The Goldfish pond digging will be comencing next week I will make a picture progress diary

Yes, lots of pics! I bet you are so excited!

I bet you're excited,eh? Loz did the pic thing when she was building her pond,and it defiantely was awesome watching it all come together.Good luck with yours.

Oooh a pond! Congrats Lucy! I can't wait to see the pics as you go...that's so neat!

yup excited alright! im gunna fill it with warm water and have a swim!

OMG im so MADDDDDDDDDDD! I just wrote out this post.. took me about half hour... and AOL decided to disconnect JUST BEFORE I clicked Add Reply.

anyway.. i spose i better start over.. calmly..

We have marked out the pond with string, pics..





See the yellow string next to the stepping stones.. Pond!!!

So its question time..

Its about 12ft long and 3ft wide at the widest bit, hopefully be about 1m deep, how many gallons would you guess (or work it out) to be? Also take into account there will be shallow bits round the edge for plants etc. and one end will be shallow, so fry have a place to hide from big fish!

Dad is moaning about all the money its costing him, so the filter is going to have to be a little DIY job, im thinking a tub, some tubing and a pump?
It will have to be dug into the ground in the middle of a flowerbed on the right side of the pond. Mum also wants a bog bit so she can have bog plants and newts like it too.

Will my DIY filteration be enough?

If anyone has any suggestions.. talk away!! we need inspiration!

between about 400 to 450 gallons (this depends on how many shallow areas you are making). Remember, the shallow areas are where the predators are able to get to your fish so lots of hiding places will be needed.

ok yea, we will have lots of plants and stuff.. mums the gardener! the shallow bits will be just little round the edges for plants etc. and one end will be more shallow so if a hedgehog falls in it can get out!

How exciting Lucy. It looks a really good position there in the garden. Who is doing the digging?(Hard work)! 'll follow progress and look forward to your pics..Good luck.

Well i want to dig the whole thing, so i can feel proud, but dad says i'll never manage.. so im going to try and prove him wrong I do have a friend coming to help one day.

me and my mum dug our pond, and it is a lot smaller than yours and it was very hard work. although we did have to compete with the clay! we have a lot of clay in our ground around here. what are you going to do with all the dug up bits?! if i lived closer id come and help, pond building is a lot of fun!

We have hired a skip, coming on monday, so i've got till then to plan!
We have tons of flint in our ground, we need a pick-axe to get through it.. thats why dad thinks he's helping

yer thats the same problem we had when we lived down near oxford. it was terrible for growing plants. i bet you will have your dad helping in the end!!
we didnt have a skip when we did our we just put in green bags to send to the compost recycling place.

Ooh lucy how exciting! More pics more pics!

ok so the skip's coming at 7am tomorrow morning and we've (well, mum's) decided its going in a different place, she decided yesterday, and this morning saying she doesnt want it there either.. soo yea.. ermmm

You know how that goes Lucy. Sometimes the more time that you have to think about it means the more time that there is for changes to be made.That may be a good thing though.We'll see. Anyway,it all begins tomorrow,so that's exciting! Can't wait to see the new details.Post the filter info in it's own post in DIY,you may get more help there. Good luck!!

ok its decided, its going the second place we decided, the other place would have been on the patio raised made of old railway tracks.. would have been interesting, but im after a planted natural-ish sort of look so its in a different place in the grass.
I will have pics later, need to shower then start digging now

An hour later..



Its going to be tiny, no more than 200 gallons I think.. I was clever and figured a way to measure the gallonage. Turn the hose on and measure how long it takes to fill a 3 gallon bucket, then see how long it takes to fill the pond, then do some dividing.. or multipying.. involving the number 3

The pond is now a lot deeper than that pic, as its now 2.30 and that was about 11.30, I've been stomping on the mud in the skip all this time because the skip is so patheticly small, and I need it to fit.
But its a lovely day, sunny and warm.

I must go and stomp on mud now as dad is out there already and giving me evil looks through the window

its coming a long then!! have you got your friend there helping, i know its a lovely day today, nice and sunny and warm. youll have to be careful not to get caught when you fill your pond up with the hose pipe!!

looks great am enjoying the pic log
a couple of questions, how are you going to seal the pond ?
as the place your putting it now seems to be less shaded wont that make algae hard to controll ?
Looking forward to more pics and progress reports

We have a hole!

Its going to be done with a liner, we do have one but just discovered its not quite big enough, so tomorrow is pond shopping day
I dont know about algae, i spose thats one of those 'i'll deal with it when it comes' things.. but water lillies need to be in a sunny spot so its not all bad.

We (well.. I say we..) have dug it all out.. all in a day it just needs finishing touches in the morning and measuring for the liner then we can go buy stuff in the afternoon.

