I have been working on my pond for the past 2 1/2 years. short history:
-buy a house with an overgrown pond bordering woodland. Have overgrowth removed year one. Clear path around and start to rake out muck end of year one.
-read, watch videos (understatement) on bog filters; decide to try it out. Continue raking leaves, removing trees and widening what will eventually be the "beach". Problem: This was originally dug as a retention pond at just above lowest level of the property spring overflow goes into a swamp below. EVERYTHING filters down into the pond.
- spend year two redirecting water left and right of the pond. Works to a degree; a work in progress.
- spring of year three, buy two used food grade 50 gallon drums and a 1/4hp sump pump plus 10 bags of pea gravel from Home Depot. The pump was in a milk crate placed on paving stones. I still had to clean out the barrel and filter every two weeks or so. The barrel was filled about 5/8 full of pea gravel, fed from the bottom. The lower barrel had about three inches of pea gravel. The system worked in that the water that came out was clearer than the water that went in. BUT, I had underestimated the amount of muck on the bottom of the pond.
-Winter of year three: ditch the barrels and use the pump to lower the water, about a foot at a time, so that I could dig out muck. All this time, I have been drawing, planning (my husband calls it "scheming") how my bog filter would work, once I removed the tree stumps I uncovered - still a work in progress, though most are gone.
Ok, so not so short a history, year 4 begins with removing muck by the bucket full, using the Kubota where I could, but mostly digging and filling the bucket shovel full by shovel full. Then the rains came. I did remove the largest stump (the one with the turkeys on it) and have actually begun my filter system. I realized that I needed to keep more leaves from getting in the pond, so phase one was/is a skimmer filter. I have the pad poured and some of the wall up. I also purchased an inground pool skimmer and have researched pumps. For now, I will probably buy a 3/4 hp pump and sand filter, since I will only be filtering the surface water, used, if possible.
I got some advice from a nephew who is a civil engineer. He suggested that I line the pond. I am not certain that I can afford to line the entire pond, but I have covered several areas when the rain washes dried muck back into the pond. I have used about 6 tons of marine base so far, at about $30 a ton (plus delivery) and estimate that I will need 20 tons more. Not this year!
I tried to load my original sketch, but I keep getting an error message that the file is too large. The biggest part of this project is the bog itself. In its current iteration, it will be about 450 sq feet at about 2 ft high, with 12 inches of filter material. I was originally going with pea gravel, but recent reading has me unsure. I do not have to worry about rough edges, since the bog is cement, so I just need to drill down on the pros and cons of different size, shape, and material.
Has anyone ever attempted to convert a retention pond into a swimming hole? My research says that I need a bog about 20% of the size of my pond. I do not have room for a bog that big! I do have springs in the pond.
The pond is about 60ft by 50 ft at full/overflow height. At that point, it is about 5-6 feet deep in the center. Where I have dug, I am removing muck up to a foot deep. There is sand below, but I don't know at what depth. I will be renting an excavator for the final deep dig, and hope that after bringing in 3 - 4 inches of marine limestone base, that depth at the center will be at least 6 feet. Am I a fool for trying?
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. I built my pond in a low area that was covered with trees, muck and water in the spring. It always dried up by mid summer. I dug it out, lined it covered the liner in sand and rock, definitely needed to be weighted down in case of a heavy rain.