In the very beginning:
The next beginning:
The next beginning:
Our very first pond. Our very first goldfish. Named and loved. How can you love a .27c fish? Well, it just happens. So serene and peaceful. So much life and wildlife. I was planning to redo it after the spring pollen fall. Make up for some of the mistakes I made the first time around. Then as fall progressed into winter, a few problems started. The neighborhood hawk fishing, the fountain leaning. Then after the first freeze, a leak. A not so small leak.
the makeover begins
(click any picture to enlarge)
By gosh, golly and lots of planning and work. The fountain will be level this time around.
I'm not sure what species was the dead tree stump we found in the very beginning. It was quite the beast. And time consuming. Many large roots were actually from the dead stump. Much digging, sawing and cursing. Many loads of sand carted off. Sand in places sand had not aught to be.
I used pieces of the old liner to protect the side walls as I dug out dead roots and stumps. I finally decided the old tree must have been a wild cherry. Extremely hard wood that has probably been under sand for 30 years. The last of the stump came out by way of the tree crew and their chainsaws. Thanks guys & gals!
Trench under concrete sidewalk. Success. A 4" schedule 80 pipe will fit! /flex girl power. And a bit of water.
Done and said, the main section of the pond is roughly 8' x 4 ' x 2' deep. I had planned to slope from the middle down to 3' but decided against based on the current swimming pool regulations being based on terminology that states "for the purpose of swimming and greater than 2 feet" A simple change from and to or would cause some grief we don't need. And water lilies and gold fish don't really need 3 feet. I'll just work on more ways for the fish to hide away from fishing hawks.
The fountain is sitting on the undisturbed sand section on either side of the sewer pipe. I put the red clay tile directly on top the sand. This let me find the spot I had leveled and tested for the concrete blocks after the liner covered everything up.
Liner? EPDM. OH MY GOSH - this thing is a heavy beast. My bright idea to get a few extra feet for the pond extension next year turned out not so bright. It might have been better if I had cut the liner before we tried to maneuver it around existing landscaping and tight quarters.
Did I mention getting the liner in place is a real down and dirty tough job?
Getting all the bits and pieces of this go round to be water tight was quite the meddle. I was thwarted at every turn. Learned more about water tight connections than I ever thought could be possible. Take One of the pipe under the sidewalk leaked. Leaked at the PVC glue seal. That wasn't a water tight seal. Maybe I should have tested that before I drove it under the sidewalk?
I found a rubber cap at the store. We sawed off the not sealed connection. Implemented rubber cap. Tested for water tightness. Trenched out the opposite side of the pond, and drove the pipe back through.
Take Two of the pipe boot fitting over the 4" PVC pipe had a possible small leak. Pumped water out of the pond to be just below the pipe outlet. Sealed it up really good with PL Roofing and Flashing sealant.
I put in a bog pond along side the tree side of the pond. It runs about 4' in length and about 1' wide. It is shallow, only about 5 to 6" or so. The purpose is for additional plant based biological filtration. The plants are all in pots or just bare root. It is its own self-contained basin. So I will be able to take all the plants out every so often and scoop out the muck for the veggie gardens. Water is piped into the far end, and then falls over the rock wall at this near end.
The water line to the fountain also challenged us. Turns out the water line got kinked. We must have 'fixed' it 3 or 4 times. Finally, we figured out how to really fix it. I'm getting air in the line right now though, so I might have a small hole from all that darn kinking. Grrrrr.
We eliminated the separate pump inside the fountain. One main pump will feed the fountain, spitter, bio-filter/stream and bog pond. As well as the pond extension next year. The water line for the fountain goes up the internal pipe intended for electrical access for an internal pump. The water comes out the top, spirals down on 3 sides into the basin. The basin fills to about 2" from the top and overflows down the internal pipe back into the pond.
The spirals are acting like a vertical stream. Over time, the algae will grow back on the spirals and will filter the water. I'm also putting floating water plants in the basin. The thought being to help with filtration and to have a fish free spot to grow my own floating water plants. Now if the mama frogs will just read the memo.
This near end will be the 'overflow' area. After everything else is done, I'll figure out where I need to poke yet another hole in the liner to run an overflow pipe.
