Arapaima Pond Build

[Luc70]

I love your build keep it all coming.

Your wish...my command...lol
Today quite some work done. Changed the back-side, took out the sand-bags and put in a railing to which the liner is attached. Makes for more smooth look from water to backside wall.
Also dug out and leveled the area for the second bog and grow-out tank.
Looks big enough to make many an MFK'r jealous for that 'small part of the pond' alone...lol

Anyhow, pictures for today. Algae are in full swing, but that's to be expected.
More plants will have priority for now. Second bog will take some time.
Might make some floaters inside the pond to help battle the algae.

 

[Yanbbrox]

Looking good Luc

 

[Luc70]

Looking good Luc

Thanks, work in progress, water is dark greenish from algae...will be a long battle..
Ah, can't wait for the second bog to get ready and maybe buy more plants today for the first one..

Cheers,
Luc

 

[Luc70]

Got to be lucky with a house-keeping lady like we have. Boy does she have energy and is she enjoying the pond, Mr. T, the flowers and plants, everything. Dragging with gravel and sand like no other to get it look nice. Absolute inspiration for energy.

1st Bog is full. Now I've ordered 5 ton of gravel and 5 cbm of sand for the second bog, calculating and checking on the liner now. Looks like 10x7 meters should do it. Gravel and sand that's left over will be used for surrounding area. It's all dirt, stones, rubbish so we're going to clean that up and get the gravel in. Then add some very large clay/ceramic pots for plants. Low maintenance and looks beautiful compared to what it is now.

Made some pictures, water seems a bit better than yesterday, lets see if that continues to improve.
Got a small leak on the second settling-tank. It's just dripping a bit from the seams, nothing much to worry, but might shut it down soon and re-apply silicone to stop it. Makes you happy to put extra valves in to cut of the flow...lol.

Anyhow, some pictures of the pond, Mr. T. and the first finished bog.

 

[Luc70]

Today's big progress is the water... Above picture from yesterday shows already quite some improvement, but today it's much much better than that. Water still has a very light brownish color to it, very fine particles/dust that still cloud the water.
Can almost see the bottom again after the last week's dark green/brown color. The stones and plants in the bog are doing a great job for now.
Have to wait a couple of days to see if it stays this way, keeping my fingers crossed, might as well start worsening if the added stones fill up with waste. To be continued....

Sure thing is that the plants are catching on. See new leafs and stems coming up and the plants are really keeping up well with the wind that goes through. My guess is that the gravel used is very solid due to its shape, but at the same time, I don't see it compacting and reducing water-flow.
Still same as before, no changes there, while there is a good 1000kg of granite in it.

Drained and closed down the second settling tank for repairs on it. Leaks that I want to get out before re-starting. Still in doubt over silicone or epoxy, will have a trip to Home-Pro later today and check for solutions.
Tomorrow will be a busy day getting the second bog up. See how far we can get. Quite some shoveling with sand, steel and liner. So here's hoping for good progress on it...

Cheers,
Luc

 

[fattubwhale]

Sweet swwweeeet set up!!! Fantastic build!

 

[valderi123]

nice build!

 

[Luc70]

Sweet swwweeeet set up!!! Fantastic build!

Thanks, will do my best keeping it up.
So far all went well, tomorrow getting dirty on the 2nd Bog and repairing that settling tank.
Quite surprised to find some golden carp and tilapia in that tank while draining it. Only 2" size, but hope they grow out to bigger size. Dozens of fry in it as well, means that I have to shut down the tanks every couple of months to take out the bigger fish in there and throw them in the grow-out or have them excersize some while trying to escape Mr. T's mouth...lol.

Cheers,
Luc

 

[Luc70]

nice build!

Thanks Valderi, more to follow soon...tomorrow another round of work and pictures..
Cheers,
Luc

 

[Luc70]

Water was amazing clean yesterday morning, but I expect it will not stay like this for the time being.

At least, the water smells good, looks good and Mr. T is happy. Could see all the smaller fish shooting around, they are still in the dozens, so that's a good sign.
Cleaning lady won again yesterday in the lottery, so he's getting prawns next week. Gonna love it....sure.

Second bog we've come quite a way. Sand and steel is all done. Some steps build in for plants, using steel to keep the sand in place. From the 5 cbm I ordered, there is not much left, maybe 1, 1.5 cbm. Now hoping for some good rain to compact it
Next will be the liner. Size at 2 x 2.5 meter for both the bog and grow-out pond. Bog at 45 cm deep, grow-out at 80 cm. plenty of space to put lots of big plants in there and grow out lots of fish together.

Settling tank cleaned, silicone off, then filled all the seams and nails with epoxy filler.
Now drying, Monday filling it up and see if that's it. Pretty sure it will be ok, the epoxy is water proof and hardened out pretty fast. Totally cured in 72 hours it said, so Monday should do for a test fill.

Funny thing when I emptied the tank, at least 10 fish, size 1 inch and above came out.
Reminded me to empty and clean these tanks on a regular basis just to check what's in there.

Oh, one more...grrrr. Came in yesterday, pond dropped about 3cm overnight, enough for even the cleaning lady to notice it.
Worried and checking and everything, can't find anything.
Afternoon, walking around the pond, found one of the drains not fully closed. Closing those valves, the last bit feels like a notch or click to fully close them. This on was not fully closed. Hoping that that's the issue...will follow up on this coming Monday. From CCTV camera, I don't see any drop, so hoping that's a closed issue now.

Ok...video: http://youtu.be/Ob8pEUmedkg

And some pictures of the work:



Shows better size than just the plot of sand in my last post on it.