I saw this picture and fell in love. How does a person stack rocks up super high to make a water fall and get the rocks not to fall? Do you use cement? Or would that hurt the fish?

http://www.serenityh2ogardens.com/images/C...%20pond%204.jpg

thanks,
sammie

One must stack very carefully Most of my ponds rocks are freestanding (and there's about 10 tons all together (literally) but stacked in such a way they are very stable., Cement won't hurt the fish but can be unsightly if you let it get out of hand. A good product is waterfall foam/Rock'n foam, which you spray onto the rocks and it expands and is a good adhesive. You can get that at pretty much any pond supply store.

*edit - I'd say a lot of those rocks are free standing with choice ones adhered in.

OMG, I love that pic! I do not have a pond but would love to one day! I would love a water fall like that. And I really like the way those rocks are stacked!

I know, isn't that lovely? sitting up there and watching the fish below??? ahhhhhh.

I think I would want to save the money on buying extra products like cement or foam, and just carefully stack the rocks. Wait. No. I know I would just be too fearful of not staching them right and then I would sit up there and go crashing into the water, litterally "swimming with the fishes" and would either a) kill myself AND/OR b) kill my fish.

So, SusanH, is the waterfall foam gaudy in appearance do you know? Also, do you have any pictures of you pond online that I might drool over? I'm just so curious. Ten tons of rocks sounds extremely pretty.

I have a bunch of pictures now that I found online that I am going to get printed for inspiration once I have a yard of my own and a house, not an apartment.

Sammie

I dont know... I dont have much experience with ponds but I've seen my fair share of architechtural elements like that and I think that waterfall was put in by a professional company (or maybe not if the owners were extremely skilled). It looks like the pond has been built into the hill-side as the house is obviously higher up than where she is sitting, also the rest of the backyard behind her is terraced as well... she might have had the same company do the work on the pond. With a set up like that the rocks are probably anchored partially by the hill, itself, being set into it like that, but I also think that there has to be alot of artificial anchoring (cement, mortar, etc) going on there as well because with something that high, you dont want to be messing around with free placing rocks (as you said Maudlin). I dont think she'd be sitting there like that or letting her dog climb around it if it wasnt really structurally sound and to my mind that would involve alot of anchoring.

Its the mark of a really great builder that they've been able to make the rock placement look so natural.

Thanks just my opinion at least.

Nope, the foam isn't tacky at all because you can easily crack off the bits that you see sticking out after the foam dries, so all that's left isn't visible You can see my pond pics in the topic I have "My New pond"