Ponds
- Thread starter Broughtonblue
- Start date
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welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
ayceejay
Guru
- Location
- Rural Quebec
If heron are a problem you will need a trip wire. I second the advice regarding depth but if you also want plants perhaps build your pond with a ledge of shallower water with depth in the middle.
welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
That is a def must. Different plants require different depths to be planted in. Good point.
welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
[QUOTE 3336710, member: 259"]Nothing stops herons if they're determined enough. I suppose I could chain the dog up there all nigh or physically encage the whole thing in steel mesh, but it would n't be as nice to look at. The cage would be pretty fugly as well.[/QUOTE]
Herons are horrible. But you can make mesh cages that sit at the bottom of your pond for the fish to hide in and get away from them, but you would need to have a fairly large, natural pond so it couldn't be seen from the surface.
Herons are horrible. But you can make mesh cages that sit at the bottom of your pond for the fish to hide in and get away from them, but you would need to have a fairly large, natural pond so it couldn't be seen from the surface.
ayceejay
Guru
- Location
- Rural Quebec
A heron needs to walk up to or into a pond to harpoon the fish hence my suggestion for a trip wire, someone I knew had a motion sensitive device rigged up that would squirt water, it didn't stop the heron but it slowed the gardener down a bit.
welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
Half the pond that you can't see is natural. It is heavy clay soil so holds the water. The half that you can see is only 2 years old and was dug out by hand by Mr WD. There is a butyl liner in it. After putting the liner in, we put some of the turf back on top to make it look more natural.
There is a steep slope on my land, and we get a lot of run off from there, there is a bit of a ditch that was dug to encourage the water to run into the pond. We also have a stream that runs down the side of our property. If the weather is hot we we don't have much rain, we have a pump that we use to pump water up from the stream Into the pond as a top up measure.
There is a steep slope on my land, and we get a lot of run off from there, there is a bit of a ditch that was dug to encourage the water to run into the pond. We also have a stream that runs down the side of our property. If the weather is hot we we don't have much rain, we have a pump that we use to pump water up from the stream Into the pond as a top up measure.
welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
Correct. Half clay and natural and half butyl liner. And yes after putting the liner in, we broke through from the old half into the new half and its not join but the liner was taken over into the old part of the pond. Where the 2 meet, there is only a depth of around 18 inches. This allowed us to integreate the 2 into one. Altogether the pond is around 100 feet long and 40 feet wide perhaps.
welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
Blanket weed thrives in the sunlght. Have lilies and there is less area for sunlight.
if it stops raining tomorrow I'll take some photos showing how the 2 halves of the pond come together, and the drainage we have in place. The drainage is needed in the winter because of the excess of water that we have. It is Wales after all.
if it stops raining tomorrow I'll take some photos showing how the 2 halves of the pond come together, and the drainage we have in place. The drainage is needed in the winter because of the excess of water that we have. It is Wales after all.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
a friend decided he wanted a pond in the garden, but after negotiation with the domestic authorities was scaled back in size somewhat with a given limit of 1 square metre. Despite being married for many years, and knowing what the chap is like, and his tendency to take instructions very literally she still neglected to specify the 3rd dimension. A while after construction she somehow managed to fall in and , only then noted it was over 2m deep !
mr_cellophane
Legendary Member
- Location
- Essex
1200 litres isn't enough for koi, you need more like 1200 gallons.
Fish grow to fit their environment so the fewer you get, the bigger they will get.
Get it dug as soon as possible that way you can leave it for 6 months to fill naturally and be ready for fish come April which is about the earliest you should get them now.
Get a UV and filter the next size up from the one recommended for your size pond
Get a gravity fed filter IMO it is better than a pump fed one. However you will need to plan for one as you dig.
Don't get a cheap liner. You will regret it when it leaks.
Go to Carpet Right and ask for off cuts. They will be more than happy for you to help yourself from their skip. Then layer the pond with sand, then old carpet before you put the liner down. Changing anything in the pond is easy, except the liner. So you need to make sure it can't get holed by stones.
You need to aerate the water, so a fountain or waterfall is essential.
And plan some way to drain it in case you need to change the water
I bought a skimmer last month. I will look up the website at the weekend as they were cheapest around, even for food.
Fish grow to fit their environment so the fewer you get, the bigger they will get.
Get it dug as soon as possible that way you can leave it for 6 months to fill naturally and be ready for fish come April which is about the earliest you should get them now.
Get a UV and filter the next size up from the one recommended for your size pond
Get a gravity fed filter IMO it is better than a pump fed one. However you will need to plan for one as you dig.
Don't get a cheap liner. You will regret it when it leaks.
Go to Carpet Right and ask for off cuts. They will be more than happy for you to help yourself from their skip. Then layer the pond with sand, then old carpet before you put the liner down. Changing anything in the pond is easy, except the liner. So you need to make sure it can't get holed by stones.
You need to aerate the water, so a fountain or waterfall is essential.
And plan some way to drain it in case you need to change the water
I bought a skimmer last month. I will look up the website at the weekend as they were cheapest around, even for food.
mr_cellophane
Legendary Member
- Location
- Essex
My wife wanted a "water feature" and an old hibiscus dug out. The roots went down over 4 foot, which is why my water feature is a 900 gallon pond.
welsh dragon
Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
It stopped raining for a while today, so I took a walk up to the pond and took a few photos. Sorry that the pond looks a bit tatty at the moment. The first photo shows the older natural pond and the second shows the newer half with the liner. The third photo shows how the two are joined. Its a sort of canal that is about two feet wide and about eighteen inches deep. It allows the water to flow between the two ponds as well as letting the fish swim from one pond to the other. It wasn't possible to make just one pond, as the water rushing from theold pond into the new one would have been like a tsunami and probably would have taken out the new pond completely as well as the original pond. We would have ended up with nothing I fear. The next photo shows the stream that we take the water from., its only started flowing again within the last couple of weeks. Before that it was completely dry. The last photo shows the pump. The pump itself stays on dry land. There are two pipes. One goes into the stream and the water is sucked up into the pump and is then forced into the other pipe and up Into the pond when it's needed, which it isn't at the moment.
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Broughtonblue
Guru
- Location
- Norfolk
Think I could actually go fishing in that!