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Like the water falls below the path, that is so neat and beautiful.
We have a "Hole"... the rest... we need Help!
- Thread starter DaveandKris
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sissy
sissy
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you don't have dollar stores there .
sissy
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I found a great place for nice plants floridahill nursery.com and most plats are around 5 dollars and they usually offer pay for shipping for 1 and the rest ship free .I have bought from them and so has my neighbor and the plats come nice and healthy .You can get liriopi it grows great in water and so does dusty millers .I got a couple of elephant ears from florida hill .
j.w
I Love my Goldies
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Love what you've done and cool walkway, falls, pond w/ the rocks and everything! Guess you gotta make sure everything is battened down when you are done or your doggie friend will come back and rearrange it all again 
Thank you all for the very kinds words, they are quite an encourgement to press forward.
Addy, up early this AM, I just found your pond building thread..... EPIC seems to fall short! When Kris gets to read that and see's all the planting on the hill and in the pond.... You two are one in the same, sharing the same passion. How I am going to create planting beds around this big rock, I do not know but I am quite sure its in the planning stage at this point. Just yesterday she stated that the area under the walkway needed some clay dirt and a small drip hose from the waterfall area..... she obviously has a vision but once she see's the pond plants you have put together.... that is both of our vision's in action! My Compliments on your tenacity and efforts! After looking at your bog design, I am starting to think the 275 gallon tank might just as well be filled 2/3 full with pea gravel for the filter media. Just 30 feet down the gulley from the gazebo, I have a dry creek bed that has washed pea sized gravel and coarse sand a good 3 ft deep... sounds like a pretty good filter media thats free for the taking. If I can build a loovered platform a few inches off he bottom of the tank, with the bottom drain and a dropped center section... it might even back flush nicely if I make it a bottom up flow. Thank You for doing that build thread, I learned a great deal from it and only hope we can come anywhere close to what you accomplished with the pond plants and fish!
Yesterday we played, heading up to a favorite Winery in the mountains where they diverted a small trickle of a mountain stream to feed a pond area, a beautiful place to stop, sit and have a glass of wine and watch the trout in the ponds. With our local river now down to a few small puddles and the fish left in them being like a buffet table for the local wildlife..... I think this AM we will go down and net a few small trout and minnows on our dead wood hunt and toss them in our pond. If they can survive this long in these stagnent mud puddles, they at least stand a chance in ours... we will see today. The pond bugs, toads and frogs seem to find the water quality to their liking at this point.... its worth a try.
I started cleaning out under the gazebo to build the platform for the filter tank and made brackets for the 5X10 solar hot water panel. Being as the floor height of the downhill side of the gazebo is near 12 foot high, I have plenty of room to put anything under there. The other advantage is it has a clear view of the southern sky for about 1/2 - 2/3 of the day with the sun at winter heights and only about 1/4 day at summer sun levels. I am not yet sure how I will plumb this into the whole filter affair but as long as it will be out of sight..... why not.
Addy, up early this AM, I just found your pond building thread..... EPIC seems to fall short! When Kris gets to read that and see's all the planting on the hill and in the pond.... You two are one in the same, sharing the same passion. How I am going to create planting beds around this big rock, I do not know but I am quite sure its in the planning stage at this point. Just yesterday she stated that the area under the walkway needed some clay dirt and a small drip hose from the waterfall area..... she obviously has a vision but once she see's the pond plants you have put together.... that is both of our vision's in action! My Compliments on your tenacity and efforts! After looking at your bog design, I am starting to think the 275 gallon tank might just as well be filled 2/3 full with pea gravel for the filter media. Just 30 feet down the gulley from the gazebo, I have a dry creek bed that has washed pea sized gravel and coarse sand a good 3 ft deep... sounds like a pretty good filter media thats free for the taking. If I can build a loovered platform a few inches off he bottom of the tank, with the bottom drain and a dropped center section... it might even back flush nicely if I make it a bottom up flow. Thank You for doing that build thread, I learned a great deal from it and only hope we can come anywhere close to what you accomplished with the pond plants and fish!
Yesterday we played, heading up to a favorite Winery in the mountains where they diverted a small trickle of a mountain stream to feed a pond area, a beautiful place to stop, sit and have a glass of wine and watch the trout in the ponds. With our local river now down to a few small puddles and the fish left in them being like a buffet table for the local wildlife..... I think this AM we will go down and net a few small trout and minnows on our dead wood hunt and toss them in our pond. If they can survive this long in these stagnent mud puddles, they at least stand a chance in ours... we will see today. The pond bugs, toads and frogs seem to find the water quality to their liking at this point.... its worth a try.
