Raised pond built with cut stones

Don't tempt me! LOL!! The heat here is absolutely unbearable :(
Congrats on the 15lb loss ☺

We are very cool now especially since the front from the north came through this afternoon.

All total this summer we have had 1 week of warm weather to us but to those from here you would think during that time they were living in h3xx they way they carry on. I just laugh and tell them they should live in a landlocked state where there isn't hardly any wind except for when a front is coming through. Up here there is always wind.. Northern Ohio reminds me so much of Florida except for here there isn't much heat....LOL

Janet

Updated pics. I have to order a liner now, so it might be a couple weeks before any further progress. I am going to try to do a waterfall on the back. DH will cut some stones tonight to finish the end up. and then I have to spread the dirt around.

This is a shot from the front of the pond and the stacked pavers will support the water fall stones at the back.

I would like to do a water fall with stacked rock at the back. I have some nice flat ones. But they are sandstone. I am worried they may get soft and crumble or ruin my pump. Is it ok to use sandstone? I think I should probably find some slate or something?

Frillylily, I made it up to my friends house and took a few pictures of her pond. Everything up there is very over grown and in bad need of weeding, as she is massively overworked right now. This is the view from her deck. There are steps going down from the deck right next to the upper end of the pond.

Nice pond there. I made mine the same way in an egg shape. Flagstone works good on the cap to hold the liner in place. Those bricks won't budge...don't worry about it. You'll be fine the way it is. One huge note of caution: since your pond isn't very deep, if you are going to put koi or goldfish in there, make absolutely sure they have a place to run and hide if racoons come during the night. They need to get under a 1/2 broken flower pot or something. I lost my fish that way and it was very disturbing to find fish guts all over the sideway. They didn't have any place to hide and the racoon got 'em.

She has heavy clay soil very hard to dig in and the pond sits on a hillside. She dug down partially into the top of the hillside and lined the inside of the stones with the dirt she took out. There is a wide ledge of dirt about 6 inches wide all around the pond between the rocks and the liner. There are dirt steps built in the upper end also between the rocks and liner so she can step down into the pond.

Here is a side view you can see that it is dug into the hillside.

She has a short run with a small waterfall. It wasn't running well the day I was there, the filter needed flushing. It's just a short plastic tray but usually it makes a nice little run and small waterfall.

wow, sorry to hear about the racoon. I have had a few goldfish disapear from my front pond. It is only 15 inches deep so that is why I'm doing away with it. I didn't see any fishy inards anywhere though, so I have no idea what happened to them. The pond I am doing now will be quite deep, almost 3 1/2 to 4 feet at the deepest part, and the sides are dug straight down, no shallow wading zone, I figure that will help keep critters out. I know animals will come to drink so I am ok with that, but I didn't want to make it easy for any to get IN it.

Ok well I have questions about the waterfall part. I don't know what to do from here. The waterfall obviously goes in the back behind all of the cut stones. So my question is, does the liner need to extend to the waterfall? I was going to just put the filter box behind the waterfall and then let gravity empty the filter over the stacked rocks. I would like the fall to be about 12 inches or so. NOT a stream at all, just merely a fall. I don't want to meander it at all because I don't have the space. Anyway I'm afraid if I don't extend the liner, that the water going back in via the fall will spill out or back flow into the garden area and waste water. But I'm not sure how to go about extending the liner. Would it have to come up the sides as well, or just the bottom and the back?

Oh, I was amazed at how high those stones are stacked!!
YIPEE!! Mine stacked that high, so I think my plan is gonna work.
Thank you so very much for posting those, really helps me :)

Here is the filter set off to the side. As you can see she has stacked up stones all around the filter and along the top edge of her pond.
Hope these pictures will give you some ideas. Looks like your pond is coming along very nicely.

Oh yes, on the lower side of the pond the stone are stacked quite high. I'm thinking maybe waist high, when I stand beside it, and she has had this pond for many years. She has also bermed in a few wider spots in the ledges to sit plants on and the steps that she dug in really help her get in and out of the pond

I would suggest putting the liner anywhere you have standing or flowing water. If not it can leach your pond dry. I have a spot on my stream that to me is unsightly as it is so high above the waterline. The reason for that is spray from the waterfall. If I did not have the liner there it would be constantly wet and eventually crumble away if the pond did not dry up every day from the water loss.

Ok It has been months since I posted on my pond progress. I have posted on my winter mis haps. but that is another subject. So....
I didn't get to continue posting as I was putting it together because I finished it while my DH was out of state on a work trip and he had the camera. I didn't have very long to get it done, so I worked day and night to get it in before he got back.

Now over the winter I have had trouble. The pictures below are of the box I used to make the filter that was at the back of the pond. Pump in bottom of pond at lowest point with hose bringing it into the box and then pipe to dump it back in. Problem is over the winter I left the box outside and now it leaks. Thing is I can see the water SLOWLY leaking at a spot, but when inspecting the box it doesn't appear to have anything wrong with it. What a pain. SO I do not know if that is because it froze and thawed with water in it, or just from being outside, or pressure from the water or WHAT!
It is a real pain. The everytime I go to clean the box the rocks covering it over the front go all over the place and have to be restacked to hide the pipe that puts the water back in.
I hate this little set up, not to mention the box is terribly unsightly and will have to be disguised with 'something'.....

SO my question now is this.
The sack in the second photo ( I hope you can see it?) Is a laundry bag with foam pieces in it. that is what I had in the box. Why can't I just put my pump IN the bag?? Wouldn't it draw water through the bag-filtering it- and then pump the water through a hose and let that hose empty the water out on the other side of the pond? I was thinking about putting the hose near the bottom, at the deepest part and let it discharge toward the surface, which I think would move the water more in the pond to keep debri 'floating' so that it could be drawn toward the pump/filtering foam.
This would elimate the leaky unsightly box. It would get rid of the 'waterfall' of lopsided rocks that won't stay in place. I don't think it would be any more trouble to clean, just different. The other thing is I have to find a way then to anchor the outlet pipe or a critter could pull it out of the water and my pond would then drain. I have had critters lately. I assume maybe raccoons? I dont know, but whatever it is moved my pump from one side of the pond to the other.
The pond is 6' across and I estimate it to be 450 gals. It is 3 1/2 ' at the deepest part, 1/3 of the pond. Then 1/3 is 2 ' deep and the other third is 1 ' deep. Kind of like a stairs lol

Any ideas ? Do you think it will work?
Also I would LOVE to add a UV filter but I don't really know how. Plus I am broke lol Does anyone have a used one? If so, dmail me and maybe we can work something out?
I guess that is what I need, to get rid of the green water?

Another one

Front view

That is a very nice looking pond. It will be beautiful this summer. Can't wait to see the summer pics. I really can't help with your filter questions I don't have that type of filter.

Wow! Love it. You can't imagine how much joy it will give you this summer.

well so far no joy lol
just frustration.
I am so glad I didn't build it any bigger than I did....

Love the round shape!
The only problem with putting the pump in the laundry sack is the foam pieces will suck up to the inlet of the pump and severely restrict the flow, could cause problems with your pump (burning out, over heating) The pump would need to sit inside some kind of mesh cage keeping the foam from the inlet. When I built my filter out of a cattle tank I used aquarium sealer around the piping to insure a tight seal. You could run a bead of sealer around your filter box. But that doesn't solve your rock problem :(

Great idea about the filter there. I wouldn't have thought of that.
I will find something to put it in, and then put it in the bag. I think I will pull out the bag once a month to clean it. And then drop it back in.
Part of the trouble I am having with the waterfall thing, is that the discharge on the pump is so forceful, it's just like a huge gush of water coming out. Way to strong.
So far I don't see any where to adjust the flow on that, but then it would lower the gph that were actually being filtered... The waterfall is only about 18" high. But I feel that making it any longer or taller would not look right, and would block the plants behind it and over whelm the area.

HollyAnn: I love your friends pond and the masses of plants. I think she needs a plant dividing and all these newbies can pay postage and everyone will be happier . . . LOL!

I think this is an interesting thread. I am playing with the idea of a raised pond somewhere (???) on my property that I want to use as a sick pond . . . If everyone gets healthy then is will be another type of fish pond like shubunkins or something.

