Hi, I'm a train wreck!

[Stampede]

Hello all. Let's cut to the skinny.
Bought a house that had a pond filled with what I now know to be comet goldfish.
The pond was a huge mess and hadn't been properly filtered or cleaned in probably 8+ years. I can't exactly recall the measurements, but I remember calculating roughly around 660 gallons.
I borrowed a 55 gallon tank from a friend, set it up, transferred the 17 fish to it, and started to clean this monstrosity about 4 days ago. Last night i finally got all of the sludge out and removed the liner. From the little that I know I can tell that I'm basically going to have to excavate the whole dang thing.....here are some pics.

The pond was built on a slope so the owner built a retaining wall of cinder blocks and rebar along the back side. He then dumped a couple hundred pounds of rock and dirt behind the wall. The rest of the pond was constructed without any type of retainer, so it has slowly eroded over the past 10 or so years. The hole itself was never lined with anything....I've read that you might want to use a layer of sand, then a layer of newspaper between the ground and the liner. My thoughts are that I basically need to start from scratch in rebuilding this thing.

What I'm wondering is, can anyone help me in locating either a thread, or some sort of reference material that I can use to learn about constructing ponds that require retaining walls.....what a mess. Thanks in advance!

 

[DrDave]

Welcome to the forum. There are plenty of threads in the DIY section on this.

 

[koiguy1969]

tank looks good!

 

[addy1]

My pond is on a slope, but I did a dirt berm, not a retaining wall. Check out the diy section like dd says, there are a bunch of people whom have had to do such.

 

[Stampede]

Thanks! I've browsed the diy section, but seem to be missing what I'm looking for. I'll keep digging until I find something.

 

[mrsclem]

Hi Stampede- not sure if it's what you are looking for but we built a partially above ground pond on a slope. Check out Koi condo II in the pond construction section. 4x4posts and 2x12s for the walls.

 

[DrDave]

Look for D&RW's posts. They expanded an existing pond and used retaining wall bricks. You might get what you are looking for there. They had tons of photos of their build and it looked great after it was finished.

 

[shane_sda]

Hey Stampede. Got nothing to offer, but my best wishes. Keep up your search and work towards that final goal. I gotta tell you, having a pond is one of the best and most satisfying things you will have in your yard. Good job on pulling out the fish. Best of luck.

 

[shakaho]

One thing you might consider is whether this is your best site for a pond. It's probably less work to build a pond of this size from scratch than to remodel the existing pond. The old pond could be converted to a bog garden, a lily pond, or filled in to make a rock garden or something.

I mention this because the previous owner of my home had a water garden made from a preformed pond with a waterfall made of junk cemented together. This was in a small area next to the entrance to the house. I kept this looking nice by surrounding and filling it with lots of vegetation, but the upkeep was horrendous. After about 8 years, I decided to rip the whole thing out and make a small pond nice enough to have a few goldfish. Taking it out took me more than a month, and building the new pond about a week.

Shortly after I finished the pond I had already started thinking about how to correct my mistakes and (of course) make it bigger. But it was months afterwards before I realized that I had completely overlooked the perfect place for a fish pond. There is a large unused and unpaved area within our screened pool enclosure with space for a much bigger pond. No worry about leaves, predators, or curious children, and it's right next to a water faucet, an electrical outlet, and a covered patio where one can sit and enjoy the fishies.

Now I can't use that great space (this year anyway) since my hubby already thinks I spend way too much time and attention on my pond. I'm going to do my remodel of my existing pond (tripling the volume) in December when he is out of town for three weeks. It will be so beautiful that he won't fuss for more than a week. Then I'm going to start nagging him about the need for remodeling the pool enclosure including laying concrete in the bare areas and resurfacing everything. This will be quite expensive. After he complains about the cost, I will come up with this brilliant idea about an alternative use of the unpaved area. :lol:

 

[addy1]

LMAO, We love our hubbies! We just have to out think them (not trashing men honest!) I used to send my previous hubby to see his mom and encourage him to stay there for a month or so..........giggle!

water gardens can be great for the critters,

Add a

in your plans, love your planning and brilliant idea!

My hubby just says do what you want honey, (guess we are still newly weds!)

 

[Stampede]

Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement everybody!

@shakaho: Unfortunately my backyard is one gigantic gutter. It's long, downward sloping, and V shaped so that all water rolls down and into the woods behind the house. The pond was dug in a pretty good spot considering, the owner just never accounted for all of the water flowing straight at it over the years.

I had a landscape guy come out and take a look last night, and it seems that nothing is out of the realm of possibility as far as a dig is concerned, so I'm just going to go at it. Now that I know my thinking wasn't far off I'm going to really start sketching up some plans to get this project moving for next spring.

It seems to me that the only way I'm going to be able to account for the erosion inevitability is to build a retaining wall and somehow divert the flow around the pond instead of straight at it. Once I get some plans and sketches together I will post them here and see what happens....Thanks again everyone!

 

[DrDave]

How about a photo of the downhill view so we can visualize better your geography?