Hello All,
Some of you might have seen my thread on an Arapaima that came swimming into my life.
The whole story can be viewed in another thread, just check my threads and you'll see it there.
To cut it short, Mr. T. is doing well it seems, settling in surprisingly well in his temporary pond at work.
So now, I have the urgent and monumental task ahead to build a pond at my house as his permanent home.
I bought a 2nd house this week, next to my current one, with plans to renovate it over the coming years. With Mr. T. suddenly showing up, I have no choice but to start with the pond first instead of last.
The pond will be inbetween the two houses which will give it good protection from too much sun, wind and birds/cats and crawlers here in Thailand.
Let's try to get some numbers going for pond I have in mind.
First phase would be rectangular pond.
20 ft long, 6 foot wide. I think max I could go is about 3 to 4 foot deep, unless I tear out the drain in the second house and rerouting it somehow. It's a 15-20" concrete pipe that would go through the full length of the pond.
Since the second house will be torn apart for most of it, it would be possible to do that. Should be possible to connect to the drain of my current house, leaving the pond free to go to about 5 ft deep.
In a later extension, I can double the size of the pond by tearing out the concrete wall between the houses, digging out my current garden there and make the same pond there.
Lower the water in the existing pond, support the liner with a temp. steel construction, break out the separation wall, put a new bigger liner in the existing pond, roll it out under the Pima and up again, then remove the steel support and roll it out further.
Final pond would then be 10 ft x 20 ft. That's the maximum size I can do. Half at 5 ft deep, the other half at 4 ft.
1/3rd of the pond will be covered by a wood deck and rest open with planters hanging in the water at the sides to provide hiding space and 'barriers'.
Since its in between to houses, literally wall to wall pond with a wood deck bridge over it to the front.
The pond, as said, will be liner, which I think is the surest and fastest way to get it up and running, with rebar-concrete walls just to support the shape and keep the surrounding sand/soil in its place.
Filtration will be a later issue, I'm thinking of using a drain-pump and several plastic barrels filled up with floss and bio-balls, gravity fed back into the pond.
So now, please comment and advise on it.
Some of you might have seen my thread on an Arapaima that came swimming into my life.
The whole story can be viewed in another thread, just check my threads and you'll see it there.
To cut it short, Mr. T. is doing well it seems, settling in surprisingly well in his temporary pond at work.
So now, I have the urgent and monumental task ahead to build a pond at my house as his permanent home.
I bought a 2nd house this week, next to my current one, with plans to renovate it over the coming years. With Mr. T. suddenly showing up, I have no choice but to start with the pond first instead of last.
The pond will be inbetween the two houses which will give it good protection from too much sun, wind and birds/cats and crawlers here in Thailand.
Let's try to get some numbers going for pond I have in mind.
First phase would be rectangular pond.
20 ft long, 6 foot wide. I think max I could go is about 3 to 4 foot deep, unless I tear out the drain in the second house and rerouting it somehow. It's a 15-20" concrete pipe that would go through the full length of the pond.
Since the second house will be torn apart for most of it, it would be possible to do that. Should be possible to connect to the drain of my current house, leaving the pond free to go to about 5 ft deep.
In a later extension, I can double the size of the pond by tearing out the concrete wall between the houses, digging out my current garden there and make the same pond there.
Lower the water in the existing pond, support the liner with a temp. steel construction, break out the separation wall, put a new bigger liner in the existing pond, roll it out under the Pima and up again, then remove the steel support and roll it out further.
Final pond would then be 10 ft x 20 ft. That's the maximum size I can do. Half at 5 ft deep, the other half at 4 ft.
1/3rd of the pond will be covered by a wood deck and rest open with planters hanging in the water at the sides to provide hiding space and 'barriers'.
Since its in between to houses, literally wall to wall pond with a wood deck bridge over it to the front.
The pond, as said, will be liner, which I think is the surest and fastest way to get it up and running, with rebar-concrete walls just to support the shape and keep the surrounding sand/soil in its place.
Filtration will be a later issue, I'm thinking of using a drain-pump and several plastic barrels filled up with floss and bio-balls, gravity fed back into the pond.
So now, please comment and advise on it.