Fountains (喷花) are the firework that almost everyone, in almost every market, is allowed to buy. No projectile, no aerial break, no licensed shooter — just a sealed tube planted in the ground, throwing a tall jet of sparks straight up. They are also the category that quietly anchors Liuyang's consumer export volume whenever an aerial product is restricted.
This guide is for buyers sourcing wholesale fountain fireworks from China. It covers what actually matters when you spec, certify and ship ground fireworks: cone vs. cylindrical build, mine effects, burn duration, smoke profile, and the FOB ranges you should expect to see on a quote.
What a Fountain Actually Is
Strip the wrap and a fountain is one paper or cardboard tube with a clay base plug, a charge of slow-burning composition pressed inside, and a fuse on top. Light the fuse, and the composition burns from the top down. The throat at the top of the tube focuses the spark stream upward — that is what gives a fountain its tall, narrow column of fire instead of a shapeless puff.
Composition is where the effect is engineered. Iron filings and aluminum flakes give gold sparks; titanium gives silver-white; barium, strontium and copper salts give green, red and blue; bismuth-trioxide grains give the audible crackle. A multi-phase fountain stacks two or three different compositions in the same tube and shifts color and sound as it burns down.
Because nothing leaves the device, fountains carry the lowest hazard distance of any aerial-effect firework. That places them in F1 or F2 in Europe and 1.4G in the United States, with no projectile classification triggered and no special storage required at retail.
The Three Build Families You'll See in a Liuyang Catalog
Liuyang factories build fountains in three distinct shapes. Most buyers see them mixed in a category sheet without realizing the build family decides everything about packing density, burn time and shelf appeal.
| Build Family | Shape & Caliber | Typical Spark Height | Burn Duration | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small Cone | 3"–4" cone, 12–20 cm tall | 1.5–3 m | 15–30 sec | Consumer (F1 / F2 / 1.4G) |
| Cylindrical Tube | 30–80 mm bore, 15–35 cm tall | 3–6 m | 45–90 sec | Consumer (F2 / 1.4G) |
| Large Conic | 6"–16" conic, 25–60 cm tall | 5–10 m | 90 sec – 3 min | Consumer / Display (F2 / F3) |
| Mine Tube | 30–75 mm bore, single-shot | 15–40 m (single burst) | <1 sec | Consumer (F2 / 1.4G) |
The workhorse of the consumer fountain shelf is the cylindrical tube fountain in the 30–60 mm range — a 60-second burn, multi-phase color, crackle on the back end. That single product format covers most of what private-label retailers in Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries actually sell. The bigger 10", 12" and 13" conic fountains are the hero shelf piece — the box people photograph and put on a coffee table before they buy six of them.
Effect Families Worth Carrying
A serious Liuyang factory carries 30 to 50 active fountain SKUs. Most of them fall into five effect families. Most retail shelves only need three.
Gold & Silver Spark
The base effect — iron-aluminum sparks for gold, titanium for silver. Clean column, no color, no bang. 3" Conic Fountain (T1515) and Snow Flower (TF0531) sit here. This is the fountain that older buyers in Germany and Scandinavia still ask for by default — a quiet shelf seller that never goes out of style.
Color-Change & Multi-Phase
The most-sold consumer fountain effect. Two or three composition layers stacked in the same tube — silver to red, red to green, green to gold. Conic Colour Thunder Flower (TF2603), Happy Flowers (TF2605) and Colour Ball (0155) live in this family. Strong color saturation reads from across a yard.
Crackle & Whistle
Bismuth-trioxide grains for the crackle layer; reactive whistle composition for the whistle layer. Cuckoo (TF2606) and Thunder King (TF218-1S) add the audio that color-only fountains can't deliver. Strong seller wherever local noise rules still allow them.
Snow / Glitter
Slow-falling magnesium-titanium "snow" stars that hang in the air after the spark column rises. Snow Flower (TF0531) and the larger Big Snow Flower (0531L) are the SKUs to carry. Photographs beautifully — the social-media fountain of the past three seasons.
