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  • Results 1 to 17 of 17

    Thread: 2012 Pond Construction

    1. #1
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      2012 Pond Construction

      Everyone enjoys pond construction stories, so I thought I would share mine. How I went from my little 100 gallon 'plastic puddle' to my current 600 gallon pond. I will be copying a bunch of this from my build threads on other forums, so hopefully it flows okay.
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    2. #2
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      ------- Rewind to spring 2012

      Time to renovate the pond. My pond from last summer was too small for my fish, so I plan on expanding before I put them out this summer. Unfortunately I don't have the money to build a 'proper' pond and do it the 'right' way like I want to. So, I will build a cheap pond with the idea that I will probably be re-doing it in the future. I often have trouble finishing projects because I am so picky, so I'm going to try not to be too picky this time and just go with the flow.

      One of the hardest parts for me is the planning stage because there are so many options. Size, shape, location, etc.

      I decided on a 14'x14' PVC liner from Canadian Tire ($160) because it was cheap, about the size I had in mind and I needed to make a decision and run with it. I plan on making the pond about 3 feet deep, 5.5 foot square (which leaves me with about 1.5 foot overlap on all sides). Square might not be desirable for some people, but I kinda like it. Also, it makes the best use of a square liner. It should hold about 670 gallons of water.

      Okay, enough talk, more pictures.

      I liked where my little pond was last summer, unfortunately there wasn't room to build a big pond beside it. So, I decided to move the little pond and put the big pond in it's place. I made a scale drawing of the location and cutouts of the ponds to see how they would fit. This is approximately where I want them.

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      Breaking down the old pond was actually quite a quick job.

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      And here are the results of some of the digging. My boyfriend helped me a lot, he brought a pick. The place where we were digging basically started with rocky gravel, then a layer of clay and then dark sand/gravel stuff. My house is an old apple warehouse that was built beside a railroad. Dad said we were probably getting down to the fill they used for the railroad bed.

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      I did a lot of thinking and designing. Here are some of the sketches I did.

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    3. #3
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      Did lots of digging. Took lots of hole pictures. It is quite hard to show how deep a hole is in a photograph.

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      At one point I got interrupted by a spring snowstorm...

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      More digging.

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      Built up some dirt around the edge of the pond to prevent runoff and stuff getting in.

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      And some leveling. Don't want one bank to be higher than the other

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    4. #4
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      Built a fence to keep the dog out..... I used whatever was laying around instead of buying materials. I ended up having to make it taller later because he jumped right over it.

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      I live in the country, so rocks were not hard to come by. These were field stones from a nearby field. I made many trips with that little trailer.

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      I got some great advice from Graham on how to do the edge of the pond. I did up a little sketch to help visualize it. This is a great way of hiding the liner and worked out excellent for me.

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    5. #5
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      Found a bit of carpet and made use of some big feed bags. My brother had used them previously as crash mats for high jump... now some of them get to be under a fish pond.

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      Liner. I know I know... but plastic is cheap! This pond isn't meant to last forever.

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      Liner was huge! I had plenty of overlap too which was great. I kinda wished I had made the hole a little bigger when I first spread it out, but now I am very happy with it.

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      Filling the pond! I didn't fill it up all the way at first because I needed to work on the edges. There will be a ring of rocks that is partially underwater. I have put those down before I fill it all the way.

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    6. #6
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      Rocks around the inner edge. When I had them all in place, I filled in some dirt behind them under the liner to fill out that edge a bit. Now I needed to stack some big flat rocks on those and around the edge. It was really windy at the time, so I have other rocks holding down the edges of the liner, not permanent.

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      Final filling. Topping it off. It was finally coming together. The rocks in the water looked awesome compared to having liner showing.

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      At this point it was warm enough to put the fish out. I hooked up my EHEIM filter (which had been running all winter in the basement tank) and moved the fish out. My Dad built the wooden 'stand' for the filter.

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      The fish had grown a bunch over the winter.

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    7. #7
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      More rock work. I wore heavy gloves to protect my hands because some of the rocks were quite heavy. I was careful placing them so that the whole edge was stable and none of the rocks shifted easily. I can basically walk all the way around the pond on the rocks without them moving.

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      Made a little pocket for a plant in one corner. Also, have some bird netting over the pond to keep birds away.

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      Once the edging was basically done, I had to figure out how to install the small upper pond.

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    8. #8
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      Installing the small upper pond.

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      I had some trouble with the waterfall. I ended up stacking and re-stacking rocks. Waterfall foam would have helped... but I wanted something that looked good before I made it more permanent with foam. Took a lot of trial and error on my part.

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      Tried a slightly different approach. My liner wasn't quite long enough, so I made a 'river section' out of the waterfall thing that came from my 'plastic puddle' pond kit.

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      Not bad... but still not perfect.

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    9. #9
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      I decided I wanted a dock, or deck or whatever.... a place to stand or sit and feed the fish. I used some old cedar timbers that used to be a huge water tank... like the one our playhouse is made of:

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      The deck is supported in such a way that it is safe to stand right at the edge, or very close to it. It looks like it is overhanging a lot, but it is supported underneath by rocks quite close to the end. I have never been worried about it falling in the pond.

    10. #10
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      And with that, the pond was essentially done. I added some plants, did some gardening, fiddled with this and that. Here are some pictures from a little later in the summer.
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    11. #11
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      And some more. I took a lot of pictures.... rather.... I take a lot of pictures......

      Aug. 5, 2012

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      Aug. 19, 2012

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      Aug. 25, 2012

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      Sept. 3, 2012

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    12. #12
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      That turned out nice! You are very resourceful, good job!

      Cheryl

    13. #13
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      I love it!
      A young person with enough motivation can accomplish amazing things. Could it have problems in the future?
      Maybe so... but I don't know many first ponds that didn't! It'll be a great one to start with and learn from.

      Beautiful work, and thanks for sharing it's transformation with us!
      --Steve



      Koiphen 2021 Koi Person of the Year!

    14. #14
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      Looking at it through face book. Its beautiful, great job.
      My Avatar has changed due to him growing up.

    15. #15
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      Looks nice!!, and great build pics

    16. #16
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      Very nice, thanks for sharing.

    17. #17
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      Thanks everyone, it was a fun project. Still is actually, I continue to improve it all the time. One of the neat things about this particular project is the cost. The only thing that I purchased to make this was the pond liner, for $160.

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