Good morning! Thanks, everyone!
Here is a little before-breakfast info:
My parents are in rural Illinois - in their 80s - both with some health difficulties. My Dad's greatest pleasure is his yard. He loves being outside. I worry sometimes that his determination and stubbornness outweigh his physical abilities -- this is important because I need to make sure this pond is a very manageable size. He will be maintaining it all alone, with no-one to help.
Backstory - my Dad loves seeing pictures of my pond and he got a bee in his bonnet to have his own water feature. A couple of summers ago, my sons, husband, and I made a summer trip to help build him a little water feature, using materials he had acquired. We only had 3 days, because we were on our way up to see other family.
I knew there were problems, right from the start. He wanted to use the stuff he had gathered and it wasn't ideal. There was no time to order anything different, so we had to make do with what what he had. He had a plastic, pre-formed pond basin (not ideal.) I brought scraps of liner for a little waterfall. He had a cool, dragon fountain he wanted to use for the start of the waterfall. Small pump. Very cool rocks, full of holes, like Swiss cheese. Neat -- but not good for directing water flow.
When we were there, 1 1/2 days of it was torrential rain. The rest of the time was insanely hot and humid. One son threw his back out. The pond build gods were not smiling on us. We kept plugging along, though.
We had the pre-formed pond all level, then someone got a little too excited about shooting water underneath to sink the sand down. I think that was one of the first places we started having trouble. When we started building a little waterfall from the dragon fountain, I sat rocks there, to disguise the edge. I believe that made the back edge of the pond sink down below level a little bit. It has leaked ever since.
There is no real filtration. He gets lots of algae.
The dragon as a source of the flowing water isn't great. He is running the pump with solar power. He does have batteries, to extend the energy and fountain time -- but we all know a pond should run 24/7. My Mom is worried about the power bill, so that's part of the reason why he insisted on using solar.
He really wants it for the new and improved pond, too.
I will insert some photos of the water feature, in the planning stages and through the build - then as it is.