New to Indoor Ponds, Looking to get one

[chenaus]

Hey i have about 2200 dollars and alot of room in my basement for an indoor pond. But ive nver had one before, I was looking to get a new 210 aquarium with the money but i went it my local lfs and thought the one they had displayed was pretty cool so here i am. I am wondering how big could go with the money and the basics. What all i need and where i could buy them.

I was thinking about keeping eather...

Option 1-
Arowana's
Pbass's
Rtc's


Option 2-
Nurse Sharks
Blue Dot Sting Ray
Other sharks and stingrays?

Also which option would be cooler?

[RadleyMiller]

2200 dollars wouldn't be enough for saltwater.

How much space do you have to work with and once we know that we can go from there. Aros and Rays are a most likely, RTC if you have a lot of space.

[me_wee_todded]

yes we need to know how much space you have before we can help you out. my suggestion would be option one with a very large kiddie pool
but evaporation and humidity would kill you so would filtration.

[RadleyMiller]

There are some really cheap cattle stock tanks that will last a lot longer than kiddie pools.

[me_wee_todded]

even better idea ^^^^
they are even cheaper if you buy them used.
my friends goats all died and he solld his stock tanks for $50-100 each they were around 5 feet across and 36 inches deep.
but thats only an option if you live in a semi rural to rural community like me:D

[chenaus]

Room is not a problem, i have unfinished basement with nothing in it, proably 2000 square feet lol

[RadleyMiller]

Cheneas,

get the 1000 gallon stock tank. It is less than 300 dollars and you can build a sump for it. Check out Softturtle's stuff. He built a sump onto his 300 gallon stock tank. If you have enough room, build a deck around the pond with a trap door so you can get to the sump. IMO, that would look pretty awesome.

[chenaus]

Like I said, IM knew to this. HOw would i go about building a sump and where can I buy 1000 gallon.

[Joshy]

Hell forget a stock tank, make your own plywood tank!
For the amount of money you have, you could make an absolute beast of a pond!

Take some time, do not rush, and do plenty of research.
I will try and track down some articles i have used in the past about plywood tanks.

But basically, using timber you build a frame (skeleton).
You then line the inside frame with plywood.
And then put pond liner inside the frame, on top of the plywood.

As for a sump of any big sized pond, you are going to want to use anything that is big and will hold water. Building the sump is probably your harder bits of the project.

But you cannot expect to get all the answers and instructions within a small time space by just a few members. You need to bind your time and do tons of research yourself, and then raise questions to us.

But i would definably go with a plywood tank if i was in your position.
You can build it as big as you want, and very cheaply. And with 2'200, you can make something of monster size!
Your biggest cost will be electricity (heating and filtration) once construction is done.
But make no mistake about it, this is a big project, nothing you can just dive in to.

[RadleyMiller]

Joshy,

He will be able to dive into it once it is totally done. Well, unless you have stingrays or Ps!

Keeping searching on here for cheap and easy ways to do stuff.

[Redtail_Watcher]

yes we need to know how much space you have before we can help you out. my suggestion would be option one with a very large kiddie pool
but evaporation and humidity would kill you so would filtration.


in my 4x6 pond i loose about 1gallon everyday in my 1300g tank/pond i lost about 10 every day that is not messin with the water like cleaning or changing filter or it be 3 times the normal evaporation rate.

[Redtail_Watcher]

you can make over a 100gallon pond in your basement with good filteration and have plenty of money left over for decoration and fishes.

[RadleyMiller]

in my 4x6 pond i loose about 1gallon everyday in my 1300g tank/pond i lost about 10 every day that is not messin with the water like cleaning or changing filter or it be 3 times the normal evaporation rate.

to solve the humidity problem, get a dehumidifier. It will increase evaporation, but decrease total humiditiy in the room.

Redtail_Watcher,

I have heard much about your ponds. Do you care to share pictures?

[chenaus]

thanks guys. i think im gonna look into building my own plywood. it would be a fun project, and my dads a carpenter.

[Joshy]

Excellent, well we are here to help if you do plywood.
A lot of us have experience/knowledge in that field!

[kakojones]

i'm gonna jump in here and ask a question that may help myself and others. Can you just run the dehumidifier into the pond so that it refills itself? or would this overflow it? on a friend's 30' boat he has to run a dehumidifier and he just lets in drain into the sink so that he doesn't have to keep going to the boat everyday to empty it.

slao how'd you get lucky enough to have a basement in tampa? was it an old bomb shelter?

[stotty]

Filtration is simple it’s a pond so go large

A Good link ;)


http://pixelriver.tripod.com/Filter/filter.htm

[RadleyMiller]

i'm gonna jump in here and ask a question that may help myself and others. Can you just run the dehumidifier into the pond so that it refills itself? or would this overflow it? on a friend's 30' boat he has to run a dehumidifier and he just lets in drain into the sink so that he doesn't have to keep going to the boat everyday to empty it.

slao how'd you get lucky enough to have a basement in tampa? was it an old bomb shelter?

Yea, you could do that, or just get a chiller coil and put it right above the tank. The water will condense on it and drip back into the tank.