Building my first pond

Hello everyone. My name is Bill and I am in the process of building my first official pond. I had a very tiny 2x2 pond last summer but it never really amounted to anything. I have decided to build a much bigger pond this year in its place. My plan is to have a 10X14 pond with a stream running down into the pond. The steam will be about 10' long. My backyard has a nice small incline coming up from the area in which the pond will be located allowing for a nice stream. Some things I have been wondering are, am I better buying the equipment separate or as a kit? Where is a good place to get stone and what kind of prices would I be looking at? I have a good amount of river stone/pebbles already. The spot where the pond is going had the pebbles as a mulch so I saved them. I plan on using a liner for the pond, but I am not sure if I should use a liner for the stream or get a couple of the preformed stream basins. Any help or thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. I can't wait to finally have my own pond.

celtic_dude

Welcome to the Forum!

That is about the same size as my pond. When I built my 2nd waterfall into the pond, I also had a cascading stream in the plan. Cascading helps to oxygenate the water and here in Escondido CA. USA, where it gets over 100 degrees F, provides cooling to the return water.

I built a large bio filter out of a 55 gallon plastic drum and had it spill down the stream into the pond. Since you have a hill, you may want to place your bio filter elsewhere, it just worked better for me and gave me the elevation I needed for the cascade.

That said, I recommend using a Firestone EPDM 45 mil liner. Order it large enough so your cut off piece may be used for the stream. Remember that it has to overlap where it enters and the seam should be above the waterline to prevent capillary action from sucking water from your pond.

As for rocks, get rocks that have been rounded by water. Try not to use any that are broken and have sharp edges.

delburt says dont know where you live ,but find rock from your area , go up into the hills around you,county roads push up rocks all the time , price free for the picking ,have thousands of rocks only bought one paid 60$

I have been looking around online at different liners. It does seem like the most popular one is the 45mil firestone one. I am almost finished digging out my pond today. I didn't have a long enough board to check the level but I tried something different. I took one of my large tarps and put it in the pond hole and filled it with water. I was able to tell where I needed to raise or lower the edges to level the pond. I was wondering if it is a good idea or not to use the tarp for a layer beneath the liner instead of buying a liner. Any thoughts on this? I am also wondering how deep I should go. My deepest point at the moment is about 2 1/2 feet but the outer shelf is only about 6" deep. Is that deep enough for the shelf? Also the shelf is about a foot wide on average. Is that wide enough? One last thing, do I need to worry about a skimmer?

Funny you should say that about finding rocks along the road. I told my wife today to keep a lookout for rocks on the side of the road and we found one decent med/lg rock. I also was tempted to take 1 or 2 from the front of the Outback restaurant today. They have some nice stones around the building but I behaved .

I am planning on ordering my liner tomorrow with the hopes of getting the it installed next weekend. I can't wait. Sorry about all the ?'s. I just want to make sure I do this the right way so that I can enjoy my pond for years. Thanks for the responsives so far.

Hello Celtic_Dude,

Sounds like you're doing your research and joining this forum was a good idea too! I've learned a lot just reading through the postings. My pond is 16x20 and I too have a shelf that is only 6" in debth. I use this shelf for what they call marginal plants: Iris, Catail, Read and Rush. I find my water lilies do best in at least 12" of water. Deapest end of my pond is only 2 1/2' which isn't deap enough for Koi in my area, not sure where you are but if you're in the northern part of the US you may want to go down to 3 1/2' if you want Koi. I made the mistake of using small gravel in the bottom of my pond the first year and the algea was tough to keep in check. I now use the gravel as a mulch around the edge of the pond and only utilize med/lrg in the acutal pond itself.

Take Care and Best of Luck :-)

hay celtic dude , i would think buying stuff seperate would get you what you want, ,as for a skimmer..i dont see any advantage to have one ..,it would just be something else you got to mess with . a lot of people think a pond has to have one ........i dont delbert

I agree with DrCase, a skimmer is a nice to have, but not a need to have item. I have gone 40 years without one. I take a bucket out once in a while and skim mine by hand if there is oil or a lot of stuff on the surface. it takes a few minutes and I use it to water my bamboo around the pond.