DeLand is 45minutes to an hour from Clermont....not far at all!
Happy Ponds- the upside of ponding
Definitely driveable....^_^
Carolyn,
Between Mary and I we will convince you to come down. The weather now is REALLY beautiful. If you get tired you can stay at my house night of roundup than go to Deland in the morning if you'd like. Or come the day before whatever works for you.
Bonnie, Your new pond looks great. Can't wait to see it filled and running.
Holly,
Me too. Hopefully our next planned attempt will cure leak in stream. When successful I will post a pic.
Bonnie
Yup, my sympathies Bonnie. Leaks are the bane of pond gardeners. Mine (which has run perfectly for 4 years) is now losing about 2in. per day. I'm leaving town next week, and need to get it under control before I go 'cause DH won't remember to keep adding treated water. Pump will run dry, and the fish will die before I get back . . . plus it's supposed to pour with rain the next few days. Ah, the circle of life.
dyzzypyxxy, how much a day do you lose to plain old evaporation? I take it you can't add water from your tap?
Leaks drive us ALL crazy! They're so very frustrating..... I have a leak in my smallest pond, but it will be replaced as a part of my larger newer pond, so at this point I don't worry too much about it. It always drops 6 inches immediately, and then stops. You'd think that as quickly as it drops, I'd be able to see a hole, but nope...nada....
Mary, normally in the summer if there's no rain I'll add 75 gallons of water once a week or so. I have a good deal of the water surface covered with water lilies, so not a whole lot of evaporation. But right now, I'm adding water every day unless it rains. So there's definitely a slow leak somewhere.
No, I've almost never put untreated tap water into the pond. I have a rain barrel that I fill with tap water, and let it warm up and 'off gas' before I add it. Also treat it with 'Stress Coat' to remove the chlorine and chloramines, and the stuff also is supposed to condition the fishes' skins. This little pond is only about 750 gallons, so a relatively small amount of water, and I didn't ever want to disrupt the nice balance in there by altering the chemical situation.
I don't even use my untreated well water for the pond, as it's pH is way too high, and it has a high sulphur content, too. It's great for irrigation, though.
MerryMary, have you looked carefully at exactly the level where the water stops dropping? That's undoubtedly where the leak is!
Glad I'm not alone with the leak situation. If it were in the ponds we could patch it easily. I now have everything on the market for patching or attaching EPDM liner. Husb. feels its the stream bed so he has taken all EPDM liner material out and made a culvert of sorts using a 9" PVC pipe. Can't really describe it but I will take pics before I glue small rock to it on outside to disguise it. He sure has done a lot of work on it so I really hope it works. Has it glued tog. with PVC cement, also 2 hose clamps, also steel plate around center join. Plans to put seam tape around ouside for liner also hose clamp it in place. If that leaks he'll give up. He sawed the length of pipe in half but left complete round sections on each end. Had to join sections hence the reinforcement in center. When rain stops here we'll get it put in and pray.
Have a good week all.
Bonnie
Well Bonnie, it will be interesting to see what you find, because our next pond will have a small water fall with a stream through a planted bio pond, feeding into the big pond. I'm hoping to not(?) have any leaks along the stream bed, so will carefully listen to what you have to say.
Dyzzy...I've scratched my fingernail all along the edge where the waterline drops to, to try and find a hole...but never have been able to find anything. The good news is, that that small pond will be eliminated, and absorbed into the new pond space. :)
MM,
Yours should be problem free IF you pull liner right up to falls roll it around a board and screw liner to it. Then shove the board under lip of falls and screw board to under side of lip. Our waterfall is 36" wide (first pond we built) back leaked at first and then a man at Aquatic Eco Systems in Apopka suggested that to us and it has never leaked since. My husb. has had lots of patience with my pond adventures believe me. He never gives up and always gets problems fixed. Having to cut the liner on each end where it comes out of one pond and goes into another is what caused our problems. There is so much folded liner it wouldn't seal up tight. I'm sure we will cure it one way or the other. Neither of us give up easily.
Bonnie
MM,
Water is running thru the culvert. It looks hideous so I will try to disguise it with plants and rocks. My husb. knew how I felt just by the look on my face. If it hasn't leaked down by morning I'll add the salt and bacteria and proceed with landscaping around the whole thing. When finished I hope it looks more natural.
Mary, you won't have the problem cause yours can be continuous stream right from your waterfall on down.
Got to hit the sack cause daylight comes early and I'm out with the first lite.
Bonnie
Oh Bonnie....it sounds like the 2 of you have had quite a time working out the kinks! I certainly hope this final step IS the final step? Get a good night's sleep....I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!
Thanks Mary,
Encouragement means a lot especially from a fellow ponder.
Bonnie
let us know.
Hi All,
So far NO leaks are evident. I've started my disguising with 3 large clumps of asiatic jasmine which goes over whole pipe with one planted on each side. Pipe section that goes into small pond sticks out too far into pond so no place to put plant sooooo today I bought 2 lengths of that edging that looks ilke fence posts cut in half and is on bendable rubber backing. I'll just drape it over pipe, see how it looks and if its good will glue it in place. My youngest son came up with that idea and some others. I'll try anything once.
My favorite nursery had a sale today on dwarf tibochina so got 30 to go along back side of pool.
