Do you have rocks at the bottom of your pond?

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I have some larger rocks in my pond, but am slowly taking out almost all of the smaller river rocks due to the junk that collects and makes the water not as clear as it is supposed to be. Next spring, all of the river rock will come out of the waterfall areas and some flat rock will go in place of it.

I say to use some rocks, but be selective.
 
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I got out there yesterday and froze my bum off getting out the rocks I had already placed in there. bbbrrr. All gone now. Hopefully next spring it will be a clean happy place.
 

addy1

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lifeworthliving said:
I got out there yesterday and froze my bum off getting out the rocks I had already placed in there. bbbrrr. All gone now. Hopefully next spring it will be a clean happy place.

If you have a lot of junk in bottom maybe you could vacuum it out to help with the cleaning process.
 
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addy1 said:
If you have a lot of junk in bottom maybe you could vacuum it out to help with the cleaning process.

Good idea. My daughters Boyfriend's boss, gave him a skimmer to give to me. He said he was so impressed with my pond and that I was doing it all myself he wanted me to have it.

Never put in a skimmer before. Cost way to much for me to ever have one. This will be a new thing for me. Wasn't that so nice of him! And I have never met him before!
 

addy1

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lifeworthliving said:
Good idea. My daughters Boyfriend's boss, gave him a skimmer to give to me. He said he was so impressed with my pond and that I was doing it all myself he wanted me to have it.

Never put in a skimmer before. Cost way to much for me to ever have one. This will be a new thing for me. Wasn't that so nice of him! And I have never met him before!

Some like them some don't! I like having, it helps get the stuff that always finds it way into a pond off the surface. You will a variety of responses to skimmers lol

You can plumb it a variety of ways. We have ours going to the main pump (external) with a ball valve, to be able to cut down the flow if we want to, or even shut off completely.
Also will have a ball valve on our bottom drain once we set it up in the spring, so we will be able to pull from the bottom only, the skimmer only or both.

Just make sure you seal it well so you have no leaks, most come with a good gasket.
 
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Thanks. Hoping it helps with the neighbors trees. Don't know what kind of tree it is, but the leaves are painfully tiny. And there are a ton of them.
 
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Good point. I'll need to think this through. Thing is my pond is frozen over in the winter. Come spring I like to clean it out and let the forces of nature take action all over again. I may try not doing that next spring, Not sure at this point. Thanks.
 

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Not to hijack the thread, but has anyone had any problems with water collecting under the liner after a really hard rain? Where I live the I have really hard clay and therefore the soil is very poor for drainage. In order to keep this from happening I use strategically placed rocks in the bottom of the pond, by the sides and a few in the middle. One time before I did this I had more water under the liner than i did in the pond.

Has anyone else had a problem with water collecting under their liner and if so how have you handled it?
 

addy1

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Is the water running under the liner from one side of the pond? You may want to install french drains to path the rain water around the pond. Or mound the dirt up to path the water around the pond.
 

DrDave

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Exactly! If you have clay, then it is not ground water giving you the problem, it is runoff. You have to plan for a negative horizon around your pond. That way rainwater is swept away. The French drain is an alternative as Addy has posted.
 
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Now please nobody yell at me just a question. I had someone tell me if you have rocks in the bottom of your pond it could work out as long as you add beneficial bacteria is thiis true?
 

addy1

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pondbuilder13 said:
Now please nobody yell at me just a question. I had someone tell me if you have rocks in the bottom of your pond it could work out as long as you add beneficial bacteria is thiis true?

No yelling! lol

Not really, the rocks get so much junk around them. They would only work if you clean them via good vacuuming, sweeping, water circulation etc, constantly. I love rocks in the bottom of a pond, but don't have them because of the yuck they collect. And then you can watch the algae grow from the yuck.............lol

Within a few years if not just a year, you can't see them anyways since they get covered up with stuff.
 

JustJack

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I can vouch for that, addy! I never knew there were rocks in the bottom of the catfish pond until I froze my little legs off yesterday getting in there to fish out the big rocks that fell in. What a collection of gunk under there! I couldn't even get the wet vac down there to suck anything out so I pulled out what I could with a pool net. They were so slimy I could barely even walk on them, and since I can't see the bottom of that pond anyway, they are serving no purpose. Backbreaking work and I still have more to do, but it will have to be a little at a time.
 

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