New pond.. basically my first attempt.

[brc]

Here's a view of the whole area today. I placed the last couple of stones on the wall today, but didn't get too much further due to my entire body being sore from yesterday!

Parts of the patio came up to accommodate the wall, and the end is going to be removed for the stream, so I will be able to use those pavers to add more up against the pond. I still need to buy more of those as well, to make the patio a good bit bigger.

Also, the circle of stone will be almost flush with the ground at the pond edge, so it will look a lot different from what's shown. Still, it gives an idea of where things will be.

The stream is going to go alongside the patio, with the filter-falls box going probably right behind the left end of the wall. I'm not sure what will be behind the wall yet. I know the dirt from the pond will go there, but I could either plant stuff up there, or make some kind of rock garden, or even have more pavers there.

 

[sissy]

I moved 5 truckloads of stone up on my hill out front and the trucks were any where from 17 to 19 ton a piece.They knock you in the butt

 

[Pondinginsocal]

We have similar construction in our pond with the edging rocks sitting on a shelf in the water. We have one extra large rock that has an extra layer of liner under it to protect the main liner, but none of the other rocks have extra liner. We did put a layer of sand under the liner to help protect the liner. The water level in the pond is about 3-4" below ground level, but outside the pond edges are raised above ground level to prevent run off getting in the pond, we also have french drains around the pond that work very well. The pond is 10 years old with no problem having the rocks in the water.
Carol

 

[CometKeith]

brc, good luck with your pond. The way your rocks look remind me of another famous rock formation!

 

[brc]

I dug the hole today!

I got lucky too.. about a foot below the surface, the digging got really easy. I hit this funky white clay-ish stuff (that I've never seen before), which was very soft and had zero rocks or roots in it. The hardest part was having to change clothes about 3 times due to the humidity...

So, the hole is almost completely dug. I need to trim down the "shelf" that the edge rocks sit on, and the pond could still expand a little bit, depending on what I see when I lay the liner in it. It's a little on the small side now because I didn't want to take the risk of coming up short on liner and having to put dirt back in.

If the weather is decent tomorrow, I could get as far as having the liner in. I'm really hoping that's the case, because if the hole gets filled with water, I don't know how fast it's going to absorb into that clay.

On a related note, would it be bad to fill my pond with rain water? I was thinking, since I have to buy a bunch of PVC drain pipe anyway, I could just temporarily run it from a downspout to the pond and let the next thunderstorm (Tuesday?) fill the thing up. Part of me thinks that can't be a good idea, but at the same time, it seems like it would be pretty convenient?

 

[sissy]

first thing before you put liner in put water in the hole to see how it perks since you said water was flooding your yard you sure don't want your liner floating up on you if water gets behind it and does not seep into the soil

 

[brc]

The yard does flood (sort of) in the winter.. I'm waiting for a contractor to come and run a drain line to that part of the yard. Then, I will add French drains and surface drains in that general area, to guarantee that the water table stays well below the pond's water line. As long as the water table is below the water level in the pond, the liner can't move. Having surface water run in from under the patio could be a problem, but there will be drains right there specifically to catch that -- kind of underground surface drains?

I tried pouring water into the hole (since I was a little worried about that), and it did absorb into that white clay stuff -- not very fast, but it does disappear.

 

[sissy]

I think it is better to wait until after he is all done and you can see what happens ,but that is hard to do since you don't know when heavy rains will hit and sure can't wait until winter is over .I know some on here that have the same problem put drains under there ponds .Here they put sways in the ground to lead water to the lowest point since we have clay soil .

 

[brc]

Of course, as soon as I get the hole dug, it has to rain buckets for the next couple days. I came home to find the yard flooded and the pond not filled, but underwater. What a load of crap!

It does demonstrate how critical it is to get that drain line back there. Getting enough rain to actually flood the yard, in summer, is something that only happens once or twice a year, so it's good that it happened before there was liner in there. Also (not quite as big a deal), it gave me an instant picture of how level the whole area around the pond is -- and the ground around the rim is actually level enough that I can just measure from it.