I started cleaning out under the gazebo to build the platform for the filter tank and made brackets for the 5X10 solar hot water panel. Being as the floor height of the downhill side of the gazebo is near 12 foot high, I have plenty of room to put anything under there. The other advantage is it has a clear view of the southern sky for about 1/2 - 2/3 of the day with the sun at winter heights and only about 1/4 day at summer sun levels. I am not yet sure how I will plumb this into the whole filter affair but as long as it will be out of sight..... why not.
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I am not sure how your solar panel works, the three I have on my house in arizona cycle water during the night if the temperature drops. ow it needs to drain dry when not running, or it will freeze up and crack during the night.
My slope garden (in the beginning lol) was a lot smaller, it has grown as I have picked up more and more plants, the garden grew in size. No real plan, except we wanted some ever greens, for winter and a ton of flowers. I have moved a few plants as things matured and oppps little too big for that area lol
Now just have one strip of grass near the pond that needs mowing. Still have plenty of grass to mow, just not on that sloped right behind the house yard. The back field is at least flatter.
My slope garden (in the beginning lol) was a lot smaller, it has grown as I have picked up more and more plants, the garden grew in size. No real plan, except we wanted some ever greens, for winter and a ton of flowers. I have moved a few plants as things matured and oppps little too big for that area lol
Now just have one strip of grass near the pond that needs mowing. Still have plenty of grass to mow, just not on that sloped right behind the house yard. The back field is at least flatter.
I plan on just running it constant, in series with the filter pump. In the nighttime the heat of the water in the pond, circulating through the panel, "Should" keep it intact preventing freeze ups. A safer plan, albeit a little more work, is to run copper tubing around the interior of the filter tank and have the solar panel circuit filled with RV antifreeze, the heat then transfered to the filter water by the tubing. Heck, I dont know, I suspect the later would at least have a fail safe where if a leak happened, it wouldnt empty the pond. That will be a work in progress...
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Great, I know my arizona swimming pool panels drain when the pump is off, the hot water ones keep water in them, therefore the need for a temp sensor and circulation.
I hauled a spare panel here from az, we still have not hooked it up, but going to..................eventually, but it will be off during the winter and drained dry.
I hauled a spare panel here from az, we still have not hooked it up, but going to..................eventually, but it will be off during the winter and drained dry.
sissy
sissy
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I used a one inch water line and painted a piece of ply wood back one year in NJ for my big fountain ,the water would go in circles in the pipe attached to the board and the sun would heat up the black plastic pipe with the black piece of plywood behind it to help .I have been thinking of doing it here for winter and just never got around to it .
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The swimming pool solar is black plastic with lots of small tubing running through it. Honey wants to put a tank outside, paint it black, put on the solar panel, and use it during the summer. He slowly gets around to things. Good thing he did not build the pond, it would still be a hole in progress lol!
Upside, downside...... and sideways!
Upside is I got the 275 gallon water tank in a steel cage for the filter, and was able to struggle with it enough to get it in place under the gazabo. As suggested (THANK YOU ALL!) I started gathering filter media as I stumbled upon it. The 275 gallon tank has a 6" top opening and a 2" NPT, gate valved outlet at the bottom. Set where the top is below low water level, it gravity fills to the tank bottom from the pond bottom, exits the top through another 2"NPT fitting over to a 55 gal plastic barrel which houses the pump. Drilling a hole in the bottom of the barrel, the outlet of the large tank was plumbed into the pump tank with a separation plate punched with holes, held the pump a foot off the bottom, sitting on 14" floor scrubber pads.
Trying to make the filter back washable in the large tank, I started filling the tank with large broken up, sharp edged granite chunks that just fit in the top opening. With a single layer of the large rocks covering the bottom, we then progressed to 3" and the down to 3/4" sharp broken up granite, until it was about 20" deep with progressively finer rock. The final filter step in that tank was 5 synthetic swamp cooler water pads that floated up to the top, covering the outlet, with about 20" of clear room between the top and the rocks..... Done enough to try.
Of course, the bottom fitting in the pump barrel leaked and that had to come apart numerous times in an attempt to seal it. In our parts runs we picked up a couple dozen feeder goldfish thinking the toads and water bugs were doing good enough... maybe they too would survive. Lowle's had a 2500 gph pump on clearance so that was picked up for the filter pump.... same price as the 580... soooo, bigger being better....
The bravest of the bunch went swimming to get the valving set up at the pond bottom, (heck no it wasnt me) and the whole affair was plugged in as Kris dashed for the hot tub. No I did not wash all the rock going in the filter tank but we did pay extra to have the tank and barrels power washed very well. It only took a few minutes to wash all the rock and deposit all that dirt into the pond, making semi clear water look like a swamp. Only took one more minute to learn the big pump flowed more than the combined filters, requiring various washers placed under the outlet fillting until one the correct hole diameter was identified that would restrict the pump where it wouldnt empty the barrel.
