the digging begins


Giving my plants a head start


thank god that's finished...


layer of sand on rough areas


Pond liner underlay


liner goes down


some water going in


Just a wee bit more water....



well by the time it filled it was dark so i'll have to take more pics tomorrow!! it has ended up being 316.5gallons (a lot less than i was predicting) so i'm glad i've talked myself out of koi

it looks scarily huge in my wee garden...it's now 1.5 feet longer at each end as i'm going to be running the slate chippings in to the shelf bit at each end to create a beach effect, hopefully once i get the liner cut back it won't look so scary!!! the dead grass area is being covered in slate like the rest of the garden and the bamboo poles that are not along the flower bed are being removed! so relieved to have got this far...my backs still bad (trapped nerve) and i've naughtily been doing stuff i shouldn't have because i'm very impatient and like to get things done

thank goodness for the pain killers the doc gave me is all i can say!!

It's looking so nice! I can't wait to see more pics as you go...thanks for posting them!
Oh and be careful with that back...nothing like back pain

More pics, more pics..... please

I think it's looking wonderful and your garden is the perfect spot for a pond. I can't wait to see it finished

Thankyou both for your kind comments!

Here's a couple more pics...

The pond filled


liner trimmed back a good bit


my next step is to unscrew the deck boards to fold the liner underneath them!

pump and filter are ordered...just have to get a skimmer of some sort now!

jamoko

Would love to see an upclose pic of the pond filled Do you have any steps/gradients in the pond? I really would love to build one and have a great deal of space to do it - but unfortunately am built on rock. This would mean calling the excavators in and they're very spendy.

When do you think you'll have it finished?

there are several different gradients at each end of the pond and it's 3ft deep in the center, the shallowest bits at each end are goning to be covered in slate to create a beach effect. i hope you can see the gradients in these close ups of each end...black liner makes photographing difficult!

Looks very nice. The only problem with sharp edges (which as you know I have with mine), is dead spots where the water doesn't circulate. How I solved this problem was I have two bottom drains that pull the water down, the skimmer pulls water to it, spray bars push water to skimmer, and I have a aerator with 5 defusors in places were the water doesn't get circulate as well. These are all ideas that you may not need if you put your skimmer in the right spot with your water coming back in the right spot as well. Mine was very poorly set up.

Scott

thanks scott, i am just about to start researching skimmers before i buy one, wher do you think wouls be the best position in my pond for it? that's a good idea to aerator in the areas where the water isn't being circulated...thanks for that!

looks great !! makes me want to get mine started !!

thankyou!!!!

it's raining bucket loads here today again...so just spending my day off researching and planning... it's forcasting rain for the next 4 days as well where is the sunshine...it is well into may after all!!!

If I were you I'd put it under the deck all the way to one end. Of course the water flow isn't going to be too easy of access as if you put it directly opposite the end of the incoming water. It'll work great though, especially since you can hide it. You'll have to cut up your deck a little and make a lid. That is what I did with mine and it really turned out nice. Have your water come back in on the other end.

The aerators are great, they keep the water moving, add a little oxygen and does look nice. You can always turn it off when you want your water to be more mellow.

Scott

weather has been terrible in northern ireland all week

luckily it dried up a bit today so when i got home from work i was straight out to get stuck in as this slow progress due to bad back then bad weather is doing my head in!

i decided to do away with the shallow ends that i was going to run the slate chippings into like a beach effect as it wa making the pond 13ft long when it had only started out 10ft long and i thought that a 13ft long pond just didn't look right in the garden, so i lifted the liner at each end and filled it in....



then we lifted all the dead sods of grass ready to be covered with weed control fabric then slate chippings....



i have bought grey patio bricks and plan to edge the other three sides of the pond with them, now i'm having to think carefully how i'm going to run the wires and hoses in and out of the pond to keep it all neat and tidy looking, have thought about running them through a flexible pipe over the liner but under the bricks, but not sure how this would work as it might leave a "hole" that the water can rise up through unless i am able to make it water tight in some way!


fingers crossed for better weather

Jamoko

I think that we've all had enough of the "Rainy Season" allready.Well so far,it's looking really good to me.Sorry ,I don't have any tips for you-I'll leave that to all the pond experts. Just wanted to let you know that I've been following your thread,and waiting anxiously for the end results.Good Luck!

thanks devs, nice to know someone's following my build!! i'm waiting on my my second pump (picked the first one badly) a skimmer and all my hosing to arrive which could be another week yet but in the mean time i've to lay my bricks and hide all the liner edging and position the filter so i'm sure that'll keep me busy!

i'm itching to get to the fish shop for a look at what's available...but i shall resist as i'm likely to land home with a boot load of new fish and the pond wouldn't be ready for them!!!

Hopefully the rain has stopped so you can finish it soon I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment also....

well it started off nice & dry this morning so got a wee bit more done in the garden end of things

I layed the weed control fabric


put down some slate


we need more slate, so sent the other half to get me another load on his way back from the dump!


i then started to unscrew the decking which is no easy task as the screw heads are full of dust and dirt so i'm having to tediously pick the dirt out before they can be unscrewed to allow me to lift the deck boards to tuck the excess liner underneath them!

and guess what....it's raining again....

gives it dry for tomorrow though so here's hoping!

Jamoko

Starting to tuck the liner uner decking...no easy task!


I had to lift some of the boards completely to be able to pull the liner under as neatly as i could, if the pond had come about before the decking i could have left an overhang with the deck boards to hide the liner completely, but it has turned out neat enough considering how difficult it is to work with.






From the house the deck appears to run straight into the water which is the look i was aiming for


I then had to bail a bit of water out to put my piping into place...i'm going to run the hoses and electricity cables through these pipes (this will all be hidden under the edging) the wee grey bricks are not going to work, i need them to hang over the edge to conseal liner and am worried about how stable they'll be even when concreted in, so i'm considering a larger paving slab which will have more weight to hold down the liner!


This is my water lily (it's the one on the right in the first pic of plants near the start of the thread) it's been planted nearly 2 weeks now and i'm impressed with it's progress!


That's all for now!

I love the clean lines of your pond, it's nice. Good idea to run the power chords from the pond through a pipe.

Scott

Got a wee bit more done today....it seems to be going on forever

I have had to remove the piping that i installed to run my hoses through, due to the change in plan with the edging.

I Leveled out the surrounding ground with soil and sand, then trimmed the liner back a bit more , before nailing bits of it down to make it easier paved over.


Started to lay the paving...i'm concreting each slab down one at a time...it's really stressfull tring to get it all level and not wobbly, after seeing what a bad job the bricks where going to do i'm worried about the stability...but i have them cemented in as well as i can!


A few more still to lay tomorrow!


i'm hoping my new 2 inlet pump will be here on tuesday so i can get the filtration system going...water is full of leaves etc so will need cleaned out before i let the filtration start.

jamoko

Wow, that looks so great!! You are doing an amazing job. Are you doing all of this by yourself?

I love how the deck seems to go right into it. Thats a really nice look. I personally prefer the more wild, natural look of unneven lines for my ponds but yours is so perfect with all the nice clean lines and angles. It looks very very classy.

thanks jsrtist, yes i'm doing it myself, my fiancé helped me with a bit of the digging after i hurt my back, and did quite a few dump runs for me!!

I'm very into my angles my house is very contemporary decor wise and i've tried to continue that out into my garden with clean lines and lots of palm trees and grasses, can't wait to get it all finished!

Well i'm glad to say the paving edge is finished! Since i had to scrap my pipe idea to run the hoses up through, i've instead left a gap in the paving as each side of the small slab, i will run my inlet and outlet hoses through the gap and am going to get another rectangular slab to set over the top to hide the gaps and keep the hoses down. The sandy gap behind the smaller slab is where my filter is going to be buried into the ground, and then it will be surrounded by plants to conseal it. I'm also going to plant along the edge of the paving where a gap has been left due to having to hang the slabs over the edge of the pond, hopefully this will even the look of the edging out!









Should be starting to set up the filtration in the next couple of days...fingers crossed!

jamoko

well i've now got the filter positioned in the ground and some holes drilled in the floor of the shed to feed all the wiring into! the filter might look a bit high above the ground but i've got a layer if slate chippings to go round it yet as well as some plants to conseal it! the slab set infot of the filter will help conseal the hoses and will allow me to lift it out of the way should i need to access the hoses or wiring! getting there slowly but surely

Putting the uvc bulb into the filter


The Skimmer....a lot bigger than i expected at over 1.5ft tall


Attatching hoses...


