I've been reading this forum for a while to research and pick up on some good advice while I was planning on building a pond in my back yard. Now that the pond is 'finished' I made an account to say hello and show off!
The pond itself is roughly 13' across with an irregular round shape and ~2' at it's deepest. Feeding into the pond is a ~20' stream with multiple cascading waterfalls that starts in a small bog.
I spent a couple years planning this out, and purchased the house with the intention of putting in a water feature. Initial work started back in March this year with layout for the pond and fire pit area:
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All the digging I did by hand:
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The soil in my yard is highly compacted sandy/rocky clay. It was like digging through soft concrete. At a certain point I did give in and bought a roto hammer with a clay spade bit to finish off the job.
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I then was finally able to start installing the liner and rocking everything in. I went with a HDRPE liner due to cost and weight. It was super easy to work with in my opinion. The right side of the pond has a small intake bay with a single large aquablock in it and a 7 gallon bucket as a pump vault. The pump is a 4000gph connected to a 2' line that I attached to a basic control system to adjust the flow rate.
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Output of the pump goes into a 5 gallon bucket with three 2' lines coming out to feed the bottom of the bog. I went with this design to eliminate backflow when the pump is shut off as well as provide a spot for a clean out pump in the bog itself.
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It's been running for a few weeks now. As of last weekend I've planted in the pond, stream, and bog. Along with eliminating most of the major leaks from the stream. It's still loosing roughly 2-4gph by my calculations, but not bad for my first time and having cut down the liner so narrow along the watercourse.
I'll have to get some better pictures later, as most of the overall photos still have cloudy water from construction. The water is crystal clear now though and I'm hoping it stays that way! I introduced a few (~17) small goldfish into the pond this week as well. As of this morning most of them.either seem to be hiding in the rocks and fish cave, or have already been eaten by something. It's hard to tell. I love the way it all came together, and doing all the work by hand was extremely rewarding!
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