We had a low wall built in our back yard. Our project manager (aka, Lisa) had a feature requirement: "I want a bowl with water that flows up from the center and runs down the sides."

No problem. The scope of this was a bit beyond my skills since it involves both cutting stone and TIG-welding stainless steel. Spec it carefully and find good fabricators.

I had the landscape guys embed a 4" pipe in a U-configuration into the foundation so the pump could be located away from the wall. The vertical sections were cut down after the wall was built up.
Fast-forward to a completed wall. The white supply line (excess coiled on top in this pic) routes water from the pump to a fitting on the underside of the bowl. The silver ring is the top of the reservoir.

Closer image of the reservoir, which is a 16ga stainless canister, 6" in diameter, 12" deep, with a 12ga flat ring at the top. It's basically shaped like an inverted top hat. I drew the plans and had it fabricated at S & S Welding. The hole (arrow A) is the drain leading back to the pump.

The outer circle (arrow B) is the edge of the recessed contouring which allows the bowl to sit about an inch lower than the top of the stone slab.

Finding someone to do the stone work was difficult. After a lot of searching, I finally found Natural Rock Formations in Lockeford, CA. (4-hour round-trip from my house. ow.). I took them the bowl, the reservoir and the stone slab and told them essentially, "I need the reservoir to sit in a recessed hole - the bowl will sit on top". They said, "Ok, we'll dish it to match the curve of the bowl and countersink the reservoir lip into the stone." Cool! The hole was cut with a water jet and the recession was done by hand with a cutting wheel. They were awesome.

The mechanical bits sit below ground behind the wall. On the left is a Coralife Turbo Twist 3x sterilizer, which is (literally) total overkill since it's rated for 10x the volume of the fountain. On the right is an Iwaki MD-10 pump. The white ring near the bottom (behind the tubing) is the opening from the 4" pipe that routes the water lines to the bowl and reservoir.
Water bubbles up about an inch after being pushed up the supply line through a hole in the bottom of the bowl, then cascades over the edge. From there it fills the reservoir and is pulled back to the pump. The reservoir is (over)filled to the point where the water just meets the edge of the carved out area of the stone (there's a bit of spill shown in front that will dry). The bowl is shimmed with hidden nylon washers to allow the water to circulate but otherwise it's sitting in a moat. Gotta have a moat.
In motion. Ignore sound buffeting from the wind. And the overexposed footage.