 

[gello22]

[SIZE=10.5pt]moving the boulders[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]I asked for 5 stones around 100lbs since I could move those enough to position them or lift into a wheel barrow. I'm not practically that big 5'9" 215lb engineer that should weigh 170lbs. The smallest stone they gave me weighed noticeably more than my child that weighs over 80lbs. The largest was 3-4 times the size. I ended up using an appliance dolly to get most of the 7 they gave me, down our hill to the back yard. You could use a regular dolly with a ratcheting strap to hold the boulders on. in my case the hard wheels soft ground were a [/SIZE]benefit on the hill since 3 of the rocks weighed more than me.[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]In the pond a used a second layer of liner in the hole area since I knew the process of rolling/prying the stones into place would not be pretty. I had my wife prying up on the boulders with some stacked 2X4s to take up some of the weight while I lifted/twisted/rolled them a few more inches closer to where I wanted them. The one in the center of my falls is over 300lbs and probably took 40 minutes to move 3 feet to where I almost wanted it. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt][/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]have fun/invite a friend :cheerful:[/SIZE]

 

[sissy]

they have rock dolly's you can rent .I bought one use at a house auction for 10 dollars.My heavy rocks I used just an extra piece of liner under each one .You can never under estimate the size of a rock and the shape .rocks zero you 100 ,so guessing you won that one .Glad I was not there to see this .Really glad :cheerful: I was not doing it .Builds muscles you never knew you had .

 

[rebelangel_3733]

gee I cant wait to start moving my rocks (and find another 500 more to boot) I think taking my time with this new pond is helping cuz I keep thinking of new things along the line!! Now am wondering what kind of electrical line to run to it from the garage...and most generally will be in conduit...something for the guys to figure out cuz all I'm good at wiring is a lamp! Any suggestions when it comes to wiring for the pump (s) water features? I will have the main pump, that bubble aireator and this winter a heater. This might come in handy for you too brc! This pond of mine will be about 1900 gallons give or take. Your pond is looking good luv the rocks!

 

[Pondinginsocal]

We added a permanent hose that goes from a sturdy valve underground to the stream, very convenient to run a drip to replace evaporation. Nice not to have to drag a hose around every time I need to add water.

 

[brc]

[SIZE=10.5pt]moving the boulders[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]I asked for 5 stones around 100lbs since I could move those enough to position them or lift into a wheel barrow. I'm not practically that big 5'9" 215lb engineer that should weigh 170lbs. The smallest stone they gave me weighed noticeably more than my child that weighs over 80lbs. The largest was 3-4 times the size. I ended up using an appliance dolly to get most of the 7 they gave me, down our hill to the back yard. You could use a regular dolly with a ratcheting strap to hold the boulders on. in my case the hard wheels soft ground were a [/SIZE]benefit on the hill since 3 of the rocks weighed more than me.[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]In the pond a used a second layer of liner in the hole area since I knew the process of rolling/prying the stones into place would not be pretty. I had my wife prying up on the boulders with some stacked 2X4s to take up some of the weight while I lifted/twisted/rolled them a few more inches closer to where I wanted them. The one in the center of my falls is over 300lbs and probably took 40 minutes to move 3 feet to where I almost wanted it. [/SIZE]


[SIZE=10.5pt]have fun/invite a friend :cheerful:[/SIZE]

Hey I'm an engineer (EE) too..

I finally managed to spend another day on the pond today, and hopefully will tomorrow too. I took the liner out there this morning and set it in the hole, and saw that it was good for about 18 more inches on 2 sides (I was very conservative about how big I initially dug it). So, I did a lot more digging today and expanded the original hole quite a bit.

The liner is in, with landscape fabric underneath, and it's filled up to the level of the shelf where the edge rocks sit. It's not shown in the pic, but I got three of the edge stones onto that shelf as well -- starting with the biggest one. Moving the big rocks is still harder than digging the hole!

The picture kind of makes it look like there's a huge amount of unused liner, but there's really only about a foot or so on each side. I guess there could be a lot more pond there if I had gone with a different design and just had flat rocks at the edges, but the pond is already a little bigger than planned (and the liner was bought to fit it, not the other way around). Also, let's face it -- ponds never look nice at this stage of construction...

The filter-falls I have looks a little undersized. It should make for a pretty impressive flow, given the 2900GPH pump and 2" pipe, but it's hard to picture it being successful at filtering that kind of flow. There will be a tee somewhere in that pipe so I can add more filtration or another waterfall box in the future.

On a semi-related note, the pond was filled from the well instead of the tap. The previous owner switched the house to city water sometime in the 90's, but the well pump was never removed. I've been considering using it for stuff like this, so this was a good test for it. The water came out nice and clear, and it has the capacity to fill a pond!

 

[sissy]

I put in 2 filters and it is much easier having a clear water pond if you over filter it .Great that he left the well it better to have clear fresh water than have to treat city water .Saves money also .I am surprised the pump must be a good one also .Gotta love free clear water from the earth .You could do this it helps really aerate the water ,it is just a sump pump hose I used 10 dollars and a ball valve and a splitter made from a regular pvc T pipe and clamps and has worked for over 3 years now
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