Backyard Pond

We dug a pond last year. The first attempt was aborted. We dug too close to a tree, and ran into some BIG roots. We cut the smaller roots, but when we got to 6 inch diameter, we stopped, filled in the hole and picked a new spot. You can spend a ton on pond books, and get really confused. My suggestion: buy one book, ask some questions of friends and your experts at the lawn and garden store, and rely on common sense. Costs for most pond items at pond stores are very high. We did the pond on a budget, and avoided the high costs.

For a pond, bigger is better. Although it's more work initially, a bigger pond will be more thermally, chemically and biologically stable. Deeper is better, too, but there may be local restriction - in my city, if the pond is deeper than 2 feet, it qualifies as a swimming pool, and needs a fence. Our pond is ~ 900 gallons. A handy pond volume calculator can be found Here. Use a good quality liner, 30 mil or thicker. (1 mil = 1/1000th on an inch).

Pumps and filtration: Packaged pumps and filters from pond supply places are very expensive. There's lot's of good advice on the web on pumps and filters. I'm a DIY kind of guy, so I built the filter out of Rubbermaid containers, and lava rocks. It works well. The links are Here. For a pump, you want a pump that will cycle the pond's volume three times an hour. For example: 1000 gallon pond requires a pump that will produce 3000 gal/hour (GPH). Many pump specs are quoted in gallons/minute (GPM), so you'll have to convert. A handy pond size calculator is located Here. If your pump is going to move the water uphill, to a waterfall, say, the flow needs to be derated. You'll not get the full output pumping uphill. Most pumps having  rating charts to let you know their flow for various heads (lift height). The pumps at official pond stores are VERY EXPENSIVE! I used a Flo-Tec general purpose submersible pump bought at Home Depot. It's rated at 2000 GPH, and continuous duty, and has a lifetime guarantee. Cost less than  $75. Mine's been running 24/7/365 for over a year. The pump should absolutely be plugged into a GFCI outlet. This is a must.

Startup: Fill with water, start the pump / filtration system. Let it circulate for two days. This will allow then chlorine gas in the water to dissipate. Chemical and biological equilibrium 'from scratch' can take 2-4 weeks. We found a friend with a pond, and got 5 gallons of water from him (got some fish, too!). We dumped this in, and added out own fish and plants. The pond stabilized in a few days.  

We wanted underwater lights, because they're cool. But the prices for these things are nuts. I bought the cheapest Malibu low voltage light set I could find, strung a few together, and put them in the water. I put a weight at the base of each light, since even when they're flooded, the plastic still wants to float. The lights work great, look good, and the fish and plants are OK (Pictures at left). Of course, all electrical stuff: pump, lights, etc. are plugged into a GFCI outlet for safety. This is an absolute requirement for a pond.

Fish: We skipped the expensive Koi (surprised?), and bought cheap goldfish at the pet store. The fish grew the first year, and survived the winter fine. We left the pump on all winter, and the pond froze solid, except where the waterfall outlet hit the main pond. I can't imagine how the fish survived, but they do. As the water cools, their metabolism slows. They need less food, too. As the water gets colder, they need no food at all. In the spring, wait till the water temperature averages above 50 F before starting to feed the fish a little. This spring we had American toads stop by. They laid eggs in two separate batches, and about 1000 tadpoles resulted. Once they could grew legs and could breathe the air, they all left.

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