How to build a giant pond?

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cichlidcichlid

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Jun 15, 2006
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I honestly have to say that i never though i would ever even be in this part of aquaium central!

Now that we have gotten past that i want a pond!:eek3:

I have measure the space and i have 5 feet 9inches by 6 feet by 9 feet.

Now this can be changed if needed because i could always make it a little bigger, i have at least 15 to 20 more feet to work with.

I got the ok from my parrents and i want to take this opportunity to make it within reason as big as possible.

How deep do you usually make a pond?

The spot i have been given is bare dirt and is in the shade in the morning all the way until 12:00 after that it is in the sun until 5:30 to 6:00.

My guess is i would have to make the pond deep enough to keep it from over heating!

right now i am trying to figure out the dementions i would like and the material i would use to hold the water.

I know they have pond lining but i don't know if it will work in this case because of it being in the sun i would think after a year or two it would start to leak am i right?

Then i remembered that some people actually buy a plastic mold of a pond and then just put that into th ground until at ground level. Not sure how well this would hold up in the long run but i think this option is a little expensive.

Lastly concrete, i am sure this would hold up but am not sure if this is the most expensive option. How thick would the walls need to be?

Do you have to add sand or just strait concrete?

What concrete is fish safe?

What designs/ setups do you suggest from your experiences?

What filter media to use/ high flow effient pump?

I am not totally sure yet but i was toying with the idea of having the return water from the filter go into a water fall to return the pond because of looks, wet/ dry filtering capablilties, and maximum oxygenation.

Also not sure if any one knows how to tell how many gallons this will be roughly but would appreciate it if i knew.

cichlidcichlid

I am so excited i am gettng a pond!
 
Oh, almost forgot!

Before i build this i want to make sure that the fish i want to put in here will fit!

Stock listing:

some comet goldfish

1 koi if i can always wanted one

either a pleco or catfish

What do you do to eliminate green water?

I rather not buy a uv serilizer if i don't have to!
 
Comments interspersed in blue...


I honestly have to say that i never though i would ever even be in this part of aquaium central!
Now that we have gotten past that i want a pond!:eek3:

I have measure the space and i have 5 feet 9inches by 6 feet by 9 feet.

Now this can be changed if needed because i could always make it a little bigger, i have at least 15 to 20 more feet to work with.

I got the ok from my parrents and i want to take this opportunity to make it within reason as big as possible.

How deep do you usually make a pond?
Depends on what part of the country you live in. I live in CT and the ground freezes here in the winter. I made mine 4' deep at the deepest so make sure the fish and turtles would be able to get down into the warmer water.

The spot i have been given is bare dirt and is in the shade in the morning all the way until 12:00 after that it is in the sun until 5:30 to 6:00.
Mine is in pretty much full sun from 10am to about 7pm in the spring/summer. The only issue this causes is green water, which is rectified by a UV sterilizer.

My guess is i would have to make the pond deep enough to keep it from over heating!
Digging it into the ground works great for maintaining consistent temperature. The earth is a great heat sink. You probably want it 2-3 feet deep minimum.

right now i am trying to figure out the dementions i would like and the material i would use to hold the water.
The size of mine was determined by the pond liner I bought. There are other methods, such as spray-on rubber liners, or cement, that allow you to make the pond any shape/size you want. I used 45mil rubber pond liner from Home Depot. After I bought it, I found a few less expensive sources. Mine was I think 12x15 and it cost me about $200

I know they have pond lining but i don't know if it will work in this case because of it being in the sun i would think after a year or two it would start to leak am i right?
I sure hope not.

Then i remembered that some people actually buy a plastic mold of a pond and then just put that into th ground until at ground level. Not sure how well this would hold up in the long run but i think this option is a little expensive.
The plastic ones are pretty durable, and cheaper, but again you're limited to the sizes that are available. I wanted a fairly large volume, most of the preformed ones I found topped out around a few hundred gallons, and were not deep enough for my liking.

Lastly concrete, i am sure this would hold up but am not sure if this is the most expensive option. How thick would the walls need to be?
I would have to do more research but I know its been done sucessfully. The only thing about that is you need to paint it with some sort of epoxy, then fill it and drain it a few times to let everything leach out before you stock it. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something to consider.

Do you have to add sand or just strait concrete?
Unsure.

What concrete is fish safe?
Plain quikcrete would probably be fine, or portland cement, as long as you seal it so it doesn't leak.

What designs/ setups do you suggest from your experiences?
Mine is a rubber liner like I said, about 12'x7', 4' deep at the max. There are 3 levels, kind of goes from 4' to 3' to 2', with the deep part being the widest as well. If I did it again I would make the walls steeper to keep the turtles in better, and make some shelves about 6" deep to put potted plants on.

What filter media to use/ high flow effient pump?
I built what is basically a jumbo canister filter. There are four 6' sections of 4" PVC in parallel , with a 4 to 1 manifold to split the flow. I use an oceanrunner pump, which I really like so far. Its about 1700gph. the pond, at my best estimation, is about 1200gal or so. There is a prefilter box in the pond that needs to be cleaned every so often, and the piping is filled with lava rock.

I am not totally sure yet but i was toying with the idea of having the return water from the filter go into a water fall to return the pond because of looks, wet/ dry filtering capablilties, and maximum oxygenation.
I bought a small 30" watercourse at home depot for about 20 bucks that I use for a waterfall. Its just propped up on the side of the pond, with some rocks around it to help hide the plastic. I'd like to get some emersed plants to go in it and complete the look.