If anyone coming to RU wants them just let me know and I'll go back and pick more up. $1.50 ea. and there about 18" tall now and will grow to 4 feet.
Have a good weekend all.
Bonnie
Bonnie
do you have photos of the area you want to disguise? Perhaps we could help with some ideas as well..
Carolyn,
I've been working on our place for almost 2 months getting ready for the RU Oct. 22 and frankly I'm about whipped. Dug up huge piece of jasmine today and covered exposed end but don't really think it will root I couldn't put a lot of soil there. After RU I'll send you some pics as I appreciate suggestions. Got several more things I have to do so I'm going to just wait. Have to re-cement boulders on edges to make them stable etc. etc. Nobody liked the wood post edging stuff so I didn't use it.
Planted 30 tibochina across back of my pool this morning. More mulch to spread. Haul tables home to use for RU.
Thanks much for offering to h elp. Wish you were closer.
Bonnie
Bonnie
I wish I was closer too..... we would have fun!
Carolyn,
I'd teach you how to run a tractor. While I was at work yesterday husb. found 7 bulls holes, filled them with dirt, moved manure away from where folks will drive in and put dirt there so today he's ready to mow pasture for parking. Got a grassy area closer to house I'm going to use for handicap parking. Got 1 gal from my church thats on a walker from knee replacement surgery
and she will get a kick out of that. If someone comes in a wheelchair we can use that area also.
I want everyone to be comfortable and feel at home..
Today after it warms up I'll transfer some fish to new ponds. I have water shoes so I just get into pond with them. Smaller ones are harder to dip up than big ones but I'll get them.
Getting near daylight so better get busy. Bonnie
Bonnie hosted a round-up Saturday, so we got to see her new pond project.
Good idea to put the pools in the shade so they won't cook in the Florida sunshine.
Bonnie's upper pool has a bird bath. The edges are surrounded by pine bark mulch and stepping stones.
The bubbling brook trickles into the Koi pond.
Bonnie made a little dock you can stand-on while you talk-to the fish.
The table and chairs are inviting you to come sit a while in the shade.
what a wonderful set up. You did a fabulous job.
Bonnie....Thanks so much for the pre-round-up tangerines! I can't get enough of them, tangerine season makes me deliriously happy! I took a handful in my suitcase to the meeting in Baltimore... The chilly folk LOVED the Florida offering! I hope all little fishies are alive and kicking!
A-John...thanks for posting the pics...I was so sad I couldn't be in town the weekend of the round-up.....Bonnie is quite a host, who makes you feel MORE than welcome!
:)
AJohn - Great pictures. I can almost hear the waterfalls.....
MM - looks like they had a good time. It was too bad you could not be there..... Wish I could have been there.
Oh that all looks so nice.
Reading John's descriptions makes me realize the back breaking work was all worth it. Truly blessed to have such a tranquil place. Thanks John
Bonnie
Downsizing the pond by 1/2 and making a water garden out of the other half. Cut the fish by almost half and am adding another filter beside the one I have. Want to make the water clear after three years of failure.
Holy cow. How big was it to begin with. It looks like it should have been gorgeous.
TA
How big were your pumps and uv lights? Did you use any type of enzymes? skippy filters?
How many gallons in the pond?
TARogers, that is quite a project ya got there! It's going to be really beautiful.
Next spring, I'd be glad to send you some of my water iris. They filter the water incredibly well. I've never had a problem keeping my little pond clear as a bell, no matter how careless I get about cleaning the filter. Cannas are another great filter plant.
You mean like Black Gamecock, Louisianna Iris? I have never gotten them to grow in my pond. Are they in baskets?
I do have pots of Black Gamecock iris, but I don't grow them in the pond. They bloom better on the margins, not in the water.
The ones in the water are the yellow-flowered Iris Pseudacorus which are larger, and tend to get a bit out of hand in my little pond, but would be dandy for TA's big one.
The pond was 5000 gal. Had 24 Koi in it. 4500 gal hr pumpl and Savio F200 filter. The other F200 came in today.
Have a 12 X 15 foot area that I will cover over with the liner to a depth of 1 foot. Connected to the pond over the center wall. Thought of filling it with rocks, plants and gravel so the fish can go up into it. Anyone seen something like that. Alge was not my biggest problem it was just dirty and filters would not clean it up. Too many fish too. Have 16 left and am going to cut that to about 8 keepers.
TA, what you have there is a MOAT for your castle.
My new pond project, to replace my old ponds, will be an 18 x 30 (or so) with a smaller 12 x 7 bog bio pond, with a water fall into the main pond. I'm hoping the plants in the bio pond (all roots and pea gravel, no soil) will clear the water naturally, before it drops into the main pond (which will still have a filter and UV) I'm using canna, water iris, lotus, and purple stemmed taro. The taro grows quite a root system.
Once it gets to the main pond, I wont have much plant life in there....just a few lilies and umbrella palm.
MerryMary
That is essentially what we have. We do have a pump that empties into the bog and then there are 3 other waterfalls. We used water celery, with the fibrous roots, they do catch a lot of crud. Water celery does do the job, but because of how invasive water celery is, I would not use WC again. The bio bog, does do the trick for us. This in conjunction with the uv lights, goes a long way to keeping the water clear.....
I would love to see pictures when you are finished.
