outdoor ponds
LiquidChaos66
Posts: 3,767 ✭✭✭✭
We have a large patch of space that we don't use. It would benefit from a pond of some sort. 
I have the basic idea of how to build one and would really like to do it myself. I would love to have a few Koi in it but im fine not having fish in it. Im planning on having it be about 2.5-3 feet deep and about 5ft x 7ft. Not sure if I wanna do squared off or rounded sides yet. I could use some input...
Do you have one? Did your living situation come with it or did you build/install it yourself? What do you do for upkeep? are there plants in it or is it just a water feature? Would you recommend one?
Life is like a blind fiver. You never know what you're gonna get.
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* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
what can you tell me about your pond and how you use/care for it?
I opted for a pondless waterfall instead instead of a pond (which I had previously) so I didn't have to deal with mosquitoes, algae, fish, etc. but Anjon sells both kinds and the materials are quite good IMO.
There are also a buncha videos on YouTube showing how to do it.
Good luck to ya. Mine is quite enjoyable and I recommend these guys....
That is the foundation.
Once you have it dug out, set your liner, use good clean pond rock on the bottom with a good filtration/circulation system.
In the pathetic northwest, algae grows fast, so be prepared to do some maintenance.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
In times before electricity, folks used to store things like butter, milk, etc. in the spring house - usually a small shed built over a spring located on ones property. In order to prevent algae folks used to tie small 'logs' of barley straw to float in the spring and eventually settle to the bottom. Something in the barley straw prevents algae without using chemicals harmful to fish, etc.
Nowadays, you can even buy barley straw pellets by the bagful and scatter a handful into the water every now and then. These pellets (logs, too, IIRC) are for sale on eBay or from Doctors Foster and Smith online.
Using the hole from my old pond as a pond and not just a waterfall would have been a tad bit dicey since the pump is much larger than my old one.
But I am old and falling apart and hot water helps the broken parts.
The pond was already there, but it was nasty. I cleaned it out last fall and found lots of dead animal remains. Birds mostly. The pump didn't work. It was green and gross.
FF to this spring and it's what she wants for mom's day. Says she'll help with the work. To her credit she did, and so did the kids.
We rent and don't want to invest too much, so we reused what we could but still spent several hundred bucks. Had it been my property, I'd have done a few things differently. I went with the PVC liner. The 5 year warranty is the lowest of the three liner options. PVC and HDPE are not UV resistant. HDPE is stiff and our pond has some slopes and levels so I went with PVC. EPDM is probably the best liner but it's also expensive. Flexible and tough, you can get it in several different thicknesses.
Use the underlayment. The thick geotextile stuff seems to be the best. Since the ground in our pond was pretty smooth and compacted from previous pond use, I wasn't too worried about roots and weeds coming through, so I used the old underlayment from the previous pond. We have rocks on the border of the pond, and this provides cushion underneath the liner itself. I'd worry about punctures otherwise, but this provides give. Invest in it. Many sellers offer a lifetime warranty with an EPDM liner and geotextile underlayment.
We have a 15x20 liner in our pond which allowed us to fold and mold it to the contours of the pond with a generous overlap on the edge for stability. Any smaller would not have worked for us. I have an Anjou pump kit. I'll probably upgrade the pump in the future, but this was a budget project for us. It has a 750gpm pump which powers a tulip head fountain and a waterfall. The pond itself is about 2-2.5 ft deep at the deepest point. To help with the UV susceptibility of the liner, we dyed the water with a fish-safe blue dye. It took a day or two to get used to it, but now we barely notice. I have three water plants in the pond, one of which seems to be doing great after a half-week. The other two aren't growing as much if at all. They were cheap; came in a three pack from the blue roof store, which had a better selection than the orange roof store. We used the orange roof for the landscaping materials, though, b/c they had a better selection on some things.
I'll attach some pics. Some changes have been made. We've added real end-tables. I've buried the cables and added a solar spotlight ($10 at Wally World). We mulched the flower bed along the shed. I added a small dish for a birdbath to keep them out of the pond. I need a couple more bags of gravel.
BTW, speaking of birds. With steep edges and nothing to hold onto, they'll slip in and drown. We've fished out two corpses already before adding the bath.
We might add fish. If we do, it'll be cheap goldfish. Chances are, we'd kill them, though, so right now it's just a water feature, though everything is "fish safe". I did put in some "beneficial bacteria" to help keep it clear. We didn't put pond rocks on bottom, just the liner. It seemed unnecessary with the dye, which will protect the whole thing from UV, not just the bottom.
Happy to share any of my experience if you want. I'm a well-researched amateur at this point.
The bench was already there. We used white marble chips in the bed with sand under and weed barrier under that. The stone is good ole PA fieldstone. Most of it was from around the previous pond, we just rearranged it. The edging is Ecoborder from the orange roof--only place selling it locally--it's a bit high at $10/4ft, but it worked the best for this application which used 24ft.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
thanks for turning this into YET ANOTHER Flat Eath thread.
I was thinking about doing something similar to this...
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
Im actually working on a couple indoor pond ideas too.... I want to turn my garage into a seasonal Koi holding area.
*EDIT* My wife doesn't know this plan yet.... LOL
we don't have a filtration system but i brought back some water lillys i picked up kayaking and the lillys like our pond. Our goldfish are from Wally World. We really like seeing loads of frog eggs in the spring.