I am in great need of advice on my pond so looked up pond forums and found this one. I am retired for 3 years from the PO, and dreamed about a pond for several years before building one. I bought a kit to build an 11 by 13 with pump, skimmer, waterfall all included and did all the work myself with the help from 2 teenage boys when it came time to put all the rocks in that I'd been collecting for years from our farm and neighboring farms. I also am an avid gardener and love animals, we have 5 paint horses, 2 collies, several farm cats and 3 indoor cats, everyone is spayed and neutered so we don't have babies, and 25 chickens who will live forever here and be buried in the family cemetary. On the farm side, we have 400 acres of crop production and pasture with a small angus cow herd. We are calving and I have 3 bottle calves because of mother problems. We live in NW Iowa and are having the nicest spring we've ever had! Julie