The pump...only the one inlet in the end (i've found the pumps quite confusing but am happy with the one i've got) so i haven't been able to attatch the satelite strainer which came with the pump, although if i really wanted to use it as well as the skimmer i could get a 'Y' joint for the hose.


Skimmer attatched to pump


Lighting...it floated when i tried to put it in earlier so it'll have to be weighted down with the plants.


That's all for now!

Well the pond has now been running for 2 days! So gald to have finally got it going!

The inlet and outlet hoses run under this slab so that i can access them for maintenance.


I split the oulet hose with a T valve so that i could run the outlet from the center right up to each end to keep the outlet as far away from the pump as possible and to keep the water moving in the shallower ends of the pond.


My white water lily and elephant ear in a planting basket... i used aquatic soil, the rinsed cat litter, topped with a fine gravel to darken the top of it down a bit...can't wait to they grow a bit...my bullrush at the other end of the pond has has a growth spurt since i put in in two days ago


A close up of one of the outlet hoses... i put a "u" nail in the decking and fastened the hose into place with a cabel tie. I then put a nail into place to stop the hose rising up and draining the pond... it gives a nice sound of moving water having the outlet pipes slightly abouve the surface and will help aerate the pond as well!


The skimmer in action....


My quarantine tank... 25 galons with 10x filtration, you can just about make out my two canary yellow goldfish i got last night...annoyingly they look orange in the poor light of the tub but they where really yellow when looking through the glass in the lfs! hopefully in good light outside their colour will show better. they are quite timid, gonna take a while to build up their confidence!




oh i forgot to add that i removed the uvc bulb from the filter until the pond gets established... then i will install it again!

Wow it looks fabulous!!! I love the sharp lines. Looks neat and clean! Looking forward to more pictures!

thankyou glitterfish! i can't wait for the plants to grow a bit now so soften the look a bit and give the fish somewhere to hide

Nice going, Jamoko - very beautiful looking pond you got there! Its always such an excitement to watch somebody else's pond project. Your fish will be so happy in there!

Thankyou! i can't wait to release my huge comet out there...the pond is 8 times the size of his tank so i can't wait to see him getting to have a big swim

looks really nice, i bet your proud of that. keep up the good work

Thankyou Tanya, yes i'm very pleased with it, it's coming along well... going to post a few more pics shortly!

well i've started to tidy up a bit around the pond! i've got a couple of grasses round the filter to try to blend the filter into the garden and the wiring has been buried under the slate. i ended up returning the pond lights, they were a pain to position as the kept floating up even after being weighted down and they didn't look that great lit up so i decided just to get my money back! My skimmer was a bit to floaty and kept rishing up and that stopped it working, but i've finally got it sussed by putting it to the lowest height setting and putting the "float" on whilst underwater to stop it getting any trapped air in it, then i raised it up again and hey presto it hasn't floated up since!

Still a few more ground plants to go in


the skimmer...this will be a blessing with the amount of trees we have behind our house!


Getting there...you can't see but the plants are progressing well!


I infused the pond today with as much sludge and "dirty" water as i could get from my tank...with my juwel filter being built in i couldn't backwash it like koivet suggested for cycling the pond, so fingers crossed this will work, cycling it in a short space of time!

so after seeing all the koi today i got two shubunkins, one japanese/american shubunkin and a bristol shubinkin, for some reason i wanted the ones that hadn't much red on them (i think i was going for the black and white koi effect, even though their markings are much different). Here's some pics of them and my two canary yellow goldfish (which don't look yellow in the bad light...but they are ) no names yet... still working on them....

wow ur fish r gorgeous

thanks kat! i'm hoping to get a good variety of colours to give the pond a bit of interest...3 weeks and counting until they (hopefully) can be released from quarantine

Your pond has come along nicely! One bit of advice, watch your skimmer. There is nothing wrong with that kind of skimmer they work great. I've heard though (rumors?) that they can pull the fish into them so you may just want to keep an eye on it.

Your fish are beautiful. I love shubunkins.

