Gave up on the natural bottom pond - concrete!

After trying several times to add enough bentonite to the clay pond, and then dealing with it never, ever clearing up because the dogs love it - we did it in concrete. This pond began as a rain garden, grew into a pond, has a waterfall / stream, but has been a frustration. Not only was it never clear, but was leaking several inches of water a day. Husband and son #4 scraped about four inches of mud / clay from the bottom, and today we got concrete. I drove the tractor with backhoe, delivered concrete to the pond (2 sons were using wheelbarrows) and husband and oldest son troweled it into the bowl of the pond. We made a gentle slope beach for the little grandchildren to walk into, and sprinkled river pebbles into the concrete at the edges.

I now will have to make a rain garden, and I'm planning for the pond overflow to run into that. I'll dig out the clay down to the perforated pipe, fill with gravel, and top with loose soil mix. Working with clay has a LOT of challenges!

Way to take it on, I'm sure you know that concrete has it's own challenges with getting rid of the bad stuff out of it (leeching)... someone who knows more than me will chime in here, but if you're keeping fish, you've got to do something with the concrete first (I don't know, I never did a concrete pond...), but I'm sure it will be fabulous!!! Good ponding!

Brenda

Here is a link for pond sealer. I do not have a a cement pond, but I agree with Brenda about the leaching of bad stuff from concrete. I had to take out cement blocks that I used to prop up plants as my pond guy said it would leach bad things for Koi. If you plan on fish..then I would go with the extra expense. Your setting for the pond is just lovely. Hope you post a picture when you are done.

forgot the link last night
http://www.pondbiz.com/home/pb1/page_1568_9/pond_shield_epoxy_pond_coating.html

This message was edited Jul 4, 2009 6:36 AM

it's the lime in the concrete it will kill the fish. I am not sure what you have to do though
to get rid of it or seal it.

Beautiful setting for pond!

Darleen

My pond guy said if you rinse the cement blocks off well or leave them out in the rain (how long?) they are okay in the pond. I have a bunch in my pond (holding plants) that has a rubber liner and the Kio just get bigger each year.
Taking that info I suppose you will just need to fill and empty your new pond a number of times to get rid of the lime and make it safe for the fish.
Hopefully someone with more specifics will chime in soon.
Good luck and keep us posted. Any bears in your neck of the woods?

Helen

nice work! i am sure you gonna love when it's full of life.

Thanks for the comments. I believe it's just the alkalinity from the lime in the concrete that causes problems. We're letting it sit for as long as it takes to come to neutral, plus we dosed it with a gallon of muriatic acid that we had around. We're not so much planning on expensive fish, too many raccoons around. We'll probably just dump a bunch of feeder goldfish in it for the entertainment of the grandchildren. I sure have been wading in it a lot, though. And Molly the chocolate lab loves it. I love sitting on that big rock (far right) with a drink!

wow! that turned out very well. it looks so peaceful and i am sure will be even more beautiful when plants are in there. congrats! oh, have a drink for me, too. LOL

Gosh what a great pond! I'm always jealous of ponds with rocks (we don't have any here in Orlando, no pebbles, no nada...) so when I see rocks like that, I just sigh....
I don't blame you one bit, I'd have a lovely glass of cabernet every night on that rock of yours! I just sit on my large fire pit with my wine, and gaze at my koi.
I DO have cement blocks in my ponds (that are all rubber lined) I soak them for about a month in rubbermaid tubbys before adding them to the pond, to build a nice algae layer and leach anything out they were going to leach. I do periodic water changes. Once that's done, I use them as underwater plant stands and caves for my fish to get away from predators. So far I've never had a problem using cement blocks and koi in the same pond.

Analemma:

You pond turned out beautiful, looks like it has always been there. Perfect...

Gosh I don't believe I'm too far away would love to come see it in person..... : ~ )


Janet