So yesterday I woke up to a puddle of water on the floor. My 180 gallon sprung a leak, just my luck. So I decided instead of fixing it I'll challenge myself to build a pond since I need more room for my fish (arowanas, gar, etc.). It's roughly 19x19 and 4 feet deep wrapping around a tree in the corner of my back yard. It's going to be very challenging with all the roots but I think I'll get away with it. I'm planning on digging around the roots and leaving them in the pond for decoration. I painted my blueprint and I'm getting to work this week on it. It's all going to be DIY filter, heater and what not. I have an old pump for a pool we had that I'm using it's something like 1500gph. I live in Texas so I'm not too worried on keeping it heated but I'm sure I'll have my work cut out for me when it gets colder. Wish me luck!
New home for the fish
- Thread starter Tythefishguy
- Start date
Good luck.
One thing to consider (This coming from experience with my spring fed farm pond ~ 100' - 150' in diameter surrounded within 30 feet on three sides by woods) is the location of your pond surounding a mature tree.
It will unfortunately be a nightmare for you to keep the debris from the tree out of your pond. I have had to go with 0.25" plastic mesh cover clamped to my preformed ponds that are within 30 feet of a single Locust tree!
I am not sure what kind of tree it is, or if your Texas weather does not cause trees to drop all of their leaves in the winter, but best to prepare in advance!
One thing to consider (This coming from experience with my spring fed farm pond ~ 100' - 150' in diameter surrounded within 30 feet on three sides by woods) is the location of your pond surounding a mature tree.
It will unfortunately be a nightmare for you to keep the debris from the tree out of your pond. I have had to go with 0.25" plastic mesh cover clamped to my preformed ponds that are within 30 feet of a single Locust tree!
I am not sure what kind of tree it is, or if your Texas weather does not cause trees to drop all of their leaves in the winter, but best to prepare in advance!
Thanks! I already took this into consideration especially since the arowanas will jump on occasion. I was planning on either a mesh like you are talking about or some sort of sheet over it. It does have leaves that fall from it but it's not as bad as it looks! I'm determined either way if worse comes to worse ill still net it out! I'll post a picture of my outline and area when I can it won't let me on my phone!
Yeah idk what I was thinking when I typed that I actually down sized to 8x8 it's roughly 1200 gallons.
Going to be interesting to see how you wrap the liner around the roots...or are you planning on going natural?
I'm going to follow this thread.
I'm going to follow this thread.
Still not enough! That's just barely 1X the water turn over rate. Ideally, you want 7X-10X the turn over rate. My 180 has 3 canisters filtrating at roughly 1200gph.......that's a modest guestimate since these 3 canisters are manufacturer rated for a combine 1700gph.
I have two of those filters sorry for the confusion. Plus Im running a bog filter to the side of it so it should be enough. If not I might as well just quit lol
So I changed my whole idea and made something to get them moved in quick since I didn't want them in the kiddie pool for too long. Everything was DIY still and they seem more happy than where they were. I now have bird netting over the top and have the water a little bit lower than normal just in case they try jumping. Im moving sometime next year but whenever I have my new place Im building on even bigger! Let me know what you guys think.
BTW my stock is
2 Silver Aros
1 Clown Knife
1 Spotted Gar
3 Huge Silver dollars
Soon to be more, maybe a cat of some kind
BTW my stock is
2 Silver Aros
1 Clown Knife
1 Spotted Gar
3 Huge Silver dollars
Soon to be more, maybe a cat of some kind