Hi all, Josh from NZ here.
Signed up to this site to try and answer some questions i had to do with a outdoor pond i have been setting up, then realised my questions kept expanding and expanding as time grew on.
My experience started out with a pond when at my previous flat i found one while digging in the back yard, how random is that!
anyhow, i figured since i had found a pond i may as well put some water, some rocks, a pump of sorts and some fish in there.
At the time i had no intention of taking this up as a hobby, it was more of just an off the cuff idea to spice up our outside living area.
This pond failed in many ways, but i have since moved so that is no longer a worry, but i couldnt leave my fish behind and so started on my new project.
My new flat does not have a pond, and im not too keen on inside aquariums, so i had someone build me a wooden box in a L shape with the idea that i could just line it with something and stick it out on my deck.
what i have now is a L shaped pond thats such and such long, 500mm wide and 500mm deep, i dont have exact measurements but i worked it out to be around the 750L mark.
I spent a bit of coin buying me some EDPM? lining and have semi successfully installed that.
I then went about making some sort of filtration contraption that now consists of a 1200L/h pump sitting in the bottom of a bucket that is filled with some cheap as chips coarse filter media and covered with filter wool.
This then goes to a UV filter before returning to the pond at the other end.
At the moment all i have in it is some water that is mostly staying inside the pond, and a couple of plants i have purchased that i am letting settle in before anything else goes in.
I would love to show you some pics, but i hope for now that my description is giving you a rough idea of what i am working on.
I have tried to do everything right with this pond as my last one was unquestionably a huge disaster, but although i have tried to do all my research first, i think my excited self has possibly got a few things wrong.
This is why i turn to all your experience, to set me in the right direction from here.
The few working problems i am having at the moment are...
There is possibly a very slow leak from somewhere.
when i put the liner in, i did so while filling it with water, pulling the edges up and tucking in what i could of the bulky bits.
the only holes that i put in the liner are the two that run the pump and an over-flow, all the holes are about 20mm from the top of the lining.
so far the water has dropped to approximately 10mm below this, or to the lowest drop of glue that i have used to seal them.
I can only assume that one of these outlets is not correctly sealed and that the water is absorbed into this and such, is why it has drained to there.
thats kind of it for the actual problems, which in my novice opinion does not sound too bad, but then i am not sure of my next move before introducing my fish.
Im trying to decide if i should drain the pond to a point where i am able to get some more sealer in there (the correct type this time) then top it up and carry on, or if i have gone in the complete wrong direction with this set up and need to re think the set up to have a more sustainable and less maintenance requiring fish/garden pond.
sorry for such a huge introduction, but i figure if your dedicated enough to read it then your probably the sort of person that has the answers/ideas that im after.
I will see if i can get some pics up soon to show you how it is at the moment.
Cheers,
Josh
Signed up to this site to try and answer some questions i had to do with a outdoor pond i have been setting up, then realised my questions kept expanding and expanding as time grew on.
My experience started out with a pond when at my previous flat i found one while digging in the back yard, how random is that!
anyhow, i figured since i had found a pond i may as well put some water, some rocks, a pump of sorts and some fish in there.
At the time i had no intention of taking this up as a hobby, it was more of just an off the cuff idea to spice up our outside living area.
This pond failed in many ways, but i have since moved so that is no longer a worry, but i couldnt leave my fish behind and so started on my new project.
My new flat does not have a pond, and im not too keen on inside aquariums, so i had someone build me a wooden box in a L shape with the idea that i could just line it with something and stick it out on my deck.
what i have now is a L shaped pond thats such and such long, 500mm wide and 500mm deep, i dont have exact measurements but i worked it out to be around the 750L mark.
I spent a bit of coin buying me some EDPM? lining and have semi successfully installed that.
I then went about making some sort of filtration contraption that now consists of a 1200L/h pump sitting in the bottom of a bucket that is filled with some cheap as chips coarse filter media and covered with filter wool.
This then goes to a UV filter before returning to the pond at the other end.
At the moment all i have in it is some water that is mostly staying inside the pond, and a couple of plants i have purchased that i am letting settle in before anything else goes in.
I would love to show you some pics, but i hope for now that my description is giving you a rough idea of what i am working on.
I have tried to do everything right with this pond as my last one was unquestionably a huge disaster, but although i have tried to do all my research first, i think my excited self has possibly got a few things wrong.
This is why i turn to all your experience, to set me in the right direction from here.
The few working problems i am having at the moment are...
There is possibly a very slow leak from somewhere.
when i put the liner in, i did so while filling it with water, pulling the edges up and tucking in what i could of the bulky bits.
the only holes that i put in the liner are the two that run the pump and an over-flow, all the holes are about 20mm from the top of the lining.
so far the water has dropped to approximately 10mm below this, or to the lowest drop of glue that i have used to seal them.
I can only assume that one of these outlets is not correctly sealed and that the water is absorbed into this and such, is why it has drained to there.
thats kind of it for the actual problems, which in my novice opinion does not sound too bad, but then i am not sure of my next move before introducing my fish.
Im trying to decide if i should drain the pond to a point where i am able to get some more sealer in there (the correct type this time) then top it up and carry on, or if i have gone in the complete wrong direction with this set up and need to re think the set up to have a more sustainable and less maintenance requiring fish/garden pond.
sorry for such a huge introduction, but i figure if your dedicated enough to read it then your probably the sort of person that has the answers/ideas that im after.
I will see if i can get some pics up soon to show you how it is at the moment.
Cheers,
Josh