Also not sure if any one knows how to tell how many gallons this will be roughly but would appreciate it if i knew.
What I did was draw out the outline of the pond to scale, and since I have the 3 steps, figured out the volume of the 3 layers and added them together. The other option is figure out how fast your hose flows (time it filling up a gallon container or something) then time how long it takes to fill the pond up and you'll get somewhat of an idea.

cichlidcichlid

I am so excited i am gettng a pond!
Its well worth it, my goldfish are breeding, some bullfrogs moved in and we have treefrogs at night now as well.
 
I wanted to just fill it up and not empty it again!

It is kind of alot of water / money to empty something like this a couple times.

So i am guessing either the formed one or th liner is the way to go?

What are the the prices for the dementions i wanted?

In either the liner or the form!

I want the pond itself not to cost me a fortune because i already have 3 fish tanks!

What is the smallest pond size i could have and still be able to have a koi and some goldfish?
 
Well most koi top out at 2-3 feet, the comets stay smaller at about 12" or so. When I bought the liner, it was sold in a 12' wide roll and I think it was like 13 bucks a foot or something, and I got 15' of it. You can order presized ones from various places, depending on what size pond you want. I think the largest preformed pond I found was about 150gal or so. If you don't ware about shape, you could buy a 300gal stock tank for about 300 bucks or so, leave it above ground or bury it (I would bury it for better temp control). for a single koi, I would shoot for at least 5-600 gallons when its full grown. Mine are growing, but fairly slowly. One is almost a foot long and the other two are closer to 8", they've all grown about 2" since this time last year. One other thing I want to add, I don't feed this pond anything but leftover plants from pruning my tanks, and lettuce once in a while. The turtles and fish all appreciate it, but they also get by on bugs that fly into the water and the goldfish graze on algae all day long. If I was dumping large amounts of pellet food into the pond they would probably grow faster, but I really don't see the need.
 
In that case i will stick with a goldfish pond!

I don't want to get to crazy!

My dad will kill me if he finds out how big it was, or if he notices right away by the size.

Also i was not going to even get close to 300 bucks!

I figure the homemade canister alone will cost 40 so i want to try to keep it at a minimum.

I can get water hydrance something like that for free.

I am not sure how much lily pads are though.

I never thought rubber linner was that much.

I wil check to see how much the concrete is and epoxy.

How thick do the walls need to be 2 or 3 inches or is that too thin?

I would love to breed goldfish!
 
I would say 2 inches would be enough, depending on whether you're close to any large trees. Root growth will tend to try and crack concrete so I would do it far away from large trees.

Building a large canister can be more expensive than you think. The pump alone will probably cost more than 40 bucks. My oceanrunner pump was a little over 100, plus at least another 100 bucks in PVC and lava rocks. Those fittings add up quick, especially the ones for 4" pipe. The concrete will be cheap, its usually 3-4 bucks a bag, but I would imagine you'll need somewhere between 5-10 bags depending on the size of the pond. You can look for either epoxy or some sort of pool paint. Either way you're looking at probably $40-50 per gallon of paint or more. However, if you don't have the tools, you'll need a trowel and maybe some other tools to lay the concrete out.

Regardless of the method, I think its going to be more expensive than you think. I would make a list of all the materials you'll need for each method (liner, stock tank, cement-lined) and the prices for each to get a ballpark idea for hte price of each one. Then add an extra 100 bucks at least as a slush fund for when you knock over that can of pvc cement or glue the wrong fittings together and have to replace them, etc. I was amazed at how quickly the parts for mine all added up.
 
I'll write out an approximate price list just to give you an idea of what I spent on mine.

Pond liner - 225
prefilter box - 20
assorted tubing - 60
pvc (2x 10'x4") - 16
assorted pvc fittings, barb fittings - 70
pump - 120
lava rock - 30
UV sterilizer - 120
waterfall - 30
pvc cement/primer - 5
PTFE tape for threaded fittings - 3
extra sponges for filter - 10

So that gets me to $709, which is probably a lowball figure because I tried about 3 filter configurations before getting to the one I use now, so you could probably tack on an extra 100 bucks for random pvc fittings. If you plan well, you can skip that part. Then, livestock:

water hyacincth - 20 (5 plants)
assorted pond plants - 20
snails - 5
3 koi - 50
1 doz. goldfish - 1
turtles I already had, bullfrogs and guppies came free, other plant clippings came out of my other tanks.

So thats a grand total of $805, not counting all the stuff I bought and either screwed up or didn't end up using. All in all I probably spent about $1000 on different stuff, because I have a lot of leftover fittings I thought I would need and didn't, and hose that I upgraded to bigger sizes for better flow, just general stuff that I didn't forsee changing, but had to because it didn't work right.

As a bonus, I did all the labor myself so that was free, and we have lots of rock walls on the farm so all the rocks I used for border were free, and the driftwood for cover was scavenged from the woods so that was all free as well. If you don't have access to this stuff it will have to be purchased as well. The perimeter of my pond is probably 30 feet or so, and its all stacked with rock, three loads of a 1/3 yard tractor bucket, so roughly 1 cubic yard of rock. No idea how much that would cost if you were to buy it.

I wish I hadn't done that, all the stuff was bought over a several month period and I really had no idea it cost me so much :silly:. So, it clearly adds up a lot faster than you realize, so if you're on a budget, planning everything out down to the last foot of hose and pvc elbow is key to make sure you don't get halfway through and realize you're out of money.
 
where do you live? if you are not in florida or texas, a pleco will have to be caught and taken in during the colder months. a native catfish will do fine outside, but will eat anything that fits into its mouth, including all baby goldfish and eventually adult fish as well.
 
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