Building a 9'x25' pond

[mrunlucky07]

Rain, rain rain. Everyday last week and forecast is grim again next week. Have to wait for things to dry out to continue working which is frustrating.

Began making a mechanical filter for the skimmer line. Water is gravity fed in through a 4" line near the bottom of the barrel and swirls upwards through the bottom half. Then gets drawn out through the center of the brushes to go to the next chamber. Theory is some debris will settle to bottom of barrel and rest gets caught in the brushes. To clean brushes open bottom drain in the barrel and give them good shaking flushing, or slide them out and wash off if needed. Haven't seen one quite like it so will be a test. Still waiting on 4" uniseals to run the piping into the barrel.

 

[Dr Joe]

You've been making great progress mrunlucky07, in spite of the weather !

Real good work on the filtration too

Have you considered putting up a tarp so you can work in the rain ?

And Thanks for keeping us updated so thoroughly (w/pix), it's much appreciated.

Keep the faith,

Dr Joe

.

 

[fishkeeper1]

man good work ur makin me want a pond more and more even tho im out of money and saving up for other junk

 

[mrunlucky07]

Thanks.

Have you considered putting up a tarp

Yeah, I am not sure the best way to try and keep it covered due to the odd location. Summer is normally very dry so I am going to wait mother nature out and keep busy with the other details for now.

The uniseals came in today and were amazingly easy to install. Literally drill a 5" hole, pop them in, and force the pipe through. I plumbed the settling chamber and filled it with my fingers crossed. I thought there was no way they would work, but not a drop leaked. Plus, when you need a bunch $5 uniseals are much cheaper than $40 4" bulkheads.

Outside connection

Inside connection. I am using test plugs for now since 4" knife valves are $60+ each.

Uniseals for the barrels

 

[Dr Joe]

Yep, the guy who invented those deserves another donut!

 

[fishkeeper1]

lol dont be mad having too much rain b/c thats the cheapest way to fill ur POND!!!!

 

[BigTim15]

Thats is very nice..Did you need to get a permit to build it?

 

[mrunlucky07]

Had a break in the rain and took advantage of it this week. After a few long full days its shaping up. I have a few friends coming over tomorrow and hopefully get the liner in. Finally!


Putting the skimmer line in place. Bottom drain line is underneath it.

Bottom drain concreted in place.

Getting the 3" return line in place. It runs under the bridge and then across under the deck to come up for the TT/waterfall.

Carpet! After running around all morning chasing scraps at the stores I finally got pointed to a warehouse that gave me a truckload of new scraps for free. I had enough to go 3 layers deep on the bottom and 2 on the sides.

Menace exploring, last day he will be allowed in. I started the project before we had even bred our female, she has 8 pups now.

Liner tomorrow! And then filters and plumbing and deck building...still a long list.

 

[cmj15]

this is going to awesome when finished, i would add just natives, they will come up to you and you can feed them out of your hand and plus everyone has goldfish. If I were you I would add 6-7 largemouth bass, 5-6 bullhead catfish, and lots of sunfish.

 

[greengiant]

wow I love it I just found your thread and will be following the rest of your progress. I like the wat you are sharing the details as this helps us all dream of how we will do it. My dad wants to build one so figure his will be the guinny pug and then I will do mine with all the screwups taken care of before I begin lol thanks