Need advice: sleeper pond with viewing window

[teckpham]

dayum; if you're doing all that, why not put in a VIEWING window in the cubby house floor and connect the storage to the pond, giving the fish a place to both hide and stay warmer!! And of course, give YOU an interesting and different view of your pond!


I like!



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Hahaha, I did think of that. To do that, I would have to use concrete blocks for side walls and change the cubby house's structure to steel. The toughten glasses would have to be 3 x 10mm laminated. That would blew my budget out of the water lol

 

[GBBUDD]

You have the idea but i would lean towards a little more like this with this design you can always tighten more if leaking yours does not have that option from what i see

 

[teckpham]

You have the idea but i would lean towards a little more like this with this design you can always tighten more if leaking yours does not have that option from what i see

Yes, that design is definitely super strong.

From what I am trying to do, there are only a couple of places that the water can go through.

A large amount of pressure pushing on the glass sandwiches the liner to the window frame will make it unlike to leak as long as my frame holding its shape (hopefully).

I am capping it with angled aluminum. There will be silicone at those weak points.

From Youtube, some people just relied on the silicone and the force of the water to hold it in place.

My worry is how well the silicone will stick?

 

[GBBUDD]

The best design will not rely on silicone or any caulking to stick but for pressure squeezing these materials tight . You never want any hard item touching the glass. Always leave expansion gaps so when going from summer to winter the glass can expand and contract without any sticking

 

[teckpham]

Window frame is in place and concrete base is setting.

 

[teckpham]

Been busy with work, so very slow progress on the pond.

Most area have at least 2 layers of underlay.

Got some water in it to help with removing wringles and folding of the edges. I am planning to fill it up to just below the windows frame before I'm starting to cut the liner for the windows. This should help with avoid stretching the liner bonding to the windows if I filled it after and not have enough slack in it.

The pond doesn't look good without the windows I think

Hopefully, the windows will go in next weekend.

 

[teckpham]

I had a hard time finding something like the bulkhead to connect the bog to the pond. They are either too small or doesn't support the 50mm thickness of the sleepers. I found some 65mm pipe type that can support 50mm thickness, but they are like $70 each.

I ended up making my own from some cheap parts, using gutter down pipe, acylic sheet and some stainless bolts.

The same thing for the water spillway into the cistern as well.

 

[combatwombat]

Can you share more details about these DIY bulkheads? How are they water tight? The liner goes under the acrylic panel, right? Is this above water level?

 

[teckpham]

They are at the water surface level. The acrylic panels on each side will squeezed the liners to the sleeper. With the help of silicone and by tightening the nuts and bolts, I hope it will do the job.

I will post some pictures of it when I get home today.

 

[teckpham]

My testing one. Since it is only at the water surface, I don't think it needs to be really well designed?

Silicone under the acrylic and around the pipe.

I think I will have to insert a piece of acrylic in the middle to stop the bowing.

 

[brokensword]

My testing one. Since it is only at the water surface, I don't think it needs to be really well designed?

Silicone under the acrylic and around the pipe.
View attachment 144568View attachment 144569
I think I will have to insert a piece of acrylic in the middle to stop the bowing.

from some of my own 'watertight' experiments, I found silicone will 'stick' to pvc but not exactly make it watertight. If you scuff the plastic, it'll hold better (supposedly; am still experimenting). That is, it DOES adhere but you can peel it off pretty easily after it sets up. There doesn't seem to be a lot of great options for this, though there are some pvc-friendly epoxies (I haven't tried those as I need to be able to get the seal off and the epoxies look to be permanent). That said, imo, it should work but just pay attention if you ever have a leak, check at the silicone seal first.

You may be able to just put silicone in the bowed openings, esp the top. Did you silicone the pvc gutter to the wood? Doesn't look like it. Also, the wood, esp if it gets wet, is going to swell. And then you'll have contraction when it heats and/or dries out. Not sure how much of either you'll get, but it's something else to watch for. Were it mine, I think I'd have put the liner all the way through to keep the wood away from any splash but rain is going to get at it anyway, so just realize you'll get some expansion/contraction just because it's wood.

 

[Ronfire]

I have found silicone is good between 2 compressed surfaces but not to good for bonding thinks together.

 

[teckpham]

from some of my own 'watertight' experiments, I found silicone will 'stick' to pvc but not exactly make it watertight. If you scuff the plastic, it'll hold better (supposedly; am still experimenting). That is, it DOES adhere but you can peel it off pretty easily after it sets up. There doesn't seem to be a lot of great options for this, though there are some pvc-friendly epoxies (I haven't tried those as I need to be able to get the seal off and the epoxies look to be permanent). That said, imo, it should work but just pay attention if you ever have a leak, check at the silicone seal first.

You may be able to just put silicone in the bowed openings, esp the top. Did you silicone the pvc gutter to the wood? Doesn't look like it. Also, the wood, esp if it gets wet, is going to swell. And then you'll have contraction when it heats and/or dries out. Not sure how much of either you'll get, but it's something else to watch for. Were it mine, I think I'd have put the liner all the way through to keep the wood away from any splash but rain is going to get at it anyway, so just realize you'll get some expansion/contraction just because it's wood.

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Thank you for the feedback and suggestion.

For the swelling issue, I will give the PVC a bit of room and fill the void with the sealant I have then. The wood doesn't expose to the weather at all as it is covered by the liner and a piece of decking wood will be on top of that. It will still have some temperature changes through out the day thought.

I have bought some of this sealants: Idealseal MS290 MS Polymer Sealant. Just haven't have time to try it out yet. I won't be installing these things until I have the windows installed and not leaking. Need to fill the water close to it first before the installation. Definitely don't want any liner stretch around it.

 

[teckpham]

I have found silicone is good between 2 compressed surfaces but not to good for bonding thinks together.

Yes, I found that out when I did my first pond. I was trying to seal the spillway design like I had posted. It didn't stick, but the compression does the trick.

 

[Lisak1]

This will be amazing when it's finished! Makes me extremely nervous to think about, but you sure seem to understand all the challenges and have the skills to do the work!

@GBBUDD posted the Aquascape video of their indoor pond with a viewing window. I've seen it and it is amazing... however it did fail and had to be rebuilt. I don't know if they posted a video about the rebuild and what they learned or not.