NEWBIE to Pond Life - Can use all the help I can get!

[Bentleyrose8]

Good evening,

I live in South West, Florida near Fort Myers. My partner and I recently bought this house and discovered this pond on the property. The last owners filled it in with dirt and put astro turf on it to make a place for their dogs to go to the bathroom. . So we dug up all the dirt and found this(see image #1). So we went to Home Depot and rented a jack hammer and proceeded to do this. (See images 2-6). Now, this is what it looks like... (see image #7)

The pond measures approximately
Wider Diameter: 82 inches
Shallow End Depth: 13 inches
Narrow Diameter: 46 inches
Deep end: 20 inches
Overall Length: 18 ft

I used an online pond calculator (www.btlliners.com) to calculate it is approximately 900 gallons.

Now, my questions...

1. We want to turn this into a turtle/frog/fish pond with lots of live plants. With that being said, what are my different options for substrates? Most importantly, the cheapest methods but still do a great job with allowing us to plant live plants? I have done some research from buying expensive plant substrate products to reading about organic soil and pea gravel. Just not sure which way(s) would be most cost effective as I have a large surface area I need to cover and do not want learn the hard way this time! LOL

2. I have 2x 2200 GPH pumps and 1x 1700 GPH pump, will this be enough to properly circulate the pond? 1x 2200 GPH pump will be feeding a waterfall feature and a spitting frog. 1x 1700 GPH pump will be feeding the fountain feature and the other 2200 GPH pump will have a filter attached to the intake and it will feed another waterfall at the other end of the pond. Does this sound sufficient?

3. With regards to turtles, frogs, fish and live plants... what breeds/species/types are recommended for this area and this size pond? (I understand that there is the risk of unwanted guests showing up and eating our pond friends so we installed a low voltage electric fence around the property and I installed the canopy over half of the pond. We will do our best to keep critters at bay.)

4. What is the best mixture for the water? I have read that rain water is the best, is this true? I can easily provide it with plenty of rain water living in SWFL but at times of no rain... should I substitute with straight well water from the ground or water that has gone through the water softener?

Any other recommendations would be very much welcomed! Thank you all so much!

 

[addy1]

Nice pond!

Welcome to the forum!

A lot of us use pure clay kitty litter in pots for plants. I didn't introduce any critters they came on their own, frogs, snakes etc. We have wild land turtles that wander through.

 

[j.w]

and welcome @Bentleyrose8
There are people here who have turtle ponds that can help you. As for the frogs and etc. they all will arrive on their own other than the fish. I like Shubunkin goldfish myself. They are quite colorful kinda like small koi. I have a high up net on posts to protect my fish from predators. If you don't cover it then birds can fly and swoop in and grab a fish.
I'll leave the Florida peeps to advise you on what plants will grow nicely for you there. Since it's so warm there you will have lots to choose from!

 

[rubyduby]

Welcome to the forum Bentleyrose8...First let me say that I hope that you have recovered from Ian and did not sustain too much damage!..I live in Sarasota and can give you some ponding tips...My pond is also 900 gallons and I have shubunkin goldfish (about 20 now, they multiply fast, I started with 4) I also have one yellow bellied slider turtle, about 15 Japanese Trap Door snails, lots of plants and an Aquascape Biofalls and skimmer....I am afraid that your pond is too shallow for our Florida sun and heat...Mine is 30" deep with a fish cave at the very bottom so that my fish can hide from predators (I have three Giant Egrets that visit my pond every day and so far they have not taken one fish because of the cave) If I were you, I would look into building up the sides so that you have more depth...SarahT on this forum lives in Florida and has built up the sides of her pond to get depth so that the water does not heat up too much. She will probably chime in with some advice as she helped me when I first moved here...Lily pads will help shade the pond and plenty of plants will help keep the algae at bay but like I said, at that depth I think it will be very hard to keep wildlife alive and it will probably be an ongoing battle with algae...I also add an aerator during the summer months and so far so good. My water has remained crystal clear so far and my pond is one year old...I should add that my pond is located under a HUGE live oak so it is shaded most of the day which helps a lot (but of course it is a trade off with all of the leaves...I am forever skimming but hey, I'm retired

 

[Bentleyrose8]

