Darksaber Pond - My Next Adventure

[GBBUDD]

LOL you've been bit...... What persuaded you to the pond over a pool ? and to go for broke with one so large and it goes to say was not cheap

 

[milonedp]

I've always wanted a pond (I've had aquariums for over 40 years) and we wanted a pool but didn't want to have something go unused like so often happens so just never did anything. Then a few years ago I found out about recreation ponds and have been watching videos ever since. Eventually my wife bought in cause if the girls go in it great, if they don't we still have something awesome. As for size I knew I would upgrade if I went small and one thing I learned with all the aquariums was if I didn't do it they way I wanted the first time I'd eventually spend more money cause I did things twice, so we went big.

 

[Lisak1]

It's amazing! And you're right - you will enjoy your pond 365 days of the year. 10 degrees here this morning and the first thing I'll do (when the sun comes up) is check on the pond and see what's changed since yesterday. I thought we were finally going to have a fully iced over pond two days ago, but then it was in the 30s yesterday. It's always changing!

 

[GBBUDD]

Waiting to see a walk around the pond we still haven't seen the stream and bog the heart and artery of the pond . While we love the finish product. that's an everyday photo you only build a pond once and for a short time and those rough unfinished photos are worth there weight in gold as that is how i built my pond from those sharing there builds and experience.

 

[milonedp]

Hoping to have a couple of dry days this weekend, it's been raining this week, I'll make sure to get pics and walk around the pond video before any of the landscaping goes in.

 

[milonedp]

Sorry for the long delay, I was able to get a video this weekend, hopefully, this helps. Spent the last two weekends draining and rinsing everything down, guessing I need to do it a couple more times before spring. Partially because the landscaping isn't done so dust is still getting in, thankfully we haven't had too many dry days, while we wait, and no run-off seems to be going in but I'm sure that we'll make a mess with the landscape and irrigation. On the other hand, the lack of dry days is why we are waiting and the schedule keeps pushing out. The other reason for going overboard is that when the girls go in the water in the spring I don't want it kicking up a ton of muck each time, so I'm being obsessive about it now and it'll pay off. Yesterday was the first day the water was mostly clear but got mucked up when we walked in the wetland to test.

Trees should go in on Thursday, irrigation was supposed to go in this week but it's been so wet they can't even get their equip off their previous project, and more rain toward the end of the week, so who knows, hopefully, next week, then we can circle back with he bushes and hardscaping.

Let me know if you want to see other video's and if so of what...

 

[GBBUDD]

Love the fact that they used the weathered lime stone. LOVE LOVE LOVE THEY DIDN'T USE ALL THE SAME SIZE river rock in the bog looks oh natural . The fact that's there's no straight or perfectly aligned edges so there's no chance of looking like a string of pearls All two thaubs up. Looks great Love the water fall splits I'm sure when running it look's very cool. Not so sure about the water fall foam to the stacked slate walls however With a swim pond and the first kid that discovers he can pull that apart you'll find foam floating . I might have leaned more toward mortar and some rocks to fill the voids. But definitely a pond to make us very jealous over . Using the staked slate as vertical walls in the pond was a cool idea it will be interesting to see how it looks when the water is all cleared up and plants have taken root.

 

[milonedp]

Thanks. I really wanted to make sure that there was no string of pearls look and once we get landscape in and it planted in the spring I think it should soften up a lot of the edges.

Great idea on the mortar, I could even use small pieces of slate to blend it in. Is there a particular type of mortar you'd recommend? I hadn't even considered that and was racking my brain trying to come up with better options. Part of the issue was that some of what the foam is covering are rocks to level out the large rocks that make up the edge, some were round and not angled like the rocks above it so it looked unnatural, the foam was just a little less bad.

I'll have to think about that and if I do it this winter during one of the next clean-outs or see how it goes with the kids during the first summer. Probably better to do it now though, once it's cycled and there are fish in it a project like that has a whole new set of challenges.

 

[GBBUDD]

Yea I know the incredible desire to get it up and running but like you said it's MUCH easier now yeah with all the time money and effort you have put into this I would lean toward the slate but I would advise against any with sharp edge standard slate can fracture and split easily and those shards in the pool for bare feet and rubber is one id want to avoid . If you can find some flat field stone that looks similar and more stable you could work with that and mortar silicone or even foam Recessed in the gaps. I went as far as applying a coat of black silicone over some critical foam at tge negative edge to keep the water level as high as possible if tge power shut off. Your pond will be around 30 plus years what's another 30 days. You could get creative and make little caves for fish to duck into.

 

[milonedp]

Yea I know the incredible desire to get it up and running but like you said it's MUCH easier now yeah with all the time money and effort you have put into this I would lean toward the slate but I would advise against any with sharp edge standard slate can fracture and split easily and those shards in the pool for bare feet and rubber is one id want to avoid . If you can find some flat field stone that looks similar and more stable you could work with that and mortar silicone or even foam Recessed in the gaps. I went as far as applying a coat of black silicone over some critical foam at tge negative edge to keep the water level as high as possible if tge power shut off. Your pond will be around 30 plus years what's another 30 days. You could get creative and make little caves for fish to duck into.

Do you recommend any particular mortar? I know there are some we use in the Reef Hobby, wasn't sure if we use anything special in a pond?

 

[milonedp]

A little evening viewing.... The water looks perfectly clear during the day but you can still see a glow to it from the fine particles at night as the lights come on.

 

[GBBUDD]

I'd just use a standard mortar and then seal it to try to limit the lime mixing in the water. But you could talk to a pool company see what they recomend

 

[GBBUDD]

Sweet i like the rocks off tot he left as it looks like the rocks are naturally in the area not just the pond are you going to make a patio up close to the pond?

 

[milonedp]

A quick video from tonight

 

[milonedp]

Sweet i like the rocks off tot he left as it looks like the rocks are naturally in the area not just the pond are you going to make a patio up close to the pond?

For now, we are going to do gravel with some steppers. We currently have a 12 by 24 ft covered porch then about 9 to 12 feet to the pond's edge. We want to live in the space for a season or two before we decide how we redo that full 24 by 24 space and build a fireplace into it. Part of me is thinking of bringing the whole porch down to ground level then have a large covered area over a patio, some of it closed in. I purposefully pulled the edge of the pond into that space so that if we build out into it the porch / patio / whatever would be pulled into the yard.