Mine Effects (Ground-Launched Bursts)
Technically a different category — a mine doesn't burn, it fires. A fast-burning lift charge ejects a cluster of stars or whistles 15 to 40 meters into the air in a fraction of a second. Killer Bee (W499A), 50S Lightning Lack and Group Parachutes (0159) sit here. Liuyang catalogs file mines under fountains because the chassis is similar — a single ground tube with a clay base — but the visual is closer to a single shell break.
Rule we use when building an assortment: color tube + crackle/whistle + snow flower covers 80% of consumer demand. Add one large conic fountain for the hero spot and one mine effect (Killer Bee or Lightning Lack) for novelty appeal, and the category sells itself.
Featured Series from the Liuyang Catalog
A snapshot of the fountain SKUs we ship most often — built and packed in our own factory in Chengchong Town and bundled into mixed containers across the wider Liuyang fireworks product range. The full Mine & Fountain category sits at category 3 of our wholesale catalog.
Beyond the consumer set, we also build a separate line of indoor stage fountains — smokeless, cold-burning gerbs in 1, 2 and 5-minute formats for weddings, concerts and TV. Those sit under category 12 of our catalog and are quoted on a different sheet because the compliance path for indoor pyrotechnics is not the same as outdoor consumer.
Telling a Good Fountain from a Bad One
Fountains fail in three places. After firing a few cases of cheap product, you stop reading the wrapper and start reading these three.
- Tube wall thickness and base plug. A thin-walled or under-plugged tube can blow out the bottom — that is the failure that hurts a person standing nearby. A premium Liuyang fountain uses 4–6 mm rolled kraft tubes with a hardened clay base, pressed and dried. Squeeze the tube near the base; it should not give.
- Composition consistency. Every tube of the same SKU should burn the same height for the same number of seconds. A batch where some tubes "fizzle" out at 20 seconds and others run the full 60 was filled with unweighed scoops, not by an automated press. This is the most common QC defect on cheap fountains.
- Smoke profile. Outdoor consumer fountains will always produce smoke, but a heavily-smoking tube usually means damp composition or excess organic binder. A clean Liuyang fountain produces a thin gray plume; a wet or contaminated batch produces dense brown-white smoke and the color reads dull.
Always test-fire at least three samples from the same SKU before signing off on a pallet — and test all three on the same surface, in the same wind. One good fountain is luck. Three identical burns is a process. The wider firing-line checklist for any pyrotechnic product sits in our guide to spotting high-quality fireworks.
How Fountains Compare to Cakes, Candles & Sparklers
Fountains are not the loudest or highest product on the shelf. They win on safety distance, burn duration, and the markets where aerial product simply will not sell.
| Format | Sky-Time | Hazard Distance | Restricted Markets | FOB Range (per unit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cylindrical Fountain (60 mm, 60 sec) | 60 sec ground | 5–8 m | Sells everywhere | $0.60–1.80 |
| Large Conic Fountain (12") | 2–3 min ground | 8–10 m | Sells everywhere | $3.00–7.00 |
| Mine Tube | 1 sec, single burst | 15–25 m | Some F1 markets | $0.80–2.50 |
| 200g Cake (25–49 shots) | 15–25 sec aerial | 20–25 m | Most aerial-restricted markets | $1.00–3.00 |
| Roman Candle (1.75") | 20–30 sec aerial | 15–20 m | Some aerial-restricted markets | $0.40–0.80 |
| Wire Sparkler (24") | 45–60 sec handheld | 0.5 m | Sells everywhere | $0.05–0.15 |
For the cake side of the assortment, see the 200g and 500g multi-shot cake guide; for the candle side, the Roman candle buyer's guide covers calibers and effect families. For the build difference between an aerial cake and a single shell break, the cake vs. shell breakdown handles the trade-off in detail.
Why Fountains Carry the Season in Restricted Markets
Most of Germany only allows aerial product to be sold for three days a year (Silvester). The UK, the Netherlands, and several US states have moved cake-class product into "professional only" windows. In all of those markets, fountains and sparklers are what stays on the retail shelf for the rest of the year.
That is the structural reason the fountain category keeps growing. Even in markets where aerial product is fully legal, fountains pick up sales from buyers who don't want the noise — older customers, families with young children, retail buyers who serve gated communities. A category that started as the safe back-up product has, over the past decade, become a profit center on its own.
