Alternative to spray foam to direct water in a waterfall

[addy1]

I redid my 1000 gallon pond waterfall. Over the winter, nice warm days, tore it down completely, placed new liner in. Wandered the yard stealing rocks hidden by growth, buried over time in the ground etc. Hauled them from all over the yard to the waterfall area.

Finished rebuilding it yesterday, turned the pond on yesterday, of course a lot of the waterfall water went behind the rocks. So thinking I need to get spray foam. But then remembered I had a bunch of quilt batting I was throwing away, luckily forgot to haul the bag to the garbage pickup the day before.

Took the quilt batting stuck it in the hole where the water was going behind the rocks instead of over the rocks. It works perfectly! Now it is white, showed a few places, within hours it was browning up. Over time will be visually gone.

At the beginning in the am: I started stuffing the quilt batting in, the far side I have to crawl inbetween the bush and the pond edge, balance on a few edge rocks and hope to not fall in the water. I moved the net to make it easier as I worked. This area is a favorite heron access point.

As time went by moving rocks, shifting rocks, stuffing quilt batting in, finally ended up looking like this:

Long distance shot showing the two waterfalls, the new rock wall hiding that blue tub, Shooting through a lot of netting, from the other end of the pond, makes it look not as nice as it is, ie unobtrusive. Still a bit of liner to hide, was tired of the balance act.

But the water is flowing over the rocks, not behind. As time goes by even more will flow over the rocks, as the batting gets full of muck.

 

[addy1]

That is about a 4 foot drop, the stock tank is partially buried, on land higher than the pond. One thing building on a slope, easier to make waterfalls.

At the base of the waterfall, the snakes favorite entry point.

 

[Hound Heaven]

That's a good idea! The batting should last a long time too.

 

[j.w]

@addy1 neat on that new discovery for the use of old batting! I will keep that in my memory banks

 

[GBBUDD]

You've been busy addy.
you could always use the batting as a filler / what we call backer rod it fills the large voids and then use the expensive foam or even a caulking to apply to the backer rod but you only need a thin coating instead of filling the entire void.

For those who don't know some batting depending on what it was designed for can have chemicals added to it like fire retardants you don't want to use that with your pond.

 

[addy1]

This stuff I had used for the pond years ago, removing some fines. Nicely dirty, never thought of fire retardant chemicals, no clue since no package to look at. When I used it a lot years ago, removing fines, and now, zero fish issues.

But good thing to think of.

A quick search of what I bought, 100% polyester no mention of fire retardant.

 

[Lisak1]

I wonder if it will wick water?

 

[addy1]

I wonder if it will wick water?

yes for awhile, but as it fills with dirt, muck debris, it will direct the water where I want it to go. Like using as a fines filter, if not rinsed out it quits working, water won't go through it.

Even more water is going down the rocks now rather than under, two days later.

 

[Lisak1]

Ah! That makes sense!

 

[addy1]

Ah! That makes sense!

Take a look! I love it, water going over the rocks really well now. Still a few spots that could use a bit more batting, had to order some.

 

[seedsofnature]

I like to fill the voids with gravel, then foam over the rocks, then press underlayment over the foam, and cover that with rocks. Over time the underlayment catches sediment and becomes harder than a rock. I do this with large voids too to create a bib liner if I dont have any scrap liner