GARDEN POND - too deep!

[Htb]

Hello
We have acquired a garden from moving into a house. I don’t have an issue with the pond per se however it’s been built quite shoddily. Last year we emptied it, found quite a few fish and newts and frogs. The young kids enjoy this aspect, and we do too. However during this exploration we found the pond to be over 5ft deep, vertical edges and thick at the bottom with sludge. (Enough to snap the net) did our best with this, tried to create a more sloped edge which was difficult.

Anyway, I don’t think I want to get rid of it as it’s interesting (or could be) but how do I make it shallower? I can’t take the risk with young children of it being over 5ft deep and it’s just uneccessary I feel. Yes I can get a net, but the depth causes issues on visibility, amount of water to treat, plants, pond accessories. So I don’t understand why it’s been done. We can’t even get a nice fountain due to this. Any useful tips would be great.

Ideally I don’t want to empty it and remove the liner, can we just fill it to the desired depth by filling with pond gravel? Surely this would be suitable as that’s what most ponds have as a suggested base? If we got a few ton bags?

Thoughts? And also any other advise!

Photo for reference!

Thanks in advance!

 

[j.w]

@Htb
I think that would be way too much gravel and it would cause bacteria to build up and make your pond water bad. People do use gravel but not that much. Maybe someone else has some idea on what you can do. Maybe a fence or a heavy duty metal screen? Not sure a net would be strong enough. Otherwise I think you could only lift the liner and add soil and then put the liner back. Sorry.
Check some of these out: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=me...fc/82/ba/fc82baa8ed01a0433a83c6101108c81d.png

 

[addy1]

Welcome to the forum.

Gravel would work, but like said above, muck will build up.

 

[WaterGardener]

Most people would love to have a pond that deep. And the straight sides help to protect the fish from predators. Animals and birds can't wade into it to catch them and the fish can escape to the depths to avoid them.

If the pond water is clear and healthy, there should be no problem seeing the fish at that depth.

No pond depth is totally safe for young children. They can drown in inches of water, even in a bathtub, as I'm sure you are aware. I would think the best solution would be to either not leave the children unattended outside or put up a secure fence around the pond. Maybe both.

The strong metal screen cover is a good idea as well, but there would need to be a way to remove it for maintenance work on the pond.

As for a fountain, it's possible to put some sort of stand for the fountain in the pond to raise it high enough in the water. The same could be said for plants. Or use floating planters. Maybe a floating platform for the fountain as well.

Congratulations on your new home and welcome to the forum.

 

[Tula]

Before we closed our pond we had one similar to yours in that it was straight sides down, although not quite as deep. I used cement blocks to raise plants closer to the water's surface. I planted pond plants in pond baskets and zip tied them black pool noodles and secured them to the cement blocks. I also had plant baskets that floated freely with pool noodles zip tied to the baskets edge.

The plants thrived and all kinds of frogs, butterflies, dragon flies etc., were attracted to them.

 

[GBBUDD]

No pond depth is totally safe for young children. They can drown in inches of water, even in a bathtub, as I'm sure you are aware. I would think the best solution would be to either not leave the children unattended outside or put up a secure fence around the pond. Maybe bo

teach the kids how to swim i was a literal polywog at a very early age

 

[ADHDiy_Guy]

You could create a false bottom with milk crates or plastic pallets, and have a large “snorkel” pipe going down to the bottom for you to drop a sump pump to suck out the muck once a year. If you stack 2 high, that brings you up to 3 feet deep, and you can layer large river cobble stones, and even put a ring of larger 12”-18” boulders to create a shelf, filling the outside of the boulder ring with 1-3” river rock. Then you could even do a 2nd ring of rocks to create another shelf if there was room for it.

Kinda like this, if the quick dry erase picture makes sense.

 

[GBBUDD]

Your missing the trench for a centipede one layer of matrix blocks i like using the larger blocks to keep roots back a bit from filling up the entire block. With the small ones just about any plant could fill them unless there was a lot of stone above. The centipede is also pitched toward the snorkel this is for the clean out.
don't understand the larger rocks on the blocks in the center. the rocks on the matrix shout start with 2-4" as a minimum some go with 4-6" then 2 to4 and 3/4 on that all river rock
Even this picture is a bit short i would have the blocks go within a foot of the side walls but like the rock the blocks are a layer they are multiple blocks wide , as well ass shong in length

 

[ADHDiy_Guy]

The reason I didn’t include the “centipede” is because that would likely need to pull up the liner and dig the trench underneath, or build up the dirt under the liner so the trench could be left in the middle - and if they are already taking those steps, then might as well backfill all the way up to make it a 2 foot pond without the worry of the false bottom. It would still work to get out the crud without the centipede, even if it left some behind.

The big rocks in the middle, directly on top of the milk crates, if you were looking straight down from above the pond, they would create a circle that would be the “deep section” of water, they would hold back the river rock backfill. I can draw a top down picture tomorrow, and I might change the color of each “row” of rocks to help with perspective.

 

[ADHDiy_Guy]

@GBBUDD alright, here is more context. Top down view, and side view, color coordinated and with better scale - and labels!

 

[GaryMoz]

Have you seen or consider a child proof grid for the pond https://www.pondsafety.com/