ok here is a pic of it,now remember i cant plant flowers around it yet too cold,maybe some suggestions? thxs
moretz
help please new pond!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what kind of filtration did you end up getting? And what do you plan for landscaping around the pond and waterfall?
I suggest you go and look at every book on ponds you can get, just to get some ideas about what you like before you invest in landscaping plants, etc. There are so many things you can do, it's hard to know where to begin if you don't know what you really like.
It looks great. It'll be nice to keep seeing your progress.
Pixy,
dont have a filter yet,still looking, lowes or homedepot hasent gotten in their pond stuff yet, so i am looking on internet and other places any suggestions on what size i need? i iknow i have been looking at every book and website on ponds lol and im not sure on what to do yet LOL
thxs for everyone help to get me this far
fireant,
thxs i love the progress i have made so far and cant wait to see plants around,i want spring here so bad now hehehehe thxs again to everyone that has helped me so far
moretz
I agree that you will not find anyone with better customer service than pondliner.com.
thanks you girls lol i will look at the site and see what they have thxs for all the help
moretz
I too have had great experiences in dealing with pondliner.com....
:)
MerryMary
Moretz & MerryMary;
Hope you don't mind my reading woes and advice. I just joined DG. as everyone else I too need some help once in a while.
I had not found pond liner.com yet but did find Webbs water garden. for pumps and such I thought their pumps were reasonable and they have free shipping.
I spent quite a bit on my linner as we have deer come through once in a while.
I feared for them punching holes in the linner. I went against most ponders advice and used 60 mill rubber roofing for a linner. only the first year did have any thoughts against that idea as I did get a minute oil film. Didn't bother the fish a bit. But then when I was building the pond I went a little overboard, wife says I went wild.
I was recovering from back surgery. and was not going to dig by hand. I had purchased a skid loader for levelind ground to build an attached garage. So to me that was perfict for the pond except I had too much fun. She was thinking preformed I was thinking something more than 18inches. I ran out of room beside the pattio befor I was done haveing fun. The pond is 15 ft. wide 20 ft. long with an upper pond with a waterfall between the upper pond is 12ft. wide and 15 ft. long both range in depth the upper is all 3 1/2/ft and the lower is from 2- 3 1/2 ft.
I first had slope ing sides To my shock I started loosing fish to raccoons.The next year I drained the pond down folded the linner back over some planks so I could dig some ledges deep enough to discourage the coons Then added more marginals. ( success) I did have koi and gold fishBoth were very colorful. However no babies.
I found that gold fish are very fond of the eggs. They can and will clean out all the koi eggs. I seperated them koi in lowwse gold fish in the upper still no true koi babies it seems they both spawn at the same time I had hundreds of little canabal's
gobbeling each other up. they were all very colorful. but I still wanted Koi So I gave away my gold fish . Now as to winter time I run a small pump in front of my skimmer to keep an open space in front of it and run a line from the skimmer pump to the upper pond which does very well for keeping the water airated and an open hole although I don't run it through a filter in the winter. as it would freeze up then.
I don't know if this will help you any or not but that was my experiance.
now my biggest problem is getting enough water hyacinth befor the algee starts to bloom . the supply is limited and costs too much to get the amount needed to help the filters out and shade the pond. Oh the Water hyacinth will not survive winters up here without a lot of extra expense.
randbponder, photos please? Sounds like an amazing project and I want to seeeee! LOL
i want to see picstoo.
i want to make mine a bigger one below the one i have and connect them,i have been looking into pumps,filters and liners and boy are they exspensice. but that is ok i love the ponds thxs for telling me your wonderfull story i loved it, thxs
moretz
katym & moretz
I have to apolgize for my lack of computer knowhow.
I tried to drag a pic from my doc files but it changed screens on me. if any one can help I will include a pic or two.
I know there must be a photo tutorial on DG, but I cannot for the life of me figure out where it is.
Just try this:
Add a new post and before you send it, hit the browse button underneath your text. This button allows you to browse your hard drive for photos. You'll have to know which drive your photos are stored on, and which file they are in, but even if you don't know, you can find them this way. Just keep clicking through the drives until you see a file that looks like is has photos in it. It's possible that it will bear the name of the software you use to download photos. When you find the photos, double click on the photo you want to use and a link to it should appear in the photo box.
Re fish eggs being eaten, that all depends on how many hiding places there are in the pond and how much greenery you have. I had literally hundreds of baby fish survive in my pond, and I still probably have about 50 in there that I haven't caught yet. I had many kinds of plants growing in the shallow end, which is only a few inches deep. I know that this is where the fish spawned. Also, that end is covered on the bottom with drain rock - pebbles basically. The baby fish hide in these rocks. I know that's why so many of them survived. At the time of all the spawning, I had probably 15 fish that were easily big enough to eat baby fish. IN fact, these same fish almost wiped out my tadpoles before the pond was finished. They were all contained in a plastic swimming pool. The tadpoles were in a different container until I put the fish in the pond. Unfortunately for most of the tadpoles, I missed two comets. They were really fat and happy when I found them!
