Good morning!
So i've been around a while, switched focus many times, etc. My wife and i just moved into a new house, an absolutely beautiful place on 2.5 acres. i had originally planned on / wanted a ~500 gallon saltwater aquarium with small sharks in it, but if i go that route it would need to wait a few years since we'll be remodeling and i dont want to need to move it.
HOWEVER, my mother in law said something the other day that got me thinking....
There is a "pond" on our property right now. Basically the area we live in is very wet, there are lots of natural ponds and there is an extremely high water table. The house we bought was built in the 1960s, and what we think happened is on two corners of the property they removed dirt and piled it in the middle, so the house is raised up 6 or 7 feet (which was really well done, 55 years old and no water damage). one side of the yard (on the front of the house off the street) is a wooded corner, there is a shallow area there that gets wet and has standing water, but will dry out mid summer if it doesn't rain for a bit. The other hole they dug is deeper AND its right off of a natural pond - it is 50 or 60 feet across, on the edges its only a a few feet deep, but it looks like there might be some areas in the middle where its a little deeper for now...but its spring now. The actual pond is maybe a quarter mile across and not terribly deep either, and at the closest point is maybe 20 feet from my pond. The area is marshy / wetland with tall grass and cat tails and such. There is also tons and tons of wildlife in the area, with various birds (ducks / geese / wild turkeys are very common), deer, raccoon, fox, coyotes, etc.
So i've been looking into what it would take to turn it into fish pond, of course. Some things seem pretty simple, but some things it seems are complicated or there are tons of options.
-First off i'd want to make it deeper. i'm guessing on a really dry summer or a really hard winter it would dry out / freeze over. i think if i went down another 5 feet or so it would be safe on both fronts, since it would be safely within the water table and also deep enough to avoid freezing over completely (i'd add a bubbler). this seems pretty straight forward, just pump out the water and get a big excavator.
-The next question would come in defining the area. i don't want to go totally man made and have it look like a pool. i want to keep a mud bottom for sure but if i did it that way would it just slowly fill back up with dirt over the next 5-20 years? Could surrounding it with bushes and rocks and such keep it from filling back in??
-Then comes the question of filtration. it seems on ponds this is all over the place. clearly it would be no where near 10x / hour like an aquarium (how much would a pump that goes 2,500,000 gallons / hour cost...), it would be more like once every day (which would be about 10,000 gallons per hour, still costing ~$1500 / year in electricity)....or nothing at all. obviously i wouldn't be able to see through to the bottom or across the pond or anything, but if i built a bridge over it or had a little canoe or something it would be nice to see fish. Thoughts?
-The other big question would be legality and permits and such. a heavy rain could easily cause the pond to hook up with the bigger pond...probably...so i dont know how that would work.
The stocking would native fish for sure, both because there is no way i could afford to heat it through a Minnesota winter, and also there is a chance that it would leak into the natural pond. So i'd probably just make a little mini lake with sunfish, bass, etc. if i could it would also be good to have something like a channel catfish and a sturgeon, and even though they are sort of local, i dont think they exist in the lakes in the immediate area so i'm not sure how that would work.
also, i'd always liked turtles, so i'd be really tempted to grow out a big snapping turtle in my house, and then release him into the pond. would building a little fence be enough to keep him from wandering off?
i tried looking for other examples of people doing this and didn't find much, if you have good articles please share!! Also, this is a very new idea, there are a lot more questions than answers, so feel free to point out other massive things i am missing.
And of course, its not true without pictures, so here is a picture of the pond:
So i've been around a while, switched focus many times, etc. My wife and i just moved into a new house, an absolutely beautiful place on 2.5 acres. i had originally planned on / wanted a ~500 gallon saltwater aquarium with small sharks in it, but if i go that route it would need to wait a few years since we'll be remodeling and i dont want to need to move it.
HOWEVER, my mother in law said something the other day that got me thinking....
There is a "pond" on our property right now. Basically the area we live in is very wet, there are lots of natural ponds and there is an extremely high water table. The house we bought was built in the 1960s, and what we think happened is on two corners of the property they removed dirt and piled it in the middle, so the house is raised up 6 or 7 feet (which was really well done, 55 years old and no water damage). one side of the yard (on the front of the house off the street) is a wooded corner, there is a shallow area there that gets wet and has standing water, but will dry out mid summer if it doesn't rain for a bit. The other hole they dug is deeper AND its right off of a natural pond - it is 50 or 60 feet across, on the edges its only a a few feet deep, but it looks like there might be some areas in the middle where its a little deeper for now...but its spring now. The actual pond is maybe a quarter mile across and not terribly deep either, and at the closest point is maybe 20 feet from my pond. The area is marshy / wetland with tall grass and cat tails and such. There is also tons and tons of wildlife in the area, with various birds (ducks / geese / wild turkeys are very common), deer, raccoon, fox, coyotes, etc.
So i've been looking into what it would take to turn it into fish pond, of course. Some things seem pretty simple, but some things it seems are complicated or there are tons of options.
-First off i'd want to make it deeper. i'm guessing on a really dry summer or a really hard winter it would dry out / freeze over. i think if i went down another 5 feet or so it would be safe on both fronts, since it would be safely within the water table and also deep enough to avoid freezing over completely (i'd add a bubbler). this seems pretty straight forward, just pump out the water and get a big excavator.
-The next question would come in defining the area. i don't want to go totally man made and have it look like a pool. i want to keep a mud bottom for sure but if i did it that way would it just slowly fill back up with dirt over the next 5-20 years? Could surrounding it with bushes and rocks and such keep it from filling back in??
-Then comes the question of filtration. it seems on ponds this is all over the place. clearly it would be no where near 10x / hour like an aquarium (how much would a pump that goes 2,500,000 gallons / hour cost...), it would be more like once every day (which would be about 10,000 gallons per hour, still costing ~$1500 / year in electricity)....or nothing at all. obviously i wouldn't be able to see through to the bottom or across the pond or anything, but if i built a bridge over it or had a little canoe or something it would be nice to see fish. Thoughts?
-The other big question would be legality and permits and such. a heavy rain could easily cause the pond to hook up with the bigger pond...probably...so i dont know how that would work.
The stocking would native fish for sure, both because there is no way i could afford to heat it through a Minnesota winter, and also there is a chance that it would leak into the natural pond. So i'd probably just make a little mini lake with sunfish, bass, etc. if i could it would also be good to have something like a channel catfish and a sturgeon, and even though they are sort of local, i dont think they exist in the lakes in the immediate area so i'm not sure how that would work.
also, i'd always liked turtles, so i'd be really tempted to grow out a big snapping turtle in my house, and then release him into the pond. would building a little fence be enough to keep him from wandering off?
i tried looking for other examples of people doing this and didn't find much, if you have good articles please share!! Also, this is a very new idea, there are a lot more questions than answers, so feel free to point out other massive things i am missing.
And of course, its not true without pictures, so here is a picture of the pond:
