Hello from a newbie from Florida!
- Thread starter emmerton
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2010
- Messages
- 44,414
- Reaction score
- 29,204
- Location
- Frederick, Maryland
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 6b
- Country
It sits is full hot sun, gets warmer faster than my big ponds. I do feed the lilies in the hot tub with just fan tails in it, they don't make enough poo for the plants.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2010
- Messages
- 44,414
- Reaction score
- 29,204
- Location
- Frederick, Maryland
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 6b
- Country
Yeah, the birds are neat looking but very good predators esp in a contained pond. It fished my 1000 gallon stock tank pond. The fan tails where a real nice size.
I put deer fencing over the top before we left MD this time. I need to buy more large weave netting for both ponds mine is wearing out. Sun rotting, it has been installed around 5ish years now.
I appreciate your thoughts, @GBBUDD! Definitely want to hear about flaws in my plan. The videos of the Hakko Pro 4 Plus show the water really roiling, so I had been hoping it would be enough movement to help with mosquitos and push water through my floating wetlands. :/
Been watching videos of bog building, and reading through threads here. A raised bog does seem easy. Funding is somewhat limited for this whole project though.. so I might not be able to accomplish that this first year. Mosquito dunks have been helpful these past few years.
Do you think a long narrow bog would be as effective as a wide one?
Been watching videos of bog building, and reading through threads here. A raised bog does seem easy. Funding is somewhat limited for this whole project though.. so I might not be able to accomplish that this first year. Mosquito dunks have been helpful these past few years.
Do you think a long narrow bog would be as effective as a wide one?
Welcome @emmerton ! You've found the right place for great information and lots of helpful and friendly support.
Plants and fish go together in a pond - your plants will struggle without the waste that fish add to the pond. A bog filter is a great idea - simple to build and basically no maintenance, other than grooming the plants that will grow like wildfire!
There are some great YouTube videos on converting pools to ponds - have you found any of those?
Plants and fish go together in a pond - your plants will struggle without the waste that fish add to the pond. A bog filter is a great idea - simple to build and basically no maintenance, other than grooming the plants that will grow like wildfire!
There are some great YouTube videos on converting pools to ponds - have you found any of those?
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2010
- Messages
- 44,414
- Reaction score
- 29,204
- Location
- Frederick, Maryland
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 6b
- Country
Here are the fantails that disappeared. Also the large shubbie and around 8 others, all the larger ones. The smaller fish ran and hid.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2010
- Messages
- 44,414
- Reaction score
- 29,204
- Location
- Frederick, Maryland
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 6b
- Country
Narrow or wide will work, as long as you have plants, gravel and water it will work to filter your water.
My hot tub pond has just a small flower planter pot bog, keeps the water in great shape.
Cheap to build just need a hole, liner and some pea gravel. And a few pvc pipes.
sissy
sissy
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2011
- Messages
- 33,086
- Reaction score
- 15,702
- Location
- Axton virginia
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 7A
- Country
shubbies are a little aggressive during breeding season and so are goldfish and you will have a long breeding season in Florida .Koi that I have seem to not bother my butt wigglers .I also have butterfly koi and fancy tails.Fantails are slow and mine love to swim into my hand to get belly rubs and so far since 2005 I have had no babies from mine ,maybe all boys or girls not sure .They are hard to tell sex of
Easy enough to dump some rock into an old pool to help with bacteria colonization. If the pool is truly junk and you don't care if the liner gets scratched, no reason not to dump some gravel and rock into the shallow end. If it's got steps, you could build up the steps to a raised bog, and hide the steps with some nicely placed stone over them. A strong pump that has a near-surface outlet that throws the water across the pool should keep the water surface moving enough to limit mosquito breeding. Add some tall-growing plants to the steps and shallow end and some floating plants to the deep end and it should be possible to pull it off. You could add a second pump to the deep end and put in a waterfall to keep the water moving if the main pump doesn't produce enough surface movement.
There's also the possibility of raising the ground around the pool to build up the water level enough over the pool to make a bog on one side, like in this photo, but this would be expensive due to the amount of fill and rock you'd need:
Most of the videos online are full blown bogs with aqua blocks, Those are the Ferrari of bogs, A simple pit , tub, with a pipe to the bottom dispersing water evenly across the bottom of the area and then a foot of 3/8" pea stone seems to work very well and for a heck of a lot less dollars then a filters of equal capabilities..
This pool to pond photo has me scratching my chin saying hmmmmmmmmmmm You can clearly see the coping under water in the middle photo which says to me there's no liner that was installed to water proof the areas outside the ld pool in the bog areas. so what did they do !!!!!!!!!!! did they pour more concrete and plaster? did they apply a liner to the side of the coping and sealed it with bitchathane and terminations strips it has me puzzled ... LOVE THE LOOK .... Are they so lucky they have perfect clay and water doesn't seep past the old deck ....... i would love to see a blog on that build
This pool to pond photo has me scratching my chin saying hmmmmmmmmmmm You can clearly see the coping under water in the middle photo which says to me there's no liner that was installed to water proof the areas outside the ld pool in the bog areas. so what did they do !!!!!!!!!!! did they pour more concrete and plaster? did they apply a liner to the side of the coping and sealed it with bitchathane and terminations strips it has me puzzled ... LOVE THE LOOK .... Are they so lucky they have perfect clay and water doesn't seep past the old deck ....... i would love to see a blog on that build
I assume they poured more concrete and added more pool type waterproofing/liner, but you could do this with a big pond liner if you could find one big enough to line the entire pool and bog area. But yeah, this is the ultra-expensive way to convert a pool to a bog-fed pond.
@Phaewryn, what a transformation! Wow!
There's a poured deck and pool cage all around the pool, so that's a no-go for me, but I *love* your idea of building a raised bog up behind the steps. Thank you for all of the great ideas.. they'll be swirling around my brain!
I did some calculations.. if my bog is 20% the surface area of my pool, it would need to be ~60 sq ft!
There's a poured deck and pool cage all around the pool, so that's a no-go for me, but I *love* your idea of building a raised bog up behind the steps. Thank you for all of the great ideas.. they'll be swirling around my brain!
I did some calculations.. if my bog is 20% the surface area of my pool, it would need to be ~60 sq ft!
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2010
- Messages
- 44,414
- Reaction score
- 29,204
- Location
- Frederick, Maryland
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 6b
- Country
Even if not 20% any bog will help!