Where can I find resources?

[Catfishnut]

Fly2cast,

Welcome!

I will provide a very usefull tip for you. Look up on YouTube for "The Pond Digger" and also "Ponds Gone Wrong".
These videos, and there are a lot of them, will really give you some great ideas to work upon and even show you what NOT to do.

Gordy

 

[fly2cast]

Wow. Wasn't expecting this great of response. Thanks.

I will upload some sketches of what I was thinking and some of the difficulties of my situation.

I won't be making a 200 foot stream and pond. I just know some people in the waste industry who install landfills. I was able to get 200 feet of scrap landfill liner (extra stuff not needed when they built the landfill). I'm guessing mine won't be more than 50 feet long.

 

[addy1]

Neat! the liner I use is from bend tarp and liner, they make the landfill liner. It is some tough stuff.

 

[fly2cast]

Ok, had some time to make a sketch and take a picture. From the sketch and picture, you can see the existing stream/pond location that was built by the previous owner. They did a very poor job. The liner leaks and all of the water from rain runs right into the stream which turns it muddy and makes it overflow. Plus it's ugly.





The first thing I need to deal with is what to do about the water runoff. As you can see, water from my lower patio needs to drain. Right now it goes into the stream. What to do about this? Also, because of the slope around the stream, all of the water from the front yard runs between houses and goes right into the stream.

My thought is to install drain tile below stream and pond to drain any runoff. Any thoughts:

 

[fly2cast]

My goals for this stream/pond are:

1. Make it look nice
2. Keep it clear and clean
3. Keep a few fish (haven't decided for sure but I need to build it with that in mind for future).

The size of the pond shouldn't be larger than 10 x 10 x 4. My own restrictions. I need room for the kids to run around in backyard without falling in. The length of the stream will be between 50 and 75 feet. I don't want a large waterfall or maybe none at all.

 

[addy1]

Nice drawings. The problem I see is water is going to go the easiest route, down the stream. You would need to bank the stream banks higher than the land around to make the water flow down under your stream.

Looks like they build it as a dry stream bed to direct water away from the house.

 

[morewater]

It's rain.

First off, always locate utilities. They're expensive. Sometimes they hurt, sometimes they go boom.

The simple, inexpensive and aesthetic solution is to have the rain drain directly from the patio area, into the steam bed that leads directly to the pond (is it already there, or does it have to be dug?).

Pull all the stones from the "stream" and line the stream bed with pond liner. Put all the stones back. You now have drainage and you now have a stream feature that doubles as a rain "drain". Ensure that the "sides" of the stream bed are high enough that you don't get any run-off (as in lawn fertilizer) into your stream. The fertilizer will do an absolute number on your pond. Be equally careful when fertilizing around the stream and the pond.

Dig a trench along both sides of the stream about a foot deep, get an auger and drill some holes (approximately 40" deep to allow the water to return to the water table) along the length of the trenches and fill the trench and holes with clear stone. Cover the whole thing up with pea gravel or river rock. Voila, instant drainage for the occasional runoff that isn't readily absorbed by the lawn.

Put an overflow pipe on the lowest part of the pond edge (which I will assume has been dug or will be) that in turn would lead off to where you-don't-care, or into a drywell set-up. When it rains, the rain runoff will fill the pond and the excess will merely continue downslope from the pond runoff point to either a waste area or into the drywell set-up.

Put a decent sized pump (calculate the total pond capacity and how many feet the pump has to lift the water to the head of the stream) into the pond, run the line up to the start of the now LINED streambed (just below where your patio run-off is introduced to the stream bed), and run the streambed continuously with the pump.

That will allow for water circulation and oxygenation. It'll also serve to keep the stream bed clean, purty and the added bonus of the sound of running water.

Just spitballin' here, but it seems to me that you're going to be doing an awful lot of digging, trenching and draining, not to mention expense, to get rid of what is, essentially, just rain.

Rain is free, rain is fresh and clean, rain doesn't need to be dechlorinated. You save the hassles of water changes.

As to fish, don't get too fancy, toss some goldfish in the pond. They're cheap, they're hardy and they multiply. They also eat mosquito larvae. Plant the edges of the pond with marginal plants. Frogs will move in and you can charge rent to cover your expenses.

This is a relatively easy project. You already have the stream, you already have the stones.

I've done a couple jobs identical to this one. Beats a simple water sluice and a drywell any day of the week. Who says you can't make a silk purse out of Miss Piggy's auditory appendage?

 

[fly2cast]

morewater, I like your ideas of keeping it simple. Just a couple of questions.

As far as fish go, won't the influx of cold water potentially kill them? Maybe not, just wondering?

Also, one of the things I didn't mention is that when it rains hard here, the water from the patio is muddy for a variety of reasons which makes the water dirty (I'll work to correct some of the muddy water issues this year). Are you saying that with good flow, water will clear up? Does it just settle into the rocks or bottom? I already have a pump. Not sure of the gpm but I'm alright with the amount of flow. It's not huge but not too little either.

I don't think this was suppose to be a dry stream bed. It has the piping, pump, and liner from the preformed pond to the top of the stream. They put some work into it. Just did it completely wrong. It loses almost all water in an hour when the pump is turned on.

When you guys say build the stream bank higher than surrounding area, would this work?



It may be hard to see but what I did is raise the sides of the liner. I won't be able to raise streambed higher than the land around because I would have to fill in about 3 feet.

 

[addy1]

morewater, I like your ideas of keeping it simple. Just a couple of questions.

As far as fish go, won't the influx of cold water potentially kill them? Maybe not, just wondering?


.

I have a lot of rain water going into my pond, it has never bothered the fish. I didn't realize they had plumbed the stream must have missed it in your first post lol
I have my banks from 1-3 inches high, keeps out the water nicely.

 

[morewater]

It rains, it snows, water temperatures change......as long as the temperature change is gradual. When it rains, it rains on everyone's pond.

As to the muddy water from your patio area, where's it coming from? The stream bed should stay relatively clean with constant flow over the rocks. If you don't remediate the source of the mud getting into the stream bed, then the flow will merely drive the majority of it downstream to collect on the bottom of the pond. Then you'll have to clean it out. Doesn't make sense. Fix the problem at the start, not at the end.

As to pumps, a simple calculation is as such : If the head (top) of your stream is 50' away from the pond, and the land rises 6' during the course of the 50' run, you've got what's about 8' of head. If the total volume of your pond is, say 3000g, then optimally you need to move half the volume of the pond each hour. So, theoretically you need a pump that's rated for about 1500 gallons per hour. However, because you're "lifting" the water about 6', the pump won't deliver that much water. Off the top of my head I'd say that you need a pump somewhere in the range of 2700-3000gph. Check my figures, but for each foot of "head" the "gph" of the pump decreases.

I don't know the total volume of your pond, nor the GPM rating of your pump, but if you're losing that much water in an hour, then you've got a decent-sized leak somewhere. There's a hole, a fold, a low spot......take the stream bed apart. Re-lay it with no rocks. Run the pump hose to the top. Mark the pond level. Run the pump for 6-12hrs, check the pond level. If you're losing water, it's pretty well guaranteed that it's from the stream bed. If you haven't lost any, then you've fixed the problem and can re-lay the stones to your liking.

I wouldn't bother trying to "fix" someone else's work, because you don't know how it works. Better off to tear it out, re-use what you can and put it back together so you understand how it's built. It's much easier to troubleshoot something you've built than something that someone else has cobbled together.

Now, when you say your pond is "pre-formed", do you mean a rigid kiddie pool pond (as in ABS), or is it a hole with a pond liner? What are the dimensions (length, width, average depth.....guesstimate)?

If you plan it out, do it right, get the proper pump, filter, etc., there's no reason that this can't be a great build. The location looks great.

Tell you what, I'll make you the same deal I made Priscilla, buy my airfare, bar bill, food, laundry and I'll come down and do it all for you........wait a minute.....cancel that.....Priscilla lives in the Cayman Islands, you're in North Dakota.

 

[Catfishnut]

morewater, I like your ideas of keeping it simple. Just a couple of questions.

As far as fish go, won't the influx of cold water potentially kill them? Maybe not, just wondering?

Also, one of the things I didn't mention is that when it rains hard here, the water from the patio is muddy for a variety of reasons which makes the water dirty (I'll work to correct some of the muddy water issues this year). Are you saying that with good flow, water will clear up? Does it just settle into the rocks or bottom? I already have a pump. Not sure of the gpm but I'm alright with the amount of flow. It's not huge but not too little either.

I don't think this was suppose to be a dry stream bed. It has the piping, pump, and liner from the preformed pond to the top of the stream. They put some work into it. Just did it completely wrong. It loses almost all water in an hour when the pump is turned on.

When you guys say build the stream bank higher than surrounding area, would this work?



It may be hard to see but what I did is raise the sides of the liner. I won't be able to raise streambed higher than the land around because I would have to fill in about 3 feet.

That looks like a very good plan to me initially, but you must consider what would happen if you have a torrential rain or if frost seals the sand and pea gravel occluding it from draining to your drain tile. What if grass clippings, leaves and mud seal off your drainage rock? You could have a mess on your hands. I think it better to elevate the streambed and have a "dike' like siding to it which is above the elevation of the surrounding terrain.

Since you are in ND, you may have a problem with the frost and snowmelt reverting to ice and closing off your drainage system. Or maybe worse, the daytime sun may melt some of the snow and ice and it will try to dissapate out through your drainage system and then freeze at night and expand your drainage gravel bed and cause other problems.

Gordy

 

[MitchM]

Those are some great ideas, morewater.

 

[morewater]

I've done a couple of them in the past few years. The ones that I've built have incorporated drywells in order to drain the area of surface water and then allowing it to return to groundwater.

If you need a drainage system, might as well make it aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

 

[fly2cast]

Ok, finally got around to thinking about the pond again. I've done some work on my retaining walls to shore them up and prevent them from washing out dirt.

My next question is what kind of filtration system should I buy? I want clear water and a filtration system that can be hidden. I will have grass clippings and some dirt getting into the water. I will do my best to keep fertilizer out. May not be a fish load but I want to build so that I can keep a low fish load in the future.

I know this question is asked a ton here, just looking for some thoughts on easy to use filtration.

 

[RobAmy]

Ok, finally got around to thinking about the pond again. I've done some work on my retaining walls to shore them up and prevent them from washing out dirt.

My next question is what kind of filtration system should I buy? I want clear water and a filtration system that can be hidden. I will have grass clippings and some dirt getting into the water. I will do my best to keep fertilizer out. May not be a fish load but I want to build so that I can keep a low fish load in the future.

I know this question is asked a ton here, just looking for some thoughts on easy to use filtration.

I use the Savio Bio versatile f200 filters which I like. They can be buried into the ground or placed away from the pond. I have mine hidden in a white pine tree. I also use a skimmer and water bio filter which are both buried into the ground. Look at my showcase under the planning and construction and you can see the filters I use.