Mothermole, I'm hosting a DG Spring Swap in May. I have invited her to attend. She might bring some of them along. Why don't you just drive in here and visit? ;}
Have you seen this thread on Raised Ponds you could get lots of ideas from this thread?
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/870256/

Holly: How far is Dover from Chicago? I am going to try and meet up with Snapple (she from Ohio) in Michigan. Maybe I can do a combo trip and just totally abandon my family . . .LOL!

We are just a little East of Chicago. About 11 hrs. LOL :>}

You could put the pump in the bag with the foam as long as it isn't a solid handling pump that would tear it up. I did something similar in my stock tank last year, putting m pump in the bag with bioballs. I've heard of people making subersible filters out of egg crates and various media, with the pump in the middle. I would think it would be awesome bio filtration, maybe not as good mechanical filtration as the box filter but it would work.

Cool above ground!!! Maybe I missed it... did you dry stack or use mortar?

I just stacked them because it isn't very high.
Most of the depth is under ground. Then the rock stacked on the top.
The front is stacked higher than the back, which only has like 2 or 3 layers.

I don't think the pump handles solids. I'm not 100% certain on that, but pretty sure.
The pump has a sort of plastic mesh grate over the front with a little filter pad -like a scratch pad? that you clean out once in a while.

Then the pump should be fine. The solid waste ones usually have bigger openings and no prefilter. I have one in my skimmer because I was tired of having to degunk my other one. That thing is like a garbage disposal:)

I have a small submersible pump with no filter in my one small pond. We took a plastic milk crate and zip-tied barley straw pads to each side and the top. We set the pump under the crate so that most of the water that gets pulled through the pump goes through the barley straw pads. I set a couple of bricks and a water plant on top of the crate to keep it in position. Seems to work well for our use.

OHHH thank you thank you!
that is a great idea. I will do some thinking on it. !!

So how big is your little pond there? It is VERY nice.
and what kind of plants are in it?

It's about 6ft across outside, 5ft inside and 3ft deep. There is a concrete pedestal in the center that the bird bath sits on. The pump is really used to pump water through the bird bath where it drips back over the edge and into the pond bottom. We keep a few fish in the pond and there is quite a few frogs in our small pond. The tall plants in the back are overgrown Yellow Water Iris. The small purple plant in the front is American Water Willow (Justicia americana). Pickerel Weed is the small upright plant to the left and there are several different small Water Lilies. I change it up move some of the plants around to my small box pond from year to year.

Ok so where did you get the barley straw pads? Are they expensive and how often do you clean them, and do you have to replace them periodically? Your pond is gorgeous!! I just can't rave enough! I really like it.

We get a lot of enjoyment from it and the birds love it. We picked up the pads at a local nursery that sells pond supplies. Not sure how expensive they are. Barley straw is supposed to help reduce string algae that is why we started using them in the first place and we saw a big difference with this method. We start with new ones in the Spring and change them about halfway thru the summer. I don't know if this would work for your pond but it works very good for us. We don't have a lot of water surface and with the waterlilies a lot of what we do have ends up covered.

do you have a UV light?
I do not have one.
We do have a pond supply here, I will call and check them out, thanks!

No, we don't but ours is very small. One of these days when we put in the large pond we will need a real filter set up. My friends pond similar to yours has a UV for her pond and she uses two different filters. Your pond will be beautiful this summer.

I just became a subscriber to Dave's Garden yesterday so had to catch up on the wealth of pond information everyone has. We built our above ground pond last year and we love it. I was surprised at how much it looks like FrillyLily's pond! We did the same thing, digging a shelf for pond plants that is about 16 inches deep, then 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep in the middle. We used cement blocks for the actual pond, using a pad and then heavy rubber liner. We used rebar and poured cement into the blocks to make sure nothing would push out when the water was added. Then we filled the space between the pond's edge and the block with dirt and put pond gravel on top of that.

I had a submersible pump last year, but this year are going to try an external pump with a uv light and some sort of bio filter. Last year we just couldn't seem to get rid of the 'green' so hope our new set-up will work. If any of you have any advice or pics on how to conceal the external pump I would like to get some ideas. My pond is 1,500 gallon pond. Also, we are going to try a home made filter so appreciated the ideas already posted. If anyone else has ideas for a filter for my size of pond it would be appreciated!

emt..great job. Your pond and property are beautiful!