The Pond Has Started

Erica-Renee · Jun 25, 2018

Gareth elliott said:
Good to hear no wading birds. I have to cover mine spring and fall or i lose fish.

Some experiences i have had with reducing maintenance with my pond.
Plants will help a lot. But make sure thing like cat tails are contained. Only use permanent bonds like pvc cement what needs to be. Theres a lot of debris that falls into a pond, years of bacteria film and suddenly leaves get stuck in an elbow you cant get to and flow stops. I dont care for pond snails, they dont help a lot with cleaning ime. And after an outbreak of black ich, will make sure my pond is always snail free.
You cant control the light or all nutrients so a uv will greatly help with floating algae doesnt really matter where in your plumbing it goes even if the manufacturer says before the filter, will keep water clear even if on a stand alone pump and fountain.

I am about half way thru digging and Leveling around the pond. I have not dug out the Sump well (which will be concrete ,same as over flow) I am going to create a huge landscaped area around the pond with a Mixture of rock, mulch and top soil.. My plan is to only have one area of the pond to be rock scapped and that will be around the small stream (not yet started .)
Like my Aquarium and sump room.. I put a lot of thought and prep and have consulted with others about what works and does not to avoid mistakes others have made.. But i know i will make some as well.
We are in no real rush to get this complete . Just want it right so we can enjoy it into our senior (grrrrrr) years...

Thank you

Bayareareefer18 · Jun 25, 2018

Very cool.

Should have a read about this. Very interesting method of filtration.

http://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html

http://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/building_an_anoxic_system.html

When I was keeping discus there were many starting to experiment with this with discus and seeing positive results.

Erica-Renee · Oct 26, 2018

Thought i would give a update on this..
Apparently the weather and Work this summer has made this a Impossible feat.. Its either been full of water or i have been to busy to get the Remaining digging done.. Hope to continue this thru the winter if its mild or Spring .
Might need to put a Canopy over it to stop it from filling up and being a mud hole.

Thanks for Looking

Erica-Renee · May 28, 2019

Finally got back to working on this over the weekend.

Here we go... Still VERY Much a work in progress

BadFish619 · May 28, 2019

Get some good filtration! I spent an entire summer when I was 10 digging a pond. Cemented it filled it, stocked it... next summer parents gave away the fish and made it a garden. It was so green you couldn't see a thing!

Ka0s · May 28, 2019

Not sure how deep you are into the build but if you would like.some pointers here is my 2 cents.

I have altered my 8k gallon pond several times since it's inception. First is plants. You need a lot of plants for the koi if you wish to keep the water clean and maintenance at a minimal. With that in mind put in shallow edges for plants it helps alot we also have fry that stay in these areas. The plants give the fry a place to hide from dragon flys as they are a real threat too. Next is predators the way we combat this was a shelf in the center (again for plants) and we used 4in pvc pipes for the fish to use to cross that area and rocks over them to keep them down. We live basically in the city and we still get owls hawks and have seen a raccoon. We made half circles to place the pipe in over the liner in the center island. It was an 8ft section and cut it down to 1ft sections, the left over sections we secured to a rock and sunk them for hidden hiding places. I used all the dirt from the pond for the water fall and a tub we buried in the dirt to again have a place for plants and used rock there for natural filtration so when we do clean the pond that is where we spend the most time.

With that we only need to clean filters and pick up leaves and sticks that get in the pond. I run 2x fountain filters and UV in the to keep the water clear. Algae is real in a koi pond. Green water makes is terrible for viewing the fish. We keep 4 deep spots 2x 4ft deep 2x at 3ft deep. That keeps them really happy in the winter as they will move up as it gets warmer.

Did I mention plants? You need alot of them we grow of herbs and spices in our waterfall tub and down the path of the waterfall.

Ka0s · May 28, 2019

And where are my manners. You can't have a koi pond photo without koi in it.

Forgot to mention we also keep an led strobe by the pond that color changes. We keep it pointed up at the sky so it throws off the sight of birds of prey. We call it our disco light as it strobes all the colors. With a white strobe we did see an owl swoop down. With all the colors we have not seen that since.