Speaking of cutting holes in your liner. The instructions I read for making a pipe boot made it sound pretty easy. Cut an X about half the size of your pipe. Squeeze the pipe through and then hose clamp. Sounds simple, hmm? Not so much for me.
After a couple of boo-boo's I smartened up with the intake pipe that runs the length of the pond (on the path side). I put the hose clamp on first. On both ends. Then tested and tested and double tested. Left the hose clamps in place and used a very sharp knife to cut the liner out.
Two steps forward, another leak backwards.
The lesson here? Double and triple check all of your hose clamps. Oh, and lay out your PVC rigid piping in trenches before you dig out the pond.
I pumped water out of the pond into the water trough to find and repair the leak. Then pumped the water back into the pond. Turned the pond pumps on and let 'er rip. The next morning - no leaks! Huzzah! Dumped in the de-chlorinator pond treatment. Early evening let loose half dozen Rosy Red minnows to be water canaries. And to help build a biological load for the filters.
Following morning, the minnows are all accounted for and I find dragonfly larvae and water frog eggs in the pond. I think setting up the bog pond first, and keeping all the previous filter material alive in the rain water trough has tremendously helped the settling in time of the pond makeover.
This was our previous filtration. A plastic lunchbox with drilled holes stuffed with filter media around 2 small fountain pumps. Now we have an 18 gallon heavy duty Rubbermaid bin.
The Rubbermaid bin is not ideal, but it is all I had room for working around the trees and existing path. I dug out a hole and put one bin in the hole. Layed out the liner to go over and inside the bin. Then used a second bin inside the liner covered first bin. It is inside the pond, so any future leaks will not be an issue. If the bin itself cracks I should be able to just replace it.
Theory.
The pump is inside this bin. Flex hose runs to a 4 way manifold. One 2" intake from the far end of the pond and a 2" intake in the side wall a foot below water level. A small 'skimmer' cut out at the water surface. Eventually the pump box will be filled with filter material. Probably different grades of Matala filter mat.
Biological Filtration.
The fountain, with the three spirals that I believe will act like a vertical stream. Eventually, algae will grow along the ridges in the spirals, which will clean and filter the water as it makes it way down. The basin of the fountain is about ten gallons, and it will be stocked with oxygenator plants.
This is a bio-filter pot. A hole is drilled in the bottom and fitted with 1/2" pipe fittings and sealed. A plant basket in the top of the pot will be potted with a Black Magic Taro. The taro should put out a massive amount of roots, which will help to filter the water. The water flow is from the bottom of the pot to over the top. This time, I experimented with drilling in a hose barb fitting to create a bit of fountain effect to run down a short falls. It came out pretty nice. I can see there is a very definite art to building waterfall streams to direct the water flow where you want it.
A lot of pond muck and sediment will fall out in this bio-filter pot. Which means I probably should have a bigger pot. Oh well, next time. Periodically, I turn the pond pump off and take out all that nutrient rich water for the veggie patch. I've got both a back flow filter and a ball valve on the input side so that when the power is off, that sediment yuck won't flow back into the pump box. The ball valve is for planned power off and the back flow filter is for all those lovely Florida unplanned storm outages.
Looking across the pond into the bog garden area. On the back side is the bio-filter pot.
Still a bit rough around the edges. A few more pieces of rock are needed. Time for the pond to settle in completely before I do a final liner trim.
Thirty-six hours after stocking the pond with fish, I turned the pumps off and dropped a few pellets of pond food in. I'm not entirely convinced the pond is producing enough food naturally quite yet. It is a bit too young.
We started the pond with half dozen ruby red minnows, 3 sarasa type feeder goldfish, 2 white corydoras catfish, and one beautiful male betta. I added some store bought cabomba plants to the fountain basin and one hardy water lily tuber in the pond.
I am basically using the pond as a quarantine zone. I'll wait six days, and if things are looking OK, I will move our remaining goldfish from their temporary quarters back to the pond. In the mean time, the tropical water lilies have been moved out to full-full sun and the tub sunk into a compost bed. Hopefully they will sprout out soon (they are trying hard).
Go fetch a bit more rock and plan the next years expansion!
PS - the porch visiting serial killer remains at large. No real idea who/what critter it was that passed by and took out over half our goldfish and at least one of our water frogs.
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