Hey there, Nice Bottom!

[Jerry In Maine]

any ideas as to what i can put into my pond to make the bottom look a bit more natural?

there's some sand in there now that got in during construction. it settled, stays put and doesnt seem to bother anything so i left it. its looks better than the black liner.

i thought about getting a plastic skeleton - like the one in the school's biology classroom - and laying it in there on the sand but the wife isn't having that.

maybe a small stump...any other ideas? our house is in the woods so we want something to look "woodsy" and natural like.

my pond is small at about 600 gal and is about 28" deep where i want to decorate

 

[brandonsdad02]

A stump might make your water turn tannis. Its a golden brown color from the tannis leaching out of the wood. If you just wait a few weeks, the black will be covered with algae and you won't see the black.

 

[sissy]

oh gosh yeh and a skeleton is woodsy :razz: You could put some rock tunnels in the bottom for your fish to hide in.I have crushed oyster shells still in the bottom of mine after my 2 biggest koi ripped a bag of them off the bridge and deposited them all over the pond rooting to see what was in them that was good

 

[Jerry In Maine]

oh gosh yeh and a skeleton is woodsy :razz:

huh? what do you mean? people die in woodland ponds all the time :cheerful:

 

[j.w]

Yep don't ya all just go walking in the woods and whoops there they are laying there resting their bones on the bottom all El Naturel lookin. It's one of the first things I look for

 

[addy1]

Yep don't ya all just go walking in the woods and whoops there they are laying there resting their bones on the bottom all El Naturel lookin. It's one of the first things I look for

as long as they are not your bones jw! it would be neat

 

[j.w]

Yep I sure would not want to go walking thru the woods and see my bones laying there.............don't know what I'd do w/o my bones..............just jelly along like a slug I guess!

 

[sissy]

me thinks I would not want to go walking in the woods with you ,NEVER EVER

huh? what do you mean? people die in woodland ponds all the time :cheerful:

 

[Jerry In Maine]

A stump might make your water turn tannis. Its a golden brown color from the tannis leaching out of the wood. If you just wait a few weeks, the black will be covered with algae and you won't see the b
lack.

i'm waiting for the algae, but three weeks so far and nothing...no fish in there yet, just water and some sand - but water is clear as crystal. maybe its been too cool for algae? temps here have just maxed into the low 70s so far. lots of sunlight on the pond...aqua plants seem to love it as their thriving.

 

[buckry]

OMG, I love the skeleton idea, I want a skeleton in my pond now.

But what I actually have in my pond is water, and fish. I bought a vacuum for my pond and when it's time to use it it will slide along the liner and take out everything. I think that's more important than it looking 100% like a real natural pond.

But I guess such a small volume of water you can just overflow it when it gets dirty. I put some dried out logs into my small pond for the pleco to chew on, they got covered in algae but it they were dried out enough that tannis was never a problem.

Put the fish in there and feed them, you'll have algae 30 seconds later. My pond was originally just for my labs to cool off in, I had it filled with water for at least 3 months before algae starting showing up. Once that happened the pump I put in it clogged up and it went downhill fast. It wasn't until I told the dogs to stay out and put fish, plants, and a filter on the pump that it cleared back up.

 

[Jerry In Maine]

you want a 4th quality "bucky" skeleton like this:

http://www.skeleton-factory.com/Bucky-Skeleton-4th-Quality-without-stand-10


google for more places to get them. i think they'd look great under water with a bit of algae on them...sorta like a scene from an episode of CSI. maybe lay a fake gun near. my closest neighbor is a state trooper and i could have some fun with him with this setup. as mentioned though - the current wifehere said "nope'...

i think when folks with larger ponds think "stump" they think something like a big tree stump with roots, etc.
what i'm thinking is just a small one - maybe 18" for the fish to swin around and to give a bit of dimension. it could be easily lifted out when it was time to clean. maybe not even an actual stump - perhaps more of a decent sized branch.

 

[sissy]

you could get a fake stump or trunk of a tree .Any wood in the pond no matter how small will turn your water brown .I have salt treated wood but never tried it in my pond and have picked up some bigger branches and parts of trees that were washed a shore near the beach .

 

[Jerry In Maine]

you could get a fake stump or trunk of a tree...

where would i find something like that?

 

[callingcolleen1]

I always have some small pieces of wood here and there, in and around the pond, not all wood will turn pond brown, not enough to show anyway. I think that natural faded wood looks good in the pond and I have some wood that has a small knot hole that I flow extra water thru and its been there so long that on the top of the wood is soft moss growing that look real nice.

 

[Mmathis]

LOL! I like the skeleton idea! You could dress him to suit the season. If my pond was bigger, that's the kind of thing I would do.