OK I will try get this to work.
This is the pond in 2002. It is a work in progress as, probably most ponds are Still working on the rocks
Now 2006 I need to put in another filter system I want strictly media and plants in the stream bed I am working on if this works I will send a pic of that, Right now it is all snow covered except for the two holes I am keeping open
randbponder
how big is your pond?depth and width? awesome size i would love to have one that big. i love it thxs for sharing
moretz
moretz
Our pond, upper is 12by 15 and 31/2 ft deep the lower is 15by 20 that ranges from 2ft. to 31/2ft deep. after the weather settles down I am adding a second water fall with a filter and a stream bed of about 15 to 20 ft and hope to be able to get a mess of water hyacinth in that to further filter the water. Hope to cut back on how often I have to clean the skimmer filter. I also plan to get a larger pump for the main water fall and use the 3000 gal on the stream bed Cal pump has a torpedo pump that will pump 9000 gph &239.95 but I am thinking the 8050gph for$204.95will do just fine, an satisfy my whim-----I hope! Oh by the way my wife and I plan to be down to Sanford some time this spring we have family there and try to make it every other year or so. another intrest I have is to find some water hyacinth for next to nothing. If you knew of any close by you we would be intrested. As it is hard to get any quanty up here early enough to give a good cover before the algae blooms.
and would break my budget. visit later Russ & Barb
well i have a friend that had them last year in her pond and they went crazy but i dont know if or how many she saved for her pond,i think they arent hardy here,so sher brings some in for her pond not sure on that though,but i know her/me can send you some later in the year/or later in spring maybe when hers start to multiply, i will lyk ok thxs so much and i would love to find a 1000gph pump cheep too lol but know that wont happen thxs
moretz
moretz
one web site that may be of interest they have a hugh listing of the pumps they handle. and you are right pumps are not cheap, a 1000 gph. will run about $85. - $170. if you check that web site the model I am wanting is calpump torpedo T7500 item no. 76027 it does not have to be submerged but should be below water level if mounted outside the pond. it should have a screen as it could work as a little fish grinder. I plan on have that one draw off the bottom to help keep the muck from building up. I will be puting another bulkhead fitting in my falls filter with a shut off valve and a drain pipe to the garden to drain off the muck that settles there. Just trying to take some of the work out of keeping it clean.
yes i know it would take alot to keep it clean thxs for the info
moretz
Don't know if this interests you, moretz, but there are professional pond builders up here who always use lots of rocks on the bottom of the pond, and they are not mortared.They are so heavy, they don't need to be. It's considered more natural looking and their theory is that with the correct filtration you won't have a problem with sludge buildup.
On that note, when I built my pond I decided that I wanted rocks on the bottom, but I also wanted to make sure I didn't have sludge build up, even though I'm not supposed to based on their theory. So I manufactured a 'bottom drain', which isn't really a drain at all, but it does pull debris like leaves and dead string algea, from the bottom of the pond and dump it into the skimmer box. It runs on the laws of physics, so my regular pump is all I have. The only problem I've had with it is that because of the rocks, there isn't a smooth surface for stuff to be pulled across so occasionally things get snagged on a rock and I have to help it along.
I made mine myself for very little $$. I'll see if I can find the link to how I did it.
Here is a photo of the final product. Check out the photo dated April 21, 2005. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/497510/
And here's another link to a small discussion of 'bottom drains' with a link to information about them. I hope the link still works.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/499047/
This message was edited Feb 12, 2006 11:35 PM
This message was edited Feb 12, 2006 11:37 PM
pixydish
i will check them out thxs so much
well here is what it looks like now,still needs to grow but looks better then the pic above,plmk what you all think and if i need to do anything different
thxs for everyones help
moretz
It looks like your plants are growing well. Do you have fish in it?
Hey; Thats a big Wow. What are you going to have on the arbor?? Thats what 6 months, Im still working on redoing the water falls and putting in the new pump. Of course a lot of the days you could work I would have frozen my fingers! I did a major cleaning the last of April and while I was trying to untangle about 500 lbs of lilie roots that the Koi had rooted out of their pots and had all wound up in the same pile..... The wall where the water fall was had a little shifting going on. A little extra work there. Oh well ( new and improved ). Have rocks from the bottom of the pond all the way up under the last flat rock in the falls. Don't think that will give way again any time soon. Not to mention I have been helping a friend with their pond. It seems like just when I'm ready to get something done on ours----guess whos there, almost the same instant. :-) Oh well he runs the local restaurant. DW &I get a quite a few free dinners. When we get their shaded deck done, were going to have a pool side barbi.
