Is making a pond Easy?

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Pazzoman

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 5, 2009
3,005
50
81
New York
Hey Everyone,

We moved to a new house recently and my parents want to make a pond in the front of the house. Its a large area and triangular in shape. Apparently they think its a $10,000 project to have some dig and make a pond.. Is it?

Im very handy around the house, what can I see im the son of a contractor lol. I think all I have to do is of coarse removed the bushes and other debri...dig a whole throw pond liner on and buy a filter...is that it or too easy?

Hope for a lot of advice on this if pics are needed I could grab them and post them tonight...also would like to know how deep should the pond be to keep Koi and other usual fish?

Thanks A Million any threads on building ponds?

Also if you have ideas of other kinds of fish that can live in a pnd all year round please let me know!!! Not sure how the water gets in NY but in the summer the air temp 90+ and some rare days 100+
In the winter the air temp can get as low as 10 degrees
 
Well I live in CO and temps are usual as you'res. My pond took me a good week of digging. It is around 25 feet wide, 15 feet wide and 6 feet deep. But it's really hard on your body... After the digging I let it just dry out allowing my body to recover. I wouldn't suggest you doing it by yourself... If there's a tree around the area add another good day or two because the roots are going to be a pain. A axe will help a LOT.

But my pond didn't take much money to complete. The most expensive things will be the linear, pump. and the filter. Make a diy pond filter out of a 50-55 gallon drum. It will save you tons, and for the filter media just use swamp cooler padding. It works great and is around 2 bucks a feet instead of 7-8 bucks of crap filter media at the pond store. Just rinse it off first.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_203424-13579-3078_4294934542__?productId=3093045&Ntt=swamp%2Bcooler%2Bpads&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dswamp%252Bcooler%252Bpads&facetInfo=

I don't really remember how much I paid for the linear but it was surly under 350.

To get started first look at the area and determine how big of a pond you want as in length and width. Depth I advise is around 4-5ft as if it ices over the fish will stay around the bottom where it is warmer and stay alive. When the depth is at around 5 feet the temp change isn't drastic as the earth will keep the pond "warm". One thing I wish I could have done different is have a incline from 6 feet to around 2-3 feet so I can actually see them haha.

All in all the total costs for me is 300 for the linear+200 for a pump+uv light which is 100+diy filter around 50 bucks=650 bucks. But the cost of linear might has risen. But can turn into a 10,000 dollar pond, it just depends on how fancy you want to make it as in rocks, landscape, and even the fish you get. And for year around fish, only thing I can think of is koi.

Ps. For a pump you want about 4x turn over. As in the pump should move the total volume of water 4 times in a hour minimum to have crystal clear water.
 
Thanks A Million for all your help defiantly will be working with a few cousins as well as my brother. I will look into it more by asken what exactly my parents see in this pond... in such ways as what they want as decor. If its just plain look with a few decor statues then maybe I will take on the pond as a DIY, thanks a million.

So far Koi +1

Lol defiantly have every color possible
 
You should think about building walls in you pond. After it rains or when the frozen ground water melts after winter the soil erosion might cause your pond to collapse. What dimentions are you thinking?
 
Good thing I posted this as I completely didnt think of the possibility of walls collapsing.... its gonna be pretty big.

since its kind of triangular shape... it has a 35 foot hypotenuse and then the other dimensions is hard to get unless I move some shrubs. I will post a pic sometime tomorrow. Since my dad specialize in contracting especially in placing tiles...defiantly have access to cement for the walls but will have to look into how thick the walls need to be.
 
What is the soil like in your area? Sand, Clay? How wet is the area? If you are planning on building a decent size pond that you will want to uses a track hoe to dig it out. If the soil is clay and you get a enough of rain you may not need a pond liner.
 
JonY3k said:
What is the soil like in your area? Sand, Clay? How wet is the area? If you are planning on building a decent size pond that you will want to uses a track hoe to dig it out. If the soil is clay and you get a enough of rain you may not need a pond liner.
Click to expand...


This is true and it will allow the fish to grow health problems free and you will see AMAZING growth. Only downside is you cant see the fish at all ):

But I have had good luck with concrete walls instead of a pond linear. It should be rather thick tho... I don't remember how thick my concrete/rock lined pond was but in some places it started to crack. It was roughly 8-10 inches thick at a vertical incline like so \_____/ I guess the colorado winters froze the water in the soil and caused the shifts which lead to the cracks... but it doesn't leak at all haha. I have no clue why but I'm not complaining. Loss of water from evaporation is still the same from my other pond so I'm pretty sure its not leaking. But note that the concrete will allow tons of algae growth on it and where its deeper, it is harder to see the fish.
 
Thanks for everyones input, i really cant answer much of the soil questions till i actually take all te bushes out which i dont know when i will get the "go ahead" of my parents. If we were to concrete defintly we would still put pond liner for a precaution.

Hope can update soon...probably going to have to wait till its gets colder so all the bushes die for easy removal


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
Danielcho said:
Well I live in CO and temps are usual as you'res. My pond took me a good week of digging. It is around 25 feet wide, 15 feet wide and 6 feet deep. But it's really hard on your body... After the digging I let it just dry out allowing my body to recover. I wouldn't suggest you doing it by yourself... If there's a tree around the area add another good day or two because the roots are going to be a pain. A axe will help a LOT.

But my pond didn't take much money to complete. The most expensive things will be the linear, pump. and the filter. Make a diy pond filter out of a 50-55 gallon drum. It will save you tons, and for the filter media just use swamp cooler padding. It works great and is around 2 bucks a feet instead of 7-8 bucks of crap filter media at the pond store. Just rinse it off first.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_203424-13579-3078_4294934542__?productId=3093045&Ntt=swamp%2Bcooler%2Bpads&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dswamp%252Bcooler%252Bpads&facetInfo=

I don't really remember how much I paid for the linear but it was surly under 350.

To get started first look at the area and determine how big of a pond you want as in length and width. Depth I advise is around 4-5ft as if it ices over the fish will stay around the bottom where it is warmer and stay alive. When the depth is at around 5 feet the temp change isn't drastic as the earth will keep the pond "warm". One thing I wish I could have done different is have a incline from 6 feet to around 2-3 feet so I can actually see them haha.

All in all the total costs for me is 300 for the linear+200 for a pump+uv light which is 100+diy filter around 50 bucks=650 bucks. But the cost of linear might has risen. But can turn into a 10,000 dollar pond, it just depends on how fancy you want to make it as in rocks, landscape, and even the fish you get. And for year around fish, only thing I can think of is koi.

Ps. For a pump you want about 4x turn over. As in the pump should move the total volume of water 4 times in a hour minimum to have crystal clear water.
Click to expand...

25' x 15' x 6'?! That's not a pond that's a little lake lol

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