Sourcing Wholesale from Liuyang
Pricing & MOQ
Typical FOB ranges out of Liuyang for export-grade fountains:
- Small 3"–4" cone fountains — $0.30–0.80 per unit
- Standard cylindrical tube fountains (60 mm, 60 sec) — $0.60–1.80 per unit
- Large conic fountains (10"–13") — $3.00–7.00 per unit
- Mine tubes (single-shot) — $0.80–2.50 per unit
- Indoor stage gerbs (smokeless, 1–5 min) — $5.00–15.00 per unit
MOQ is one mixed 20GP — roughly 800–1,200 cartons of fireworks, of which 80–200 cartons can be fountains. Fountains pack densely and travel well, so they're useful filler when you have spare CBM in a container that's loaded mostly with cake. Most factories will not split a container for fountains alone.
Compliance
- EU (F1 / F2 / F3) — EN 15947 certificate, CE mark on every wrapper, safety text in the destination language. Most consumer fountains land in F1 or F2; very large conic fountains can sit on the F2/F3 line. EU-bound fountains are quoted with applicable CE / EN 15947 documentation prepared per shipment — see our EU market inquiry page.
- US (CPSC/DOT) — 16 CFR 1507, APA 87-1, UN0336 / 1.4G. Total NEC per device and the ban on metallic projectiles are the two failure points that catch cheap fountains at customs.
- China export side — every container ships with CIQ inspection and an AFSL export licence with a valid EX number.
Why Liuyang on This Category Specifically
Fountains look like the simplest firework. They are also the fastest to make badly. Composition has to be pressed at the right density, the throat has to be aligned with the bore, the clay base has to dry before the tube is filled — every step has a window. Liuyang has the local ecosystem to keep all of those windows tight: kraft tubes, clay plugs, oxidizers, color salts, titanium and bismuth grain stock, automated press lines, and on-site CIQ test firing — all within the same industrial cluster around Chengchong Town. That is why a 60-second Liuyang cylindrical fountain still outsells generic alternatives in markets that have tested both.
FAQ
What's the difference between a fountain and a mine?
Both are ground devices, but the burn profile is different. A fountain burns slowly for 15 seconds to several minutes, throwing a continuous spark column. A mine fires once — it ejects a cluster of stars or whistles 15–40 m into the air in a fraction of a second. Fountains look like a sustained jet; mines look closer to a single shell break.
Are fountain fireworks the safest category for retail?
Yes. Most consumer fountains sit in F1 or F2 in Europe and 1.4G in the US with no projectile leaving the device. Lowest hazard distance of any aerial-effect firework — that's why they sell into markets that restrict cakes and shells (much of Germany, parts of the UK, several US states).
How long do Liuyang fountains burn?
Depends on tube height and composition. A small 3" cone runs 15–30 sec, a standard cylindrical consumer fountain runs 45–90 sec, and a large 10"–13" conic or multi-phase unit runs 90 sec to 3 minutes. Indoor stage gerbs are tuned to fixed times — 1, 2 or 5 minutes — to match a music cue.
Can fountains ship in the same container as cakes and roman candles?
Yes — and they should. The standard MOQ is one 20GP mixed across cakes, roman candles, sparklers, fountains and novelties. 80–200 cartons of fountains alongside cake and roman-candle volume is the most common build. Fountains pack densely and ship under the same UN0336 (1.4G) hazard class as the rest of the consumer mix.
What is a smokeless or cold-burning fountain?
Indoor stage fountains use titanium-based or modified compositions that burn at a lower temperature and produce minimal residue or smoke. Safe to operate within 1–3 m of performers — the standard choice for weddings, concerts, TV studios and corporate events. Outdoor consumer fountains aren't the same product; they burn hotter and produce more smoke. Don't substitute one for the other in a venue specification.
Fountains & Mines — Factory-Direct from Liuyang
30+ active fountain and mine SKUs, from 3" cones to 13" conic hero pieces and smokeless indoor stage gerbs. Send the SKU mix and we'll quote it FOB, with private-label wraps included on the standard MOQ.
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