Not many ponds, unless installed by the pros are really ever done. usually a work in progress, While I'm working on the new falls the water is turning green so guess I need to hurry a little. Sorry no pics of dirty water!!!!
fireant13
yes i have 3 goldfish in there,they are growing like weeds lol but i am going to add on to it lol, it will come on down and be big enough to have koi in it next year(if i get the money for the liner, filter, pump, etc.) i love it and my daughter does too and believe it or not so does my hubby!!!!!!!! what a shocker lol well thxs to you all here i have made me a paradise in my own back yard.
randbponder
on the arbor is the "red" mandavilla vine on the other side is a clematis that blooms from dec.-march and evergreen i new one that i found at a nursery locally so i was lucky on that part,yes we have been warm,we was warm in march here like spring time in the 70's but i did the pond in jan or feb cant remember plus i had friends come over and helped me too
we have a thing that in the winter we come over to each others house on mondays to help each other do somethings in their yards and we would make breakfast and sometimes lunch and have a good old time and i love it,that is how i got my pond done so fast but i did the flowers by my self all of them lol but i love it and cant wait to get it bigger well ttyl
bye
moretz
The goldfish do grow fast. I have that same experience--once you build a pond, you want a bigger one. I want to add a waterfall, but don't have the time now. It's also better to take on big projects after October and before May down here, (right when my job is its most demanding). Getting together with your friends once a week is a good idea, not just for the extra hands, but also for their ideas and expertise.
I seem to help every one else around here and they don't have as much free time as I. I guess I give a little more than I get but it's all fun. Wife says I went bigger before I got it put in. we bought a 200 gal. pre-formed. and before I got started, a co-worker of hers told us he wished he had made his deeper so he could leave the fish out all winter. Made sense to me. So I fired up the skid loader and had fun. 20' long and 15" wide later an 3& 1/2' deep. I then realized the cost of a linner. That was the first part of the pond. It has since been added to. by another 12'X20' that spills into the first one.
I saw a red mandavilla at W/M at 1/2 price today. I might pick one up if they are hardy up here. I have Climatis getting a start. Just thought I would add that we have new little babies appearing again. I saw the Koi eating at the plant roots thought I better check. Yep eggs. rescued some brought them in to an aquarium. They are so tiny, but by mid summer they will start to grow good and get their color. it is fun just watching them fight free of the rest of the egg and be on their own. then we try count and see how many there are. I know some of what I left in the pond will make it too, but this just increases their chances. Thanks for sharing the pics of your pond I just enjoy looking at other ponds sometimes try something simular on ours.
Do you have pictures of your pond, randponder? It sounds amazing.
yes i do too we need pics randbponder
thxs
moretz
I have a couple of old pics will try to send
another
And one more
sorry about the quality , I just forget where things are or how to bring them from file to file or whatever.
Hmmmmm nothing blooming
ok look at what is looks like NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good job, Moretz. The plants are filling in nicely. My daughter gave me one of those dwarf red bananas for Mother's Day. It's a nice plant--always developing new leaves.
Moretz,
I had to reread your post and check where you are from. You are from NC and I live in Virginia which is 7-B. My pond is posted under New members pond if you want to check it out. Since your is a kit and under planning stage you have to plan where you are going to dig. If it is under a tree you might need a bulldozer to dig and then the problem of the leaves in the fall but that could be remedied but netting it like mine. I have 2 ponds, the new one is preformed which is under a tree, it is dropped in and my DH encased it with bricks?? I am not sure what they are called. We live our ponds 24/7 and it is additional $40-50 per month for electric bill. whydo we do it ?? My pond was constructed for me to relax after a stressful day at work, likes to listen to the water fall and so it runs 24/7. the big pond has full sun but I have 2 big umbrellas to protect the kois. i have plenty of plants but it still gets tooo hot here and your place gets very hot too. Check out the picture of my pond if you wish. Happy ponding !! Bellie
This picture is the big pond
This message was edited Aug 10, 2006 1:51 PM
picture of the new pond under a tree Bellie
bellieg
i love both of yours good job!!!!!!!!! do you keep the netting on there all the time or just for the fall season? mine wont get too many leaves but it really depends on the way the wind blows but i am going to get a netting to go over it in the fall and then take it off because i love sticking my hands in the water lol i am going to be adding on to it i hope soon as soon as i get the stuff together it will be done lol
thxs everyone for your help to get me this far with mine,i dont even have a filter on mine and the water is so clear,dont know what i am doing right but i am not changing anything lol
thxs again
moretz
ok here is an update on my pond of how it has really growed thxs to everyone for helping me!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good job, moretz.