Newb rebuilding an old pond

[sparau]

Hi everyone,

Our 30 year old house and garden had a nice ring of rocks in the front yard that at some point during 15 years of being rented some houso (australian term for the work shy) had filled with tyres and rubble... After some fun digging (roots, tyres and concrete rubble really are entertaining to remove!) it revealed as suspected the remnants of a pond.

I have done some searching on here at some awesome ponds, rebuilds (only found 1 a bit like ours) and methods of hiding liners and I think I have narrowed the options.

Aim:
- green tree frog pond with some native blue eyes.
- bog in upper right ring of little rocks trickling into main pond.
- shallower at right side deepening to 50cm at left of picture for the pump/filter.
- concrete in extra rocks between gaps and on top of lower points to make a comfortable sitting position and keep out cane toads (they don't jump very well).

Existing "pondish" items:
- size, the large (relative) ring is ~6' across
- the large rocks are all firmly concreted in place with a 3" ring of concrete on the out side and concrete underneath
- rubble of concrete is all that's left of the base, no reo was used
- the big paperbark has moved the level of the garden up by 1-2' and demolished the base and i suspect some of the concrete ring holding the rocks.

Rebuild methods:

1. Start again. Sledgehammer X 10 hours, adze and shovel X 15 hours, lay liner and refit rocks.
2. Concrete with heaps of reo. Dig out all dirt and roots between the rocks back to existing concrete, blast with high pressure hose, tie circle ring of reo to reo base and concrete the inside.
3. Fit liner. This is by far the easiest in muscle terms but I can't think of a nice way of having the water high enough and retain the nice smooth rocks. I did look at people using waterfall foam with dirt and fake rock stuff but I imagine having problems maintaining both, let alone it wouldn't look as good.

Conclusion:
It really seems to me option 1 is the only long term solution, the only thing that makes me want to keep the existing rock and concrete is that it is ~30 years old and very well stabilised at this point. I am concerned that movement if I reset the large rocks will cause the smaller rocks I concrete on top to crack and fall off.

As a newb I welcome any thoughts.

Thanks in advance.
Shane

PS: everyone likes photos so I thought I'd add one of our small tropical fish tank, as you can see I have learned the lesson that many plants makes fish keeping easy !
The sculpture with the wood is a mini model of the Ta Prohm temple in Cambodia we visited I made out of clay

 

[sissy]

Welcome and sounds like you are already having fun and great looking tank .At first I thought it was a rain forest

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome!

 

[sparau]

Welcome and sounds like you are already having fun and great looking tank .At first I thought it was a rain forest

Thanks, yes it's a pretty tank and the great benefit of all the plants and ~50 odd cherry shrimp is that while I only do 1/3 water change/filter clean every 2 months we get fish that live to near life expectancy!

Currently 8 y.o. 2 x glass cats, 2 x headlight tetra. 4 x 5 y.o. cory's. 6 y.o. albino catfish.

If it wasn't for buying neon tetras and rummy nose and getting white spot I'd have a lot more oldies

 

[sparau]

Ok, apologies for asking and then answering my own question but it wouldn't be likely to build a raft slab/pond with the existing rocks in place, tie it together and expect they won't move separately when the massive paperbark next to it grows further so I'm going to rip it all out and go with the flexible liner, lift large existing rocks up as seats.

I'm discounting option 3, liner into existing pond since it simply won't look as good and be fiddly/problematic over time.

Perhaps this better as an intro thread and I'll post up pics of the build

 

[Dave 54]

Welcome to the forum sarau build your pond to a plan otherwise it could all go tits up and you'd have to start again .
What are you planning on keeping in your pond , I would suggest koi but there are only two states in Austrailia that havent banned koi , so goldfish would be your next best option .

Dave

 

[sparau]

The pond is aimed mostly at green tree frogs so I was thinking just some little native blue eyes would be good to ensure no mosquito explosions while still giving the tadpoles a chance.

 

[Big Lou]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[cas]

Welcome. I love your tank! Keep us posted on your pond build.

 

[Alpravinosh]

Welcome sounds like a great plan and for a really good cause. Extremely beautiful tank. If the pond will turn up anything like that it would be simply amazing. But I have a single suggestion. Instead of letting the water trickle in from the bog filter why don't you have the bog filter set a bit back with a stream connecting the two, and also make the waterfall abit higher so that there is a louder audio and the wildlife will be more attracted to come over. Just a suggestion though, thank you.

 

[sparau]

Good suggestion, thanks.

I had been thinking of keeping it compact since it will be easier to wall off the damn cane toads, the fat blobs are useless at jumping and anything ~1' high usually beats them.

Perhaps a stone step over the stream just before the waterfall into main pond, hide a net underneath to keep them out, it would also act as a skimmer to keep leaves from floating down the stream.

I'm liking that idea since the lay of the land perfectly fits a stream.

Cheers

 

[mgmine]

I doubt that it would take much to rip the old pond out, I'm guessing 2 hours with a demolition hammer. Once out you can build what ever you want. As with any remolding project it is ofter much easier to start from scratch than to try to tie into an existing structure.