Ka0s · May 28, 2019

One final note I noticed you mentioned a custom filtration system. We kept it simple by going rock filtration but the fountain pads catch alot of stuff. If you do a fountain with a filter pad do not be afraid of buying the 1 dollar half dead plants. The crap that comes out of those filter pads are plant super juice and will bring anything back that has a viable root in a hurry. See photos of our super purple hydrangea we feed alot of that crap too. The color almost unreal.

Ka0s · May 29, 2019

Day time photos.

Erica-Renee · May 29, 2019

Ka0s said:
One final note I noticed you mentioned a custom filtration system. We kept it simple by going rock filtration but the fountain pads catch alot of stuff. If you do a fountain with a filter pad do not be afraid of buying the 1 dollar half dead plants. The crap that comes out of those filter pads are plant super juice and will bring anything back that has a viable root in a hurry. See photos of our super purple hydrangea we feed alot of that crap too. The color almost unreal.

Thank you so much for sharing your pond and Experience.
The pond is 5 foot deep at its deepest point that area has steep slopes up to a first ledge 2 feet under the water 3/4 ways around the pond. then another ledge 1 to 2 feet down from top depending on the area. The ledge is 2 feed wide in the area away from where we plan to have seating at. So can stagger more planting inside the pond itself. We plan on Lining the outer edge with rock up to the top then shelf rock over lapping the ground and the ponds edge. The inner part of the ledge we will line with rock and back fill between the two with tumbled creek rock . The filtration is still in progress but will be a Giant skimmer , Filter media in density stages and as you said above LOTS OF Plants..

We are in no rush to get this stocked with fish. Thou the frogs from the Creek behind our house has already began to move in. How many Frogs are to many.. We have been evicting them since last year when we started it . Its been slow going because of rain , Rain and more RAIN!!

Today we had 6 ton of Blue limestone Creek rock delivered , He is going to bring another 4 to 6 ton as he sorts thru his deliveries to get bigger flat pieces . We need a lot the pond and a walkway that will be 3x 30 feet .

As i said this will NOT be complete or even close anytime soon..

Thanks again ....

Ka0s · May 29, 2019

You are for sure on the right track. Looks great and when I made that original post I did not see this was already a 2 page thread and you had a lot more done. It looks great and yes taking your time is the best practice. We also choose to be very picky about our fish and grew them from from very small size.

As for the frogs we have a single bullfrog that last winter when cleaning the pond my wife moved a rock in the waterfall and got the crap scared out of her by him. Since then I have to say I love the old guy.

Erica-Renee · Jun 5, 2019

Pond Rock work in Progress.. There is still about 4-5 ton of rock in the driveway .

Erica-Renee · Jun 9, 2019

Pics from this morning.. Still working on rock work but getting closer

Erica-Renee · Jun 9, 2019

Rock work still in Progress. We kinda made the pond quite cloudy , I think we will end up draining it once its all done . Spray everything down and refill with Filtration Running .

tupes · Jun 9, 2019

Relly coming out great. Cant wait to see more.

Erica-Renee · Jun 13, 2019

Question to those POND Experts/ Owners

Water Evaporation.... I have a 2400 gph waterfall stream. and another 1200 gph pump pushing water right at the surface of the pond.. The pond itself is 20x14 ft kinda oval and 5 feet deep at the deepest point.. Since i have put int he water fall pump I loose about 2 inches of water in a 24 hour time period.. I know its the Water fall either splashing water out or evaporation... Our weather has been kinda mild as well in the 70s in the day and drop down to 50s at night ... Is this normal amount of evaporation ?

I an turn the waterfall pump off and that evaporation or well water loss rate is cut way down. So i am Positive its not a liner leak . Maybe water fall is leaking someplace and i have not found it.. But its very unlikely...

ANY Comments or suggestions..... I feel that is a lot of water loss.

Thanks in advance everyone.

Erica Renee the Armature pond chic ..

Ka0s · Jun 13, 2019

I would say that its not evaporation, it is going to be a leak either in the hose going to the waterfall or its splashing out once it runs into the box. I would add a valve to the pump if it doesn't already have one and turn the flow down. just a few drips of water will add up over time. We find that sometimes when the bubble fountains get partial clogged a few drips will hit the sides and will experience water loss like you are describing.

You can also try and point the flow downward into the splash box or attempt to get the flow from the pump to the splash box submerged to help keep the splash down.