New Mexico Wildlife Pond

[GBBUDD]

I'm having a hard time making out the edges of the bog . It looks like there's no definition to the ends. Maybe it's just my eyes.

 

[Rashad]

I'm having a hard time making out the edges of the bog . It looks like there's no definition to the ends. Maybe it's just my eyes.

There’s a slope going up to a 1 foot retaining wall that’s covered with excess liner at the moment so it’s not just your eyes! The only area I’m a bit concerned about is the bottom right in the pic. Might add a spur to add a little circulation there.

 

[Rashad]

Okay, more waterfall advice. The guy I bought my rocks from offered me two gigantic ones and to place them for me for a reasonable price so I figured why not. He's coming back tomorrow to move this one a bit and unload the 2nd one. I'm planning to use them as "framing rocks so have one a bit to the left of the spillway and then the other to the right, and then smaller rocks in between and coming forward more to add some 3 dimensionality. Does that seem right? Anyone have a great YouTube video on placing framing rocks? Or should I take this big one and put it in the middle for the water to cascade down onto and sort of pool a bit before stepping down into the water? It's about 14 inches from the water line to where the bog cascades into the pond.

 

[combatwombat]

Watch pretty much any Team Aquascape video on Youtube and you'll get lots of good advice about setting waterfall stones to look natural. In general: 2 large framing boulders and a spill stone wedged behind them. That's generally how nature does it. But nature breaks those rules all the time, so there are lots of ways to do it.

Just don't let your labor go home until you like how it's sitting. I think you'll know pretty quickly if it looks "right."

14" is actually enough space to do 2-3 drops at different angles if you want to. Just need enough horizontal space.

 

[Rashad]

Plumbing finished and tested! Getting relatively even flow from all the slots in the pvc so I think I’m good to bury it, and the intake bay seems to have sufficient flow to work as designed. For future reference, I started the slots 6 inches apart, then gradually went down to 4 inches, and in the very farthest section every 2-3 inches or so and that seemed to have worked well.

So now just finish rocking, edges, cutting the liner and underlayment, capping the retaining wall, shoveling 4 cubic yards of gravel and planting!

 

[cas]

my experience was; build it, rebuild it, build it again, rebuild it again, rinse wash repeat

It's nice to hear someone else builds like I do.

 

[brokensword]

It's nice to hear someone else builds like I do.

well, Cas, it isn't like I plan it that way but once I see a flaw, it'll gnaw at me until I just HAVE to do something about it. And truth to tell, this is my first pond and I didn't do any youtube vids back then. I used to have a diy weir that was a piece of pvc with holes and that sort of made me do and redo a lot as it never poured the way I thought it should. And 'hiding' it was a pain. Then of course, I had lights behind each waterfall shelf and that too, was a pita, trying to find a position where I didn't see the actual bulb and the light wasn't screaming at me in the night. With all that, I'd have to tweak and eventually, got rid of both diy pvc weir and the lights. It made the waterfall a lot easier now to fix. By year 7, I think I got it down!

But yeah, nice to have build buddies that are perfectionists. That IS what you meant, right?

 

[Rashad]

Dry fitting the retaining wall caps for the bog before cutting the liner and finishing the gravel. Plan is to have the liner tucked under the caps and then using landscape glue to glue the other half of the cap directly to the wall. Should I use waterfall foam to stick the liner directly to the wall caps as well?

 

[combatwombat]

Looks good! Probably no need to adhere the liner to the caps. If you get any settling, having it free will allow it to self-adjust rather than tear.

 

[Rashad]

Looks good! Probably no need to adhere the liner to the caps. If you get any settling, having it free will allow it to self-adjust rather than tear.

I’m leaving a bit of slack already but that’s a good point. Thanks!

 

[Rashad]

This little guy just hopped over next to me while I was working on the pond. Seemed like they were saying “hurry up already!”

 

[Rashad]

The good news is I have a functioning pond and waterfall! Not near done edging or covering the liner. The bad news is I didn’t make my spillway deep enough so if I use the full force of the pump through the bog water starts leaking out the sides. Fortunately I sort of foresaw this so if I turn down the ball valve it all works and doesn’t leak. But then I don’t have enough flow to make the intake bay work well. So I need to add a tee and have some water return to the pond before the bog. I should have figured I would need it but I guess I got a bit cocky. Lesson learned! Final water level will be about 3-4 inches higher than here, just wanted to make sure it would work first. going to drain all this water anyway since it’s filled with gunk.

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[combatwombat]

Congrats on the progress! Maybe toss your video on Youtube? Otherwise we have download it to view it. You can set it to unlisted if you don't want others to find it.

If you're getting leaks at full flow, why not just build up your spillway edge a bit more? Are you out of liner?

 

[Rashad]

Congrats on the progress! Maybe toss your video on Youtube? Otherwise we have download it to view it. You can set it to unlisted if you don't want others to find it.

If you're getting leaks at full flow, why not just build up your spillway edge a bit more? Are you out of liner?

So the problem is it’s leaking out the back of the bog retaining wall. I thought I did a full flow test before I cut the liner and capped it but apparently I didn’t run it long enough because as you run it longer back pressure builds up and the water starts creeping up the sides. I could knock off all the wall caps on the bog and put the liner vertically instead of tucked under the caps and that would work but I figure a lower flow bog is probably better for dwell time anyway. The other option down the road is to cut the liner horizontally across the waterfall, flip it up, deepen the spillway and then seam it back together or even just adding an overlap piece would probably work since the overlap would be above the water level. Hmm maybe I should just do that now. Bleh.

 

[Rashad]

Updated video link.

I guess direct exporting from photos to YouTube isn't the way to go resolution wise, but you guys get the idea.