Starting a pond

[booth2010]

Starting a pond in the back yard to house an adult male YBS. Hes been in my 125 for almost 5yrs now since he was given to me along with the 125. I am wanting to turn the tank into a heavily stocked cichlid tank, and im tired of looking at the basking area above the tank, so its time to give him his own pond. I have a 10' long, 40" front to back, 24" tall raised planter that I built years ago that was going to be used for herbs but its just been growing weeds since I built it. The plan is to bury a 110g Tuff Stuff stock tank from tractor supply, use a 5g bucket for a DIY filter and use a 8" waterfall box to return the water. There will be a 4 or 5' planted basking area for it on one side. Ill post pics as I go along, buy the stock tank this weekend.

Question to start out with, what is yalls opinion on drilling the bottom of the tank and installing a bulkhead and using an external pump so that the bottom of the tank is constantly being cleaned? Or should I just throw the pump in the stock tank and make sure to clean off the bottom regularly?

 

[booth2010]

Some progress. Hole dug and tank inserted. Filter made and rough plumb done, nothing glued together yet as just wanted to see if it worked. In the process of buying rock and need to bring some dirt back to raise the basking area.

What do you think about using river rock as the substrate for the whole basking area? Will it get too hot? Trying to avoid sand so that it doesnt get dragged into the tank.