Does it ever end. Almost finished .
More mulch, Rocks and need furniture.
Pond rebuild # 5
It is gorgeous!
Beautiful. It will be so enjoyable.
absolutely beautiful. What are the dimensions of your pond? What size pump do you have to run it, or do you have several?
it's gorgeous!!!
Belle
Sorry I was out of town.
The pond is 10 X 30 with a added 10ft of Bog area. With one of two bio filter wilth falls going into it.
4000 gal pump with skimmer
The above area was filled with pea gravel.
Finished Bog garden on end of pond.
Absolutely gorgeous, how big is your lot?
thanks for sharing.
Belle
200 X 300 Ft
It all started from this
Oh my goodness TA, you have really put some work into your pond. And it is absolutely Beautiful. I am looking around at my yard and have picked a spot. It won't be a big as yours but it will be my spot of tranqulity. We are going to roof the house first then hubby said we can start on the pond. I am gathering information and buying a few things here and there so I will be ready when the time comes.
Nicely done!
That dirt looks like tough digging. Glad to see a backhoe in there for the sake of YOUR back. lol. Great job. And thanks for the pictures.
Added Garden bed, Table and chairs, bench and a crocodile
Congrats on a job well done. You will enjoy it for a long time. The crock looks like he is guarding the pond.
Are you going to put fish of any kind in it?
Bonnie
Have some Koi now
How beautiful they look. Are they regular Koi or do you also have the butterfly Koi? TA what is a skimmer? what is it used for, is this something that takes the place of the Filter?
The one in the center is a butterfly. Its a mixed bag of ones I have raised.
Skimmer is where the pump is located and sets even with the top of the water. Skims off the floating junk and goes thru a mesh filter. Then to the waterfall bio filters back into the pond. I separated the waterfall ones and put them going straight into the pond.
Waterfalls
Bio filters buried in ground with drain line going down the hill in a drain pipe
Nice TA. Do you have a uv light? I know some skimmers have a place to put a uv light. We didn't put the uv light in the skimmer, but have uv lights that are hooked up to pumps at either end of the pond.
WW - The skimmer makes a big difference. We put our skimmer in after the pond was built.
That is really some setup. You have really done and amazing job and you should certainly be proud of your accomplishments. I am planning my pond now but it will only be about 12x15 or so since my yard is small and I have field lines in most of it. The area where the pond will be is right off the patio. I have to dig and find the grease trap and make sure I allow enough space that I don't interfere with the operation of that. We are taking down a 30 something year old oak tree, planted to close to the house with monster roots going under the slab. So that will open up another possibility when its down and we get the stump ground out. So in the mean time I am getting my plastic, rocks, pots, plants, filters, pumps and everything ready to go for next year in the spring.
TA, it looks like you are getting a lot of organics straight from your filters. That greenish ozze down the middle. You might try something like an organic gunk eater. I used one from AquaMeds this summer, in combo with MicrobeLift Algaway 5.4 and AquaMeds Barley and it cleaned up the gunk in my pond and falls wonderfully. Made a lot of work for the skimmers but once it is handled the skimmer is a once a day job. I have no shade on my pond so it produces algae at a great rate. Not much I can do about it but treat it organically or it takes over the pond and particularly the falls and bio well
TA when your putting your plastic down how do you seam it together? I don't know how to do this as my pond will be bigger than any plastic I can buy??
WW
There are special glues that you can buy to put your liners together. How big will your pond be?
I'm thinking of making it about 15 wide and 20 wide but it won't be rectangle. Not sure exactly how it will go still mapping it out.
WW
You should be able to find 1 piece of pond liner that is large enough. My pond is 16 by 23 - in the ground and we had the pond liner go the obligatory 10-12" beyond that after the pond was installed.
Check out this link. They have all sizes of pond liner. http://www.pondliner.com/m-57-firestone.aspx?gclid=CJeBmLm36r4CFQGPOgodZ1kAwA
WW, many places carry liners larger than what you need.
Check online and you will find some.
I have pumps down inside of my skimmers on both ponds and loaded them up with filtration material and clean them once a month. Also we put hardware cloth over the opening of skimmers cause little fish kept getting in and couldn't get out. My husb. plumbed the UV clarifiers right into same line that runs from skimmer with pumps inside up to waterfalls which I also loaded with filtration material. During the winter I clean them less often. Summers here are blistering hot and algae is likely to start so I clean more often and use barley and microblift PL and don't have algae problem often. Ponds being in the shade also helps. (Just not with leaf drop from oak tree) Now that's another story.
Bonnie
Ahh Bonnie, it's the trade off when you live in Florida!
Shade is neccessary, but it's also the cause of the crud you have to deal with in the filters and on the bottom.
I've always thought the best situation would be a live stream, where you just dig out a pond area for the koi, and it flows out the other end on the way down the stream. Continued fresh water and oxygen, and no filtration needed! :)
MM when I worked for the state we dug just such a pond for the public to swim in at Hillsborough River State Park. However, law dictated we chlorinated the water due to public use. It does look fairly natural. Haven't been there in years but I'm sure it's still there. They didn't allow public to swim in Hillsborough River due to swift current. Also, was great place to canoe.
I use all what I rinse out of filtration material in flower beds. When I vac. bottoms of ponds that also gets discharged into flower beds. Then add a little fresh water. Serves two good purposes.
Since we have had all these thunder storms the place looks like a jungle. Fine with me more privacy from road traffic. Plants and shrubs are loving it. Just wish we could skip the lightening.