Building a 9'x25' pond

[hankn]

I have been following your build. Great work. I noticed your initial post said 4' depth, then a later posting said 5' depth and now you are at a 6' depth.

That may be a long term mistake. When at 5', in terms of maintenance, you can go in there and stand up and do whatever needs to be done. At 6' you won't be able to do that unless you drain a foot of more of water.

I also hope you will be fencing off the area since not only little kids but even 12 year olds, if they fall in - won't be able to get out due to the high degree of slope on the walls.

 

[hankn]

A few other suggestions:

a) How does the water drain off your roof? What are the chances of a cloudburst or heavy sustained thunderstorm overloading your skimmer/drain and the water going over the top? Have you extra-treated the wood deck that will be lapping at the water? Now is the time to do that.

b) I see not much sun gets to that area. You might want to install underwater lighting so you will be able to see down 6' to see what is doing down there.

c) I doubt you want to add in 2' now and move your bottom drain after all that hard work, but perhaps add 2-3 steps inside the pond? Take off the carpets, get a number of cinder blocks and arrange them as steps in the direction of the fence. You can either do the entire length along one side or build a sort of cropped pyramid on one end or both. You not only may save a life years from now (the liner after 1 year will be a slick as ice) but you also gain the benefit of having ledges for putting plants at the 1' and 2' depth.

 

[mrunlucky07]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

For safety the entire area is surrounded by a locked 6' fence. I plan on a cannonball off the roof to try out the exit routes soon as its filled It comes up to a shallow end that is only knee deep. I plan on clipping a rope under the bridge to drag a body/pull yourself up to the shallow end if necessary. Hopefully if he filter system works as planned there wont be a need to hop in.

The roof drainage is a concern. Once the deck is finished I am going to install a gutter to keep the excess out. I mostly don't want the dirty roof runoff directly intp the pond. Each 4" drain line should be able to flow 4k gph. I am only running 2500 gph out through each so, the rain would have to be adding 3,000 gph, or for my roof area 6" rainfall per hour to overflow the pipes. Once the water level is set I may add another bulkhead in for overflow.

I plan on both flood lighting and underwater lighting hidden along the length of the bridge.

Here is a diagram I drew a while back that details the bottom depth a litter better. Its fairly accurate to the finished depth.

 

[basslover34]

I plan on a cannonball off the roof to try out the exit routes soon as its filled

Oh there better be a Video of that!!!

 

[IKeepPacu]

Oh there better be a Video of that!!!

i second that. a grown man cannonballing into his pond would be a priceless video for mfk'ers

 

[SumoNinja]

awesome project. can't wait to see the pics when it's done

 

[dantedobe]

What a cool project. Puts to shame my small molded pond with 6 goldfish! Can we see a pic of the pups?

 

[mrunlucky07]

Almost cannonball time

And the 8 pups, just had the tails docked yesterday.

 

[dantedobe]

Awww they are gorgeous. Pond looks much deeper filled. Great stuff

 

[Red Devil]

very nice dog with her sweet puppies... great pond...more pics when you can...