inherited a pond with our new house - What to do? What to do?

[Dave 54]

If it proves to be more trouble than it's worth to tear it down, it stays.

It does provide shade and I could drill holes in it to drain from the grow beds, camouflaging the pipes.

If your using any type of fertilizer on your grow beds I wouldnt to us it takes away from the overall effect of the pond , you could perhaps move it to one end so that your fish have a bolt hole to dart under if Mr Heron makes an appearance .

Dave

 

[JetSmooth]

That's the beauty of aquaponics. Needs no fertilizer other than the fish waste!

 

[max384]

Thanks! Got some photos. I added the general dimensions to one of them.
View attachment 70468 View attachment 70472 View attachment 70473

Cool deck pond! I like it!

 

[JetSmooth]

Update: So I filled the pond and let the filters run for a day or so. We thought we had a leak because I topped off the pond and it lost 18 inches overnight. I checked for holes at the low water line and found none. I slowly added water a few inches an hour and it held. I'm suspecting I filled too quickly and kicked off some liner capillary loss. There are several corners with folds I'll have to watch out for.

This weekend, we took my son to get some comets (six) and some mosquitofish (9). He's enjoyed feeding them. They seem happy.

I tested the water and the levels were what I'd expect for a brand new pond. I'll check again this evening. Do I need to check daily (twice daily?) to be able to watch the first nitrogen cycle? I'm creating a spreadsheet on my phone (iphone with Numbers) to capture and plot the curves.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Update: So I filled the pond and let the filters run for a day or so. We thought we had a leak because I topped off the pond and it lost 18 inches overnight. I checked for holes at the low water line and found none. I slowly added water a few inches an hour and it held. I'm suspecting I filled too quickly and kicked off some liner capillary loss. There are several corners with folds I'll have to watch out for.

This weekend, we took my son to get some comets (six) and some mosquitofish (9). He's enjoyed feeding them. They seem happy.

I tested the water and the levels were what I'd expect for a brand new pond. I'll check again this evening. Do I need to check daily (twice daily?) to be able to watch the first nitrogen cycle? I'm creating a spreadsheet on my phone (iphone with Numbers) to capture and plot the curves.

Checking the water twice daily seems a bit excessive, however it won't hurt anything other than you'll run out of reagent solution fairly quickly.
Not sure how old your son is, but it is not unusual for children to overfeed fish which creates extra waste from uneaten food and that can create higher levels of ammonia faster than actual fish waste. Make sure your son understands that if he's old enough.
You already figured out about the possibility of capillary or siphoning going on in the folds of the liner, so you are way ahead of the game. And you are right, those wrinkles usually start siphoning when you over fill the pond and start the flow, and it can carry on down as far as the sealed wrinkles reach. The trick is to not overfill and get the siphoning action started.
I'd get rid of the bridge too, especially if it goes nowhere. It's a small pond and I'd want as much of it exposed as possible.

 

[JetSmooth]

My son is four. We're helping him feed the fish. It's flaked food and we're letting him put in one pinch.

The fish aren't really coming up to eat it, though. Looks like they're letting it sink and getting it as it falls.

I'm torn on the bridge. It seems to be where the fish are congregating. But if the concern is too much shade leading to algae, it'll probably have to come out.

 

[Nepen]

It's the other way around. Shade leading to less algae. I only have the little algae on my liner (and only early spring, I dont even have that now), never have pea soup water because my pond is in shade the whole day.

 

[shakaho]

If you would give the inside lengths and how much of the width is one foot deep and how much is 2 feet deep, I could calculate the volume for you. My rough calculation is about 360 gallons.

Aquaponics is a great idea and is very popular around here. The aquaponics systems I know use mechanical filtration and biofiltration before the grow beds. You want the plant nutrients in clean water or your beds will get fouled with muck.

 

[DrCase]

You got a nice looking pond to start with

 

[mtpond]

Nice pond.

 

[JetSmooth]

If you would give the inside lengths and how much of the width is one foot deep and how much is 2 feet deep, I could calculate the volume for you. My rough calculation is about 360 gallons.

Aquaponics is a great idea and is very popular around here. The aquaponics systems I know use mechanical filtration and biofiltration before the grow beds. You want the plant nutrients in clean water or your beds will get fouled with muck.

I'll grab those measurements tonight. Thanks.

Yeah, the submersible filter box the previous owners left behind has two big black "scrubby pads" in it. I showed photos of it to a guy at the fish place and he said they should be good for the season. For now, I have the hose from it looping up over the bridge and going back into the pond for aeration. The water coming out is very clear. No debris. So I figure I'll keep the filter in the bottom in front of the grow beds.

 

[Nepen]

How's the pond doing?

 

[JetSmooth]

How's the pond doing?

It's going really well. Thanks for asking.

We added another five small comets, for a total of eleven. One didn't make it after a few days, but the rest seem to be thriving.

A few weeks in, the water got pretty murky and green from algae. Ph shot up a bit also, to 8.0. I built a flower pot filter with lava rock and added three water hyacinths. The water cleared up and the Ph came back under control. Now the hyacinths are spreading and turning a bit yellow and starting for nutirents. I think they're too aggressive so I'll thin them back.

I'm not checking the water chemistry as consistently as I would have liked, to watch the nutrogen cycle. I think I've hit a bit of an equilibrium. Though my water test kit didn't come with nitrate solution, so I haven't been monitoring that. Is it that critical as long as the nitrites aren't spiking and the plants seem healthy?

I really need to get building the brow beds for some late-summer plantings.

 

[sissy]

ph at 8 is not really high .I keep mine around there .Use crushed oyster shells to stabilize ph .I got my rebuilt pond ph up to 8 and then added 8 big bags of crushed oyster shells

 

[sissy]

I use dollar store laundry bags