My stock pond auto-fill set up...

I thought others might benefit from what I finally got set up to keep my little stock tank pond filled. I have a lot of splash loss and evaporation so was frequently having to drag the hose over to fill. I killed my fish so many times by leaving the water running that I gave up on fish and you would die with my water bill the times I have left the water running... even left town one time! My pond is way too small for any of the commercial pond set ups. It is just a little 120 gallon stock tank but I had to do something. Here is my little pond for those who have never seen it before... I have posted pictures in the past.

I will post pics of my solution next.

We found an evaporative cooler fill kit in the air conditioner section of Lowes .. they also have them at Home depot but Lowes had a better selection and the one we found had a shorter float so it did not stick out so far into the pond.

Here is a pic of the float in the pond. I had to find a place where it would not intrude too much into the pond.. I have a plant I set at the back each year.

We had to drill a small hole in the side of the tank.. was a lot easier than I expected and I was surprised that it did not leak at all. It was really easy to set up. The float can be adjusted to the water level I want it to maintain. The thin water line then runs to the outdoor water faucet where it is attached. The set up came with about 30 feet or so of hose which was all I needed. I am sure you could get longer if needed.

Here is the faucet. I have a Y because I have other things set up there also.. that is one very busy faucet! WE are going to bury the line a couple inches underground and so I don't have to worry with it. I only took a little while to hook this up.. why we did not do this 3 years ago I don't know.. it was waaay too easy!

Very nice. Okay, here's the weird comment from the Mole... Your water facet is so cute in the ground like that. Is that common in Texas? Here in Illinois they are attached to the outside walls of the house. You know, so they can freeze and then come spring when the weather is 70 degrees and you turn the water on and the pipe still bursts and floods your basement... okay, slight exaggeration from the Mole but this happened two times in the past 3 years for me.

Very nice stock tank set up. I have been itching to make one of these. Running out of room at my house... Maybe up on the deck?

Fish are all doing fine. Lots of frog spawn in the pond but I have have not found the polywogs. The first bach of eggs were laid at the top of my falls, so they would wash down into the bellies of my Koi??? Do koi eat polywogs?

No Koi babies and no mommies to be from what I can tell.

I have 2 others that are attached to the house.. this one is off the line as it comes onto the property first thing from the alley. That is why it comes up from the ground. It is also the only one that is regular water... everything else goes through the water softner so I can't use the others for plants or anything else!

Very pretty pond BeaHive.

We really don't have frogs or toads here... very few and far between because there is very little water for them to breed. No natural water.

Thought I would share a picture of the light in the pond. I got tired of the expensive pond lights that kept leaking and going bad so just used christmas rope light... cheap and it works! Here is a picture at night using the flash of the camera. I had some extra so I ran it underwater at the end.. that is the round loop you see.

Here is a picture without the flash.. it really adds some light to an otherwise very dark corner of the yard!

LhasaLover - I noticed in first picture above that you have moving water and water Lily leafs. Before I started water gardening a few years ago, I did quite a bit of researching found almost all sources were very explicit about not trying to combine water lilies and moving water. So I have never tried to use the combination. I see that you went to the float to keep your water level constant. I do the same thing with all my water features, but I a use a tank float that is designed for farm animal watering troughs. What was your experience at the time you used the watering can? Did you get blooms, supposedly the lilies don't bloom in moving water. Which is why you never see lilies on a river. I know I have seen beautiful water falls at garden shows and there were masses of water lilies close to the falls. I'm sure they were blooming before being placed in the staged set-up.

I do get blooms at the end of the pond where the water is still. This year as you can see, I have a plant hanging in the middle of the pond that blocks some of the water movement so there is even less movement near the front and I have more growth already this year than usual so I expect them to do even better... here is a picture of a couple of my blooms in the past.

That looks really great! You obviously know what is best for your situation. Water gardening is slowly catching on here on the "frozen tundra" Zone 3a. Our season is so short that a lot of people fore go the experience. Once you start, it is almost impossible to stop - like just one potato chip! I live on a lake in northern Minnesota and even though I can walk 125 feet to my dock, I still very much like to hear my fountains and waterfalls, even when sitting in my living room. The sound of water has become just as important a part of my gardens as the plants and other landscaping features.

thanks for sharing.

Love the look with the Rope lights however I am concerned I would electrocute myself. Are those safe IN water?

Well, I have not had any problem with them.. they are fully enclosed in plastic. The ends I have at least 1 1/2 ft outside of the pond and safely covered so no water or moisture can get to them. They are in a covered raised plastic bin next to the pond.

Very nice photos. I like the lights. They make solar strings of lights they might not give off as much light as you would want though. I bought a bunch of boxes on clearance at Target after xmas to use in the gardens. They had twinkling, solid, blue, green, white, net lights etc all in solar. They are pretty cool and no cords lol.

Those sound nice but I don't know about them really close to water. These lights are the electric rope lights that are fully encased in a plastic flexible material. You really can't tell in the picture but most are just along the edge of the water and not submerged. The only part submerged is the left over end where I had extra lights... they have been in the water for about 3 weeks now with no ill effects. I drilled the smallest holes needed to fit plastic zip ties through for attaching them and used silicone to fill in around them afterwards.... total of 6 holes for the entire circumfrence attaching them. I too bought them on sale after christmas.. have several sets so if these go out.. I have more. Still a LOT cheaper than the pond lights I kept buying. I think the last set was $65 and lasted me about 10 months before they died.

Maybe I will look for some solar then. LOL With my record of trips to the ER I'm sure I would find a way to fry myself. I sure like those rope lights better. Nice and just brite enough.

I have a similar set-up, sans the refilling unit. Mine has an oriental figure with the water coming out of her hands. I have not had a problem with the water lily blooming. The water motion is not very drastic, as with Lhasa's. It allows enough circulation to help with mosquito issues and move the water for aeration for the lone goldfish we have in it (for bug control and for fertilizer for the plants.)

I saw some rope solar lights on ebay last night but I don't recall the price.