Left run throughout Sunday... by Monday morning the water was literally crystal clear, once again proving a blind squirrel Can find a nut now and then! Right up until we learned how good the container company washed out the Agave juice from the container.... and what that looks like when it floats on the top of the pond!
The filter WORKS GREAT! Frogs, Toads and pond skaters are loopy on catus juice and all the moths drawn to it. Pump barrel leaks and will require a redesign. Monster 'good buy' pump is restricted down to a 1/4" outlet making that good if for no other reason than to have a spare falls pump. Plans to wet dry vac off the film of catus juice are now being drawn up. The Resident Pond Diver is threatening to strike if I want the valving changed again down at the bottom of the pond again before next summer.... and the project still doesnt have the solar panel worked into the equation. This will NEVER end.... but the filter works far better than ever hoped for, changing it from a swamp to crystal clear in 1.5 days and everyone of the tiny fish have survived for 3 days now. I suspect it will only be a few days before the bears smell the sweet smell of the catus juice... this just cant get any stranger......
Upside is I got the 275 gallon water tank in a steel cage for the filter, and was able to struggle with it enough to get it in place under the gazabo. As suggested (THANK YOU ALL!) I started gathering filter media as I stumbled upon it. The 275 gallon tank has a 6" top opening and a 2" NPT, gate valved outlet at the bottom. Set where the top is below low water level, it gravity fills to the tank bottom from the pond bottom, exits the top through another 2"NPT fitting over to a 55 gal plastic barrel which houses the pump. Drilling a hole in the bottom of the barrel, the outlet of the large tank was plumbed into the pump tank with a separation plate punched with holes, held the pump a foot off the bottom, sitting on 14" floor scrubber pads.
Trying to make the filter back washable in the large tank, I started filling the tank with large broken up, sharp edged granite chunks that just fit in the top opening. With a single layer of the large rocks covering the bottom, we then progressed to 3" and the down to 3/4" sharp broken up granite, until it was about 20" deep with progressively finer rock. The final filter step in that tank was 5 synthetic swamp cooler water pads that floated up to the top, covering the outlet, with about 20" of clear room between the top and the rocks..... Done enough to try.
Of course, the bottom fitting in the pump barrel leaked and that had to come apart numerous times in an attempt to seal it. In our parts runs we picked up a couple dozen feeder goldfish thinking the toads and water bugs were doing good enough... maybe they too would survive. Lowle's had a 2500 gph pump on clearance so that was picked up for the filter pump.... same price as the 580... soooo, bigger being better....
The bravest of the bunch went swimming to get the valving set up at the pond bottom, (heck no it wasnt me) and the whole affair was plugged in as Kris dashed for the hot tub. No I did not wash all the rock going in the filter tank but we did pay extra to have the tank and barrels power washed very well. It only took a few minutes to wash all the rock and deposit all that dirt into the pond, making semi clear water look like a swamp. Only took one more minute to learn the big pump flowed more than the combined filters, requiring various washers placed under the outlet fillting until one the correct hole diameter was identified that would restrict the pump where it wouldnt empty the barrel.
Left run throughout Sunday... by Monday morning the water was literally crystal clear, once again proving a blind squirrel Can find a nut now and then! Right up until we learned how good the container company washed out the Agave juice from the container.... and what that looks like when it floats on the top of the pond!
The filter WORKS GREAT! Frogs, Toads and pond skaters are loopy on catus juice and all the moths drawn to it. Pump barrel leaks and will require a redesign. Monster 'good buy' pump is restricted down to a 1/4" outlet making that good if for no other reason than to have a spare falls pump. Plans to wet dry vac off the film of catus juice are now being drawn up. The Resident Pond Diver is threatening to strike if I want the valving changed again down at the bottom of the pond again before next summer.... and the project still doesnt have the solar panel worked into the equation. This will NEVER end.... but the filter works far better than ever hoped for, changing it from a swamp to crystal clear in 1.5 days and everyone of the tiny fish have survived for 3 days now. I suspect it will only be a few days before the bears smell the sweet smell of the catus juice... this just cant get any stranger......
sissy
sissy
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They are selling those steel cage water tanks here 275 gallon and 300 gallon for a 100 dollars the only thing is they had soap in them .I am thinking of getting one for another water storage tank .Not sure how long it would take to get rid of the soap .Well sounds like you are figuring things out anyway and it takes a learning curve to get it right
Given the washing this one got, I wouldnt consider anything but a 'food grade' as prior use. I have watched Kris vacuum her gardens before and I laughed until pain set in. Vacuuming a pond..... the bar is about to be raised! Dealing with soap suds, that would be over the top!
THIS 'learning curve' is now approaching a 30 mile radius and 5 years!
sissy
sissy
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I was thinking about using this for the gutter on the back of the guest house for just water for my gardens .I found them on craigslist in Danville VA .Seems they have alot of them .Well thats a new one vacuum a garden :razz: