Wiggles92's Pond System Renovation Thread

[Wiggles92]

My dad & I are finally getting around to renovating his little pond system that we have on part of our hillside.

The plan is to replace the liners for the ponds (and maybe the streams if we have enough liner), get the new filtration plumbed & running, and fix the landscaping to the best of our ability. As the pond currently stands, it's a disgusting mess due to poorly planned landscaping, equipment failure, & lack of maintenance, but that all has to change before next Saturday. Yes, that's right, we're going to do the bulk of, if not all of, this renovation in one weeks time!

I'm not exactly sure what we're looking at for the overall capacity of the pond system, but we plan on at least expanding the largest pond by a little; the pond system currently holds ~600 gallons of water between the ponds & streams with the bulk of the water being in the large bottom pond. Our filtration is going to consist of two Beckett PBF750 Pressure Filters w/ UV (rated for 750 gallons each) that will be plumbed to a Beckett W1150 Waterfall Pump (1150GPH @ 1', 808GPH @ 8'); hopefully the combined 18 watts of UV from the pressure filters will keep algae to a bare minimum, if not eliminate it.

My goal for this thread is to document the process step-by-step in order to hopefully help others who may be overwhelmed by their less-than-spectacular pond system and/or landscaping.

 

[Wiggles92]

Here's what the pond system looked like when we started:

Bottom Pond:

Middle "Pond":

Top Pond:

What's left of the old filter:

Landscaping (Viewed from next to top pond):

As you can see, the whole system needs a ton of work before it's even somewhat presentable, but I think that we can make it happen.

We first drained all of the ponds & started to remove the rocks that hold down the liners. While the bottom pond was draining, I was tasked with capturing all of the fishes that were in there; it turned out that there were way more fishes in there than we put in there!

Bucket of bluegill & minnows:

Largest bluegill (Raised from a fry):

Goldfish & a stray bluegill:

All of the bluegill besides the one that I missed were transferred from the bottom pond to that 75 gallon aquarium to my big North American natives pond that I originally caught them in. The goldfish will remain in that aquarium while we work on the pond system, and we're still deciding on what we want to do for the final stock. I want to do tors (grow-out in here then move to the big natives pond), but we'll see if the budget allows for them & if my dad goes for the idea; if that doesn't work out, then there are other cheaper yet still pleasant options.

So there's the update for Day #1; I'll be sure to post an update for Day #2 tonight/tomorrow morning. As of now, we plan on getting the plumbing supplies tomorrow as well as doing more work on the liners & landscaping.

 

[Wiggles92]

We did a little bit of work on the bottom pond today but that's about it for actual work on the pond system itself. We dug out the bottom & sides a bit and also added some dirt around the top in order to hopefully show as little liner as possible once the pond system is up & running.

To give you an idea of the scale, an 8' long piece of wood will easily span the pond from side to side when it's placed a foot or two below the top of the dirt piles; I think that we've at least doubled the capacity of this pond with those minor modifications.

We also purchased fittings, tubing, & other supplies for getting the filtration plumbed, so hopefully I'll have something to show for that soon, too.

That's it for Day #2; I hope that we'll get a lot more done tomorrow!

 

[Pazzoman]

Keep it up!!! Even if I'm a saltwater guy still love the builds of ponds and such.

 

[Wiggles92]

Keep it up!!! Even if I'm a saltwater guy still love the builds of ponds and such.

Thanks, man. I'm a bit late for uploading Day #3 & Day #4, but I'll post Day #3 now as I still need to get the pictures for Day #4.

 

[Wiggles92]

We put the liner in on this day as well as the lights; we also hooked up the pump to the existing plumbing. The last thing that we did for that day's work was fill the bottom pond!

This pond certainly is much larger than it was before!

Also, the wrinkles & folds were pretty much inevitable due to the shape of the pond.

I will take some pictures this morning & will upload Day #4 as soon as possible.

 

[Dan F]

Looking good, should be a really nice little pond system when you're done.

 

[Wiggles92]

Looking good, should be a really nice little pond system when you're done.

Thanks. This is definitely the smaller of our two pond systems by a long shot; I figure that it will be around 1,000-1,200 gallons by the time that we're done, but that's nothing compared to the ~94,000 gallon clay-lined pond we have.

 

[brich999]

94,000 gallons is a small lake lol. good progress so far

 

[giant19000]

Good job bro it's looking spectacular man their going to be all bluegills and minnows or planning to add some monsters in there????


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