Hello from North Texas

[Texas ponder]

We have built a pond at a previous house in Iowa about 6 years ago. Now we are gearing up to build a new, (larger of course) pond at our current house. Thanks for having a great place to share ideas.

 

[sissy]

welcome and what a difference between living and ponder in Iowa and now Texas .Give us an idea of the size and what you want in your new pond .I am just now tearing down and rebuilding my pond .

 

[Mmathis]

Welcome!

 

[Big Lou]

Welcome Texas ponder! I too live in North Texas and like you not a native Texan. We live in Desoto, Dallas County. How about you?

 

[j.w]

Texas ponder

 

[Texas ponder]

Thanks for the greetings! Actually even though we did live in Iowa for a bit (5 years) my other 50 years have been in Texas.
We have a back yard that slopes a bit down toward the house. We want to build a couple of ponds. The smaller being the upper pond feeding into a larger pond below. My biggest indecision at this point is deciding for sure the filtration and such. My previous pond was Aquascape skimmer and bio falls for a 8X16 ft pond, which we were happy with, although we moved about 6 months after we built it. Right now I am thinking I want to feed the upper pond with a bog, fed by 2 pumps in 1 or 2 skimmers. the upper pond I am thinking about 14X18 feeding into a 22x35 lower pond. So just trying to figure out the best way to filter and construct to achieve good water quality in the Texas heat with not much shade. Any opinions or past experiences are much welcomed.

 

[Big Lou]

I'm not a pro but there are many here who can help. The North Texas sun is brutal. We deal with it by near total shade from trees we planted for that purpose. Without shafe dehydration would be a real problem. Shade provides cooler temps and the bonus of less algea. Our daughter graduated from North Texas Univ so we are familiar with your lovely region.

I wish you the very best.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Welcome to the forum! I hope you share photos of the building process to completion. I'm always interesting in seeing the process of how pond are created and then to see the final result is always awesome!

 

[sissy]

You could check out video's on you tube ,I know ponddigger did a big pond and waterfall on a hill and so did pond hunter .

 

[addy1]

Glad you joined! Welcome

 

[mtpond]

Welcome!

 

[Becky]

Hello and welcome!

 

[Texas ponder]

Thanks Sissy, I am on YouTube quite frequently looking at the pond and pond construction videos. They help a lot.

So Lou, what kind of trees did you plant to shade your pond from the Texas sun, and do you do anything special to deal with the leaves?

 

[sissy]

you could always use a shade sail ,less leaves to clean out of the pond a no roots to bother the pond liner

 

[Texas ponder]

you could always use a shade sail ,less leaves to clean out of the pond a no roots to bother the pond liner

That's a great idea. I have seen one of those over a pond I visited on a pond tour.