P
Pockets
Guest
So with everybody making fun of me about my little fella pond, and more importantly no real way to filter the water so the fish were suffering, I decided to build a rather large pond to sit by and have a beer and cigar while watching my beautiful fish swim around =)
I did not remeasure after the expansion but it's large haha and over 3.5 ft deep. Thank god for having a pickup truck that is all I gotta say!
The hunt for filtration began and I was quickly intrigued in the Helix Life Support Systems http://www.helixpondfiltration.com/ .... these systems are at the very top for pond filtration and skimming, the skimmer even won pond product of the year in 2012 when it was introduced. The Bio-Mechanical Waterfall Filter is a fairly new product at less then a year old and has captured the eyes of most every pond fanatic. So I decided to purchase them for my pond! It uses a very large amount (270 lbs.) of Lava Rock as a nesting spot for beneficial bacteria. Lava rock is very porous so there is a large amount of surface area on them for the bacteria to grow. It also is the first of it's kind with no touch cleaning by injecting air under the lava rock and causing it to "boil" and loosen up the dirt, than just open the drain and back flush it with pond water and your good to go.
I want to throw out a very large thank you to Eric over at www.ThePondDigger.com and their instructional videos that they put up on YouTube here http://www.youtube.com/user/ThePondDigger (if any of you are thinking about doing a pond watch these videos!)
So with materials purchased it was time to dig!
I laid out the outline with a garden hose and started to outline it .... keep in mind it has changed as I expanded it to what it is now
The rocks that were coming out of the hole ... they don't call my county Rockland for nothing haha
With the hole dug I placed the underlayment into the pond (this is a barrier that prevents tree roots and rocks to puncture the .45 mil EPDM liner)
This was with the liner in and the first time I filled it up
Now you wouldn't think it but rocks are expensive!! So I found a local construction site that just happened to have lots and lots of rocks for me to pick up after hours
I had to make about 4 or 5 truckloads of rocks from this place
This is filled up to one level down from water level so I could walk in the pond ... I also have since taken out the monkey bars and expanded the pond further to them.
Here is the monkey bars removed (yes I drained the whole pond took the liner out and underlayment and expanded the pond)
With the liner back in it was time to use all those rocks and line the sides of the pond with them ... I have a new appreciation for every rock wall that I see!
Beginning construction of waterfall
Just picked up these three spillway stones from the rock-yard at 7:30 this morning .. had to make two trips as they were just too heavy for my truck!
So that is where I am at at this moment in time ... thanks for reading and if you have any questions or other picture requests I'd be more than happy to try and answer them or take some pictures.
I did not remeasure after the expansion but it's large haha and over 3.5 ft deep. Thank god for having a pickup truck that is all I gotta say!
The hunt for filtration began and I was quickly intrigued in the Helix Life Support Systems http://www.helixpondfiltration.com/ .... these systems are at the very top for pond filtration and skimming, the skimmer even won pond product of the year in 2012 when it was introduced. The Bio-Mechanical Waterfall Filter is a fairly new product at less then a year old and has captured the eyes of most every pond fanatic. So I decided to purchase them for my pond! It uses a very large amount (270 lbs.) of Lava Rock as a nesting spot for beneficial bacteria. Lava rock is very porous so there is a large amount of surface area on them for the bacteria to grow. It also is the first of it's kind with no touch cleaning by injecting air under the lava rock and causing it to "boil" and loosen up the dirt, than just open the drain and back flush it with pond water and your good to go.
I want to throw out a very large thank you to Eric over at www.ThePondDigger.com and their instructional videos that they put up on YouTube here http://www.youtube.com/user/ThePondDigger (if any of you are thinking about doing a pond watch these videos!)
So with materials purchased it was time to dig!
I laid out the outline with a garden hose and started to outline it .... keep in mind it has changed as I expanded it to what it is now
The rocks that were coming out of the hole ... they don't call my county Rockland for nothing haha
With the hole dug I placed the underlayment into the pond (this is a barrier that prevents tree roots and rocks to puncture the .45 mil EPDM liner)
This was with the liner in and the first time I filled it up
Now you wouldn't think it but rocks are expensive!! So I found a local construction site that just happened to have lots and lots of rocks for me to pick up after hours
I had to make about 4 or 5 truckloads of rocks from this place
This is filled up to one level down from water level so I could walk in the pond ... I also have since taken out the monkey bars and expanded the pond further to them.
Here is the monkey bars removed (yes I drained the whole pond took the liner out and underlayment and expanded the pond)
With the liner back in it was time to use all those rocks and line the sides of the pond with them ... I have a new appreciation for every rock wall that I see!
Beginning construction of waterfall
Just picked up these three spillway stones from the rock-yard at 7:30 this morning .. had to make two trips as they were just too heavy for my truck!
So that is where I am at at this moment in time ... thanks for reading and if you have any questions or other picture requests I'd be more than happy to try and answer them or take some pictures.