Scott

Cheers Scott! i'll be sure to keep a regular check on the skimmer...just incase!

finished all the landscaping and planting earlier this week



i'm battling green water at the moment so cycling has been slowed up a bit! roll on nitrate readings

That is coming along nicely and I love the fish!! I have several of the mostly blue shubies, too. I just love them!

I was going to ask about the skimmer as well. Is there a little basket it in to trap the debris? How often do you clean it? I've never seen a skimmer like that before, only the built in ones on the side. I was wondering too though if it can pull the fish into it.

Wow! The whole thing has really come together.Your fish are so pretty too.

I agree! Very nice.

Thanks Guys!



my skimmer is a Oase Pond Surface Skimmer (IP 350) the reason i bought it was to ensure it worked easily with my oase 4000 pump and it seems to be the only skimmer they produce, i was a bit horrified by the sheer size of it when it arrived! LOL! yes there is a seperate basket that sits inside the "float" that sits just 1mm below the water surface. I emptied the basket last night when i emptied the pond and there was a good amount in it. I guess emptying will depend on how many leaves fall from the trees behind, so in autumn i guess i'll never be done emptying it

as for it and the fish, scott said he'd heard of fish being pulled into them so i'll definitely keep an eye on it! although as the inlet is so close to the surface i can't see it being a problem as there isn't a massively strong pull around it, it's more of a gentle pull so the fish could easily swim away from it!

well it's been nearly a month since a pond thread update... in that time my fishless cycle failed as you will probably have read and my fish has an ulcer which is slowing up their release from quarantine.

so i spent today making a net frame for the pond which will be used while i'm out at work and during the night. It's in two sections for storage, and is made using a "build a ball" metal pole system and then i attached my clear net using clear cabel ties.

i'm thinking the bullrush is going to have to go as it's just not going to be practicle with taking the frame on and off...i have a friend who might want it for her pond. i'm hoping the frame will be secure enough just laid over the pond, i'm thinking even if it's windy the wind should hopefully just blow round it or through it as there's nothing to catch really! it's a pain having to have it as it takes away from the look of the pond but what can i do...don't want to risk my wee fishes lives!







water much clearer now that i've started using microbe lift pl & thera p on the pond!




is this algae? i didn't get anything like this in my aqarium. maybe the fish will eat it when they go in the pond!


my two tub quarantine set-up.


three more fish for the pond, brown common - Fudge, shubunkin - Inca, comet -no name just yet!


Jude

Its looking great
That algae stuff i think is some sort of mozzie eggs?

thanks lucy!

don't think we get mossie's here in northern ireland?

*shrugs* no idea

That looks great! Those weird green things may be a type of larvae, although I'm not sure what kind of bugs you guys have up there.

I like the cover too. It doesn't detract too much from the pond and it looks secure. That's the kind of thing I wanted with ours but unfortunately the dog would have jumped on it or through it or just destroyed it.

thanks jsrtist! yes, i'd imagine a cover would be difficult to manage with a dog...luckily the only dog i have in my garden in my sisters when it comes to visit...i don't exactly have a dog friendly garden what with all my low maintainence slate! LOL!

do you think the fish will eat what ever it is when they go in the pond? i was using my pond vac the other week to get leaves off the bottom and i got rid of a good amount of that stuff off the liner but it has come back again!

i must recommend a pond vacuum to everyone by the way...i just decided to splash out and invest in one as i figured it will make my weekly water changes a heck of a lot easier (it took sooooooooo long to drain the pond of the green water a few weeks ago) it also makes getting rid of leaves etc off the bottom pretty easy.



i'll post some "action" pics next time i use it!

i'm also considering changing my skimmer already....it takes up a huge amount of room in my pond and my main grievance with it is that the "float" top section is difficult to keep underwater and because the pond is so deep i end up soaked every time i have to fix it which is a pain!!

so any recommendations on a new skimmer would be most welcome!

well it's taken a while but the first 5 fish are in the pond and they love it! i had this algae stuff all over the liner and within 24 hours the 5 fish had every pic of it eaten!!! they are like 5 vacuum cleaners

my big comet escapes from the 40gal....


3 of the new fish




somethings been nibbling on my water lilys (before fish went in)


i'll try and get some clearer pics soon!

Jude

Your pond is beautiful, the style is so clean and simple. Your fish must love it out there.