Some piccies for you



Me doing some diggin'



Don't ya just love the booties







Theres a couple of shelf bits there that wont have water on as the pond is on a slight hill and the water level doesnt reach. They will be filled with pebbles and planted with grasses and some other plants. Then theres the marginal plant shelf, then another bit, then the deep bit (where dad was standing) thats 3ft deep.

That is going to be so nice Lucy! You already have a great looking yard, this is going to make it perfect! Can't wait for more !

you guys did some work today looking really good, i suppose water lillys will block sun and use up algae food so that sounds like it should work but i have to admit the reasons im asking questions is am interested but know next to nothing about ponds

ps i believe graham norton wants his wellies back

you do have a beautiful backyard already, this is certainly going to make it even better. It's looking good so far!

Thanks guys.
This morning we have just bought the liner and underlay and we're putting that in soon, then luch then going shopping for pebbles!

nice muddy hole ya got there Lucy!
tis gonna be great

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Its full!!!

Its about 180 gallons. How many fish will live comfortably, my estimate is 3-5? I have to go hardcore rare fish hunting, I want a Wakin (know where to find that), Jikin, Bristol Shubunkin Those are my main wants! But I've just realised the price of the filter so the fish are gunna have to wait till I've scrambled some more money together and cycled it.

The white stuff in the background isthe underlay.


We put carpet underlay under the underlay in the deepest part for more padding.


Liner on the grass.. thats only half the size as it was folded!


..a little bit full..


..half full..


..FULL!

Looks awesome!!
Keep those piccies coming

It's looking so great! I'm excited for you.

wow! it looks great Lucy

looking really good. its a good job youve had nice weather down there! hasnt taken you long to do then. i bet you cant wait to go fish shopping!

Weathers not nice anymore, its dull and raining ... heheheee its full its full its full

We've cut back the liner and put a wooden endge thing round it so it looks a lot neater now.. but still have'nt been out pebble shopping. But we are just about to!!! hehe.. we are going to this huge water gardening place where charlie dimock works (for those of you who dont know of her http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/tv_and_radi...erbiogs_d.shtml )

Cool I cant wait to see the final product with the fish in it. ponds are great I have a small one in my backyard and the good think about living in Australia is u dont have to worry about it freezing over.

I do have a few pics but photobucket isn't running.. so whenever thats back up!

We got some boulders (that reminds me of shrek and "I like that boulder.. that is a nice boulder.") and some pebbles.
And we got the filter pump, its an all in one pump with a fountain and a UV unit. was expensive but we are going halfs on it so i dont break my bank balance! I still need to make the main filter bit though, all i need is the media, some tubing and a plastic box
The place we went was really good http://www.worldofwater.com/ Its just a huge place dedicated to anything aquatic! I had a field day! They have Wakins there too
They have water features, ponds, goldfish, koi, tropical fish, marine.. tons and tons of filters and tanks.. wow and theres more than one so find one near you (UK) and go there! ..I sound like an ad

Filter UV and fountain thingy..


Pond!


Boulders.. and pebbles.

I just wanted to say that i am SO excited for you! Everything looks great and I can't wait until you have the fish in there! Enjoy!

WOW

that is looking very nice!
Good luck with the decorating(its the funnest part)


-calico

I thought this was going too smoothly, theres always some huge thing to hinder our progress on projects like this.. and here it is, we have a leak, we lost about 10 inches of water overnight so it appears we are driving all the way up to World of Water again to buy a new liner
I'm not too mad as mum handed me an easter egg right after she told me about the leak.. to distract me, and it worked!

An Easter egg distracted you? Well, I guess it'd work on me, too. With my incredibly short short-term memory. And that's a shame because the pond was looking really good!

yeh, chocolate

Dad, being the creative man that he is, is trying to syphon the water out of the pond its not really working

He managed to syphon the whole pond

The first liner (low cost) I put in my barrel had a leak. It both lost water and exchanged some nasty bugs from the barrel that made the water septic.

I stepped up to Firestone PondGard EPDM: http://www.firestonesp.com/pondgard.asp

Don't know where you can get it in the UK though.

Good luck,

Your pond looks really great so far!! I hope you find a liner for it soon. I will have to get mine opened up for the season (really small water feature in a flowerbed really) and get some piccies up for everyone. I dug it myself and had a blast!

We have a new liner now and its in the pond and full, up the the stage it was when it leaked. so all is good actually its better, as that silly little fence thing round the edge has been hammered in more.

Hey Lucy,where's the update and pic's?

sorry, we haven't really been doing much this week, but there are more stones in and i got my water lily today, so i'll have pics soon

Come on, Lucy! You should know that "soon" isn't soon enough!! lol Piccies, piccies, piccies!

Alright already!! Patience is a virtue

Me and patience don't exactly get alone real well...... LOL