Garden Pond Resources

Finally got the filter moving

dave — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:30:55 +0000

Long time, no updates. I finally got my filter finished up this year.. So far, I’ve not been able to tell much of a difference due to other things happening. I have now have a huge problem with some runoff entering the pond. At this point, each time it rains really hard around here, I have a huge problem with the pond overflowing.. I built an overflow drain into it initially, but it’s unable to handle the mass amount of water that is entering the pond. Arg. Next problem… So now, the pond is clear of all algae, just very dirty due to dirt entering from the runoff.

Here’s a picture of basically what I’m doing. I finally ran 1.5″ PVC to the top of the hill, and created a little sump type of setup here. The PVC goes into the area and T’s off. I then took 1.5″ PVC with end caps on it, and drilled small holes throughout the entire length of it. This will allow the water to be pumped out in various spots, filtering through the pea gravel as it comes to the top, then overflow back into the creek, and eventually back into the pond.

Here’s the creek:

Not nearly complete or filled up, but here’s a pic of the filter idea. Basically just a small pond itself with gravel. The plan is to cover the entire top area with plants as well, to help consume raw nutrients. I am probably going to run out in a bit today to get more pea gravel. So far I’ve dumped in about 20 bags of it. I’ll have to see what the bags weight.. its quite a bit.

Here’s an image of the creek going under a huge tree root. When I was digging this initially, I hit this root and couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I didn’t want to cut it, cause it’s massive. Probably a major root for the tree…

Well, that’s about it for now. I should have taken progress pics of the filter setup, but hmm, I thought of that too late. Once I get the runoff situation straight, and the pond clears up, I’ll take some more pics of the water itself.

Plans for the summer: pond cam, new waterfall and creek, new filter setup

dave — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:04:27 +0000

Wow, it’s been a few years since I last posted something on this website, or so it seems. I’ll have to get some recent pics here soon of the pond and everything else. I got the new fence complete last year, and also built a new temporary waterfall. Unfortunately, my plans have changed and I will soon be turning that old waterfall into something else now. I am planning on setting up a shallow bog type of area for plants, and to help with filtration of the water. I’ll get more info on this in the upcoming months, as summer is closely approaching.

Here’s a link to what I’m sort of thinking of. I have a large area that I plan on creating a lower flow area to grow some plants. The koi won’t leave them alone in the pond itself!

http://kilk.com/pond/

Crystal Clear Pond Tint

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:53:32 +0000

[b]Crystal Clear Pond Tint[/b] - A few months ago I purchased some Crystal Clear pond tint from petsolutions.com to try it out. One bottle treats around 8000 gallons. I’m guessing that my pond is approximately 9500 gallons, so I was a bit short. Anyways, I dumped the entire bottle in and let it go. It looked pretty cool once it was done, and didn’t really stain anything permanently. The tint remained for a few weeks but eventually faded out. I was hoping the tint would actually cut down on the amount of algae in the water as it advertises, but that didn’t really work too good. Overall, it’s a good cheap way to tint your water color, but you’d probably end up dumping a bottle in a month to maintain the blue color. It did stain some of my rocks for a weeks, but nothing really major.
I’d probably buy it again, it’s cheap and seems to do the job. Next time I’ll wear gloves.
Warning: The tint stains your hands! I got some of it on my hands while opening the bottle.. That stuff works good! It will eventually wash out after a day or two.

New waterfall and creek

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:50:43 +0000

Well, I got a lot more done this weekend. I went to pick up some flagstone earlier too for the top of the waterfall, 28 cents a lb! wtf! That kinda annoyed me. I picked up about 10 rocks, ended up being like 160lbs, haha. I really did NOT want to spend that much on fucking rocks.