Welcome to the forum Bentleyrose8...First let me say that I hope that you have recovered from Ian and did not sustain too much damage!..I live in Sarasota and can give you some ponding tips...My pond is also 900 gallons and I have shubunkin goldfish (about 20 now, they multiply fast, I started with 4) I also have one yellow bellied slider turtle, about 15 Japanese Trap Door snails, lots of plants and an Aquascape Biofalls and skimmer....I am afraid that your pond is too shallow for our Florida sun and heat...Mine is 30" deep with a fish cave at the very bottom so that my fish can hide from predators (I have three Giant Egrets that visit my pond every day and so far they have not taken one fish because of the cave) If I were you, I would look into building up the sides so that you have more depth...SarahT on this forum lives in Florida and has built up the sides of her pond to get depth so that the water does not heat up too much. She will probably chime in with some advice as she helped me when I first moved here...Lily pads will help shade the pond and plenty of plants will help keep the algae at bay but like I said, at that depth I think it will be very hard to keep wildlife alive and it will probably be an ongoing battle with algae...I also add an aerator during the summer months and so far so good. My water has remained crystal clear so far and my pond is one year old...I should add that my pond is located under a HUGE live oak so it is shaded most of the day which helps a lot (but of course it is a trade off with all of the leaves...I am forever skimming but hey, I'm retired

Thank you very much! We had minimal damage from the storm, thankfully!
Thank you so much for all of the useful information. I really appreciate it.

 

[Mgessert]

I wonder if you could put a bog with plants and filtration in the shallow end, build a barrier, then have a few fish in the deep end. My pond in north FL is only 20” deep and the Goldie’s do fine. I do shade half of it in the summer though.

 

[Bentleyrose8]

I wonder if you could put a bog with plants and filtration in the shallow end, build a barrier, then have a few fish in the deep end. My pond in north FL is only 20” deep and the Goldie’s do fine. I do shade half of it in the summer though.

What’s a bog?

 

[addy1]

Bog building, also called upflow filter, eco filter, wetland filter

I was asked to start a thread on how to build a bog. This is my rendition on bog building 101............. Building a bog: Before you decide to build a bog, you need to know what you want its primary purpose to be. Total pond filtration bog filtration combined with another filter. If you...

www.gardenpondforum.com

Here is a thread about it

 

[Bentleyrose8]

Good evening,

I live in South West, Florida near Fort Myers. The last owners filled it in with dirt and put astro turf on it to make a place for their dogs to go to the bathroom. . So we dug up all the dirt and found this(see image #1). So we went to Home Depot and rented a jack hammer and proceeded to do this. (See images 2-6). Now, this is what it looks like... (see image #7)

The pond measures approximately
Wider Diameter: 82 inches
Shallow End Depth: 13 inches
Narrow Diameter: 46 inches
Deep end: 20 inches
Overall Length: 18 ft

I used an online pond calculator (www.btlliners.com) to calculate it is approximately 900 gallons.

Now, my questions...

1. We want to turn this into a turtle/frog/fish pond with lots of live plants. With that being said, what are my different options for substrates? Most importantly, the cheapest methods but still do a great job with allowing us to plant live plants? I have done some research from buying expensive plant substrate products to reading about organic soil and pea gravel. Just not sure which way(s) would be most cost effective as I have a large surface area I need to cover and do not want learn the hard way this time! LOL

2. I have 2x 2200 GPH pumps and 1x 1700 GPH pump, will this be enough to properly circulate the pond? 1x 2200 GPH pump will be feeding a waterfall feature and a spitting frog. 1x 1700 GPH pump will be feeding the fountain feature and the other 2200 GPH pump will have a filter attached to the intake and it will feed another waterfall at the other end of the pond. Does this sound sufficient?

3. With regards to turtles, frogs, fish and live plants... what breeds/species/types are recommended for this area and this size pond? (I understand that there is the risk of unwanted guests showing up and eating our pond friends so we installed a low voltage electric fence around the property and I installed the canopy over half of the pond. We will do our best to keep critters at bay.)

4. What is the best mixture for the water? I have read that rain water is the best, is this true? I can easily provide it with plenty of rain water living in SWFL but at times of no rain... should I substitute with straight well water from the ground or water that has gone through the water softener?

Any other recommendations would be very much welcomed! Thank you all so much!