YOU willing to accept. While the nozzle or nozzles will determine the water pattern, the pool or pond is the most important part of any fountain. | 