I also bought some of the black waterfall ‘foam’ which was a waste of money, the shit was more purple than it was black. I spent $14/can of that crap, when I should have just went to the hardware store and got the standard ‘great stuff’ foam. I ended up buying two cans of the black stuff, and was out $28. After realizing how stupid that was, I went down to Westlake Hardware and picked up 4 more cans of the standard ‘great stuff’ foam at $4.99/can. I got most of the falls built and layered up with rocks today, but still need to get a bit more sometime this week. Trashy or not, I’ve been grabbing free rocks on a local highway on ramp, hahaha. I pulled over with a 5 gallon bucket and just go load up and dump them into my truck real quick. I really don’t know if it’s considered stealing or not, but whatever. I’m guessing picking up anything off of some piece of property other than your own is stealing, not entirely sure though. I think it’s a state funded highway, so would I be stealing from the state? hmmmm. Sorta worries me but I seriously doubt they care. It’s like .01% of the rocks at that location.
I made a few trips last year to get a lot of the rocks for my pond. The hell if I’m going to be buying anymore rocks!
I do have some pics of the latest work but will probably post em tomorrow or something. I’ll also go take a few pictures of the waterfall and foam that I stuck down there. And of course the $14 purple foam, ha.

Working on the fence pics

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:50:27 +0000

Well, I finally took me camera out the other day to take some pics of what I’ve been doing.. ugh. The battery was dead. I charged it up but haven’t had much time to take anymore yet. Although, everything is nearly complete. The creek is down but still needs a LOT more rocks. The waterfall mountain is built but also needs rocks and to be completed as well. I’m hoping I can bust this out sometime this week, or get it done this weekend. I’m hoping to have all of this done by the 29th which is a reception for my brother inlaw and his wife. I’ve also raised an area up by the waterfall and leveled it out for seating, so that should be cool. I’ll get some pictures up later tonight for sure.

Here’s the fence that was tore down:

The new fence half up the hill.

Fence is done

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:50:04 +0000

Check out my new floating…. pavillion.. type of thing. I’m not sure what it is, but I like it.

The long labor day weekend was a good one. I got the fence completed. The fence I was moving was right next to my pond, I ended up tearing down a section and rebuilding a new 25′ long section, then ran it back to the side of my house, around another 22′ or so. This has opened up a new area for me to play around with. The first feature will be a new faster flowing creek. I started digging a little bit earlier on it. I plan to make a waterfall at the top of the hill as well, then let the creek run down into the pond. I’m not really too sure of the details yet, but it should be cool. I’m also planning on building a new bridge to cross the lower section of the existing creek, but I’m not sure I’ll get to that this year. I’m going to get some pictures tomorrow of this. The new fence, and the planned creek location.

Ice is getting old!

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:49:33 +0000

The latest ice images. Wow, the pond is rock solid in a few areas. I dumped about 50 gallons of water in it a few weeks ago, temps were in the 20s almost all week. The creek was flowing pretty well, no problems there. The water fall however, I think the hose feeding it froze, so that one is currently doing nothing. There’s probably a few hundred lbs of ice sitting around the pond. It was cracking pretty bad the other day when the temps were up into the 40s, but now we’re back to a high of 24 today. Ugh.

[center]

[/center]

Pond Ice Images

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:47:35 +0000

Wow, it’s been super cold lately. Here’s a few images of the frozen pond… I’m hoping it’ll warm up soon to melt some of this stuff.

The waterfall looks like it’s about to fall into the pond also, haha. This will be fixed this upcoming summer, that whole area will be going away

The dock is covered in ice!

Pond cam coming soon!

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:46:24 +0000

Be sure to stick around for this next summer. I’m planning on installing a pondcam on my main pond in the backyard. The camera will hopefully be operational 24×7 and send streaming video to the website. I’ve not yet finalized which camera I’m going to get, but I may get one that will be movable via the web, or a stationary next to the pond. I’m also planning on installing a pond feeder with an automated switch, so feeding can be done via the website. I think this will be somewhat interesting to see… If all goes as planned, verified users will be able to login to gardenponding.com, hit a button and feed the fish. You will be able to watch the koi go crazy eating, live via the pondcam. I’m still finalizing a few ideas, and hope to start working on this in the next few months.
Be sure to check back!

Cold Weather Pond Pics

dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:15:25 +0000

Well, the cold weather finally came. I was out riding my bike three nights ago, and it was 70 degrees! Today, the high was 26. The pond is slowly starting to freeze, I’m sort of curious what will happen. After a lot of reading, I decided to leave my pump in, and stick a heater in it just in case I need to turn it on. So far, the waterfall is frozen, the creek is not frozen, and part of the pond is frozen. Here’s a few pics.

Below is the pond in the front yard, completely solid. I’m glad nothing is in it =]