AJ pond build

[tbendl]

September of last year when bog fist put in

October of last year

April of this year

May

And not a good picture but it's stocked full as of June

 

[AJ1500]

I'm not sure yet what plants we will be adding. I'm going to leave that up to my significant other
we have some in the pond now in baskets and one in a big pot in the bog, I think they are some kind of lily
we used to keep them in baskets in the preform ponds and they did real well
they look a little like the tall ones in your pics

 

[tbendl]

Well if you need any plants come spring let me know, I may have some extra bog stuff I can send you.

 

[addy1]

We freeze up here, I cut mine down to the pea gravel, only pull up the roots if I am purging some of them.

 

[AJ1500]

Well if you need any plants come spring let me know, I may have some extra bog stuff I can send you.

Thanks I'll keep that in mind

so how fast should my water move thru the bog. right now I have it full flow and it moves fairly fast coming out
should it be a slow flow or is that OK. never thought to ask before now

 

[MitchM]

...

so how fast should my water move thru the bog. right now I have it full flow and it moves fairly fast coming out
should it be a slow flow or is that OK. never thought to ask before now

Your "bog" is supposed to act as a nutrient trap for your pond, so you'll have to use your judgement as to whether you think the water flow is too much, flushing material out of your bog, or is too slow, so that areas of your bog are becoming stagnant.
The slower the flow through the bog, the better, in my opinion.
You want the water coming out of your bog to be as clean as possible.

.

 

[Lisak1]

The slower the flow through the bog, the better, in my opinion.
You want the water coming out of your bog to be as clean as possible.

When we built our bog we searched high and low for an answer to that question and came up short. It was experimentation time! So we installed ours with a ball valve right before the bog so we could control the water flow and a variable speed pump, just to be on the safe side. We played around with it until we got a flow that felt "right". We looked for water to be percolating up from all areas of the bog, just fast enough so you could detect a flow. The only way to know if it's working is to observe your pond. Every pond is different, every bog is different.

The tall plants you see are probably a type of iris. Irises make great bog plants, as do any kind of rushes, sedges, cattails, etc.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Hmmm if I understand you, you want to channel the water in the bog? From what I understand that is exactly what you don't want. You want the water to fully percolate up evenly through the bog to allow it use the entire bog and it's bacteria to clean as much of the water as possible, once you have channeling, it essentially renders the rest of the bog useless for water treatment.
Again, this is my understanding, if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will weigh in.

You are absolutely correct.

 

[AJ1500]

well I added another 1/2 ton of gravel to the bog, so I'm at 2 tons so far and it's still not full
unless there is a reason not to I'm going to leave it like this for now, thinking about getting some floating plants to put in too

Lisa, yep I asked and my wife said they were iris. I put some in the bog today and put a couple different type of elephant ears, just to see if they will grow in there. one is a minature one and the other is a standard tubular type, if it adapts it should get huge
as promised here are a couple pictures on where I am so far
oh and a shot of our little gator freind
I did my water test today and was surprised to find out all my readings are good, PH is a little high at about 7.5 but all other test are in good shape
my water had finaly cleared up but messing with the bog today stirred things up and now the water is all yucky looking again, Oh well it should clear back up and few days
so now it's time to work on the borders and hiding the liner

 

[tbendl]

As long as your PH stays stable it is within range. I believe anything above 8.5 is a cause for worry so you are good, again provided it stays stable at that range.