I love my all rocked pond

[Fishylove]

I totally agree with you Wayne, I have flagstone and river rock on the bottom of mine, and I love it :razz: you can see the darker fish better and lots of places for them to nose around lol.

Do what ever makes you happy, your the only one who going to really enjoy it! I have seen very nice rock ponds, and I have seen equally nice "bare bottom ponds" and for the record, my liner is not wrinkled either, and it does not look like a liner cause it has soft green wall to wall carpeting! I like both looks, and I do have large rocks on the shelf of the bottom pond that did look great two months ago when I first put them in, but now they just blend in with the liner and you can't see them anymore cause of all the plants and hornwort, They too did got the soft green mossy look quickly there in the full sun, but the plants are now covering them up. I like the tiny little red gravel that fell in my pond years ago by accident, it looks nice and the fish pick it up and spit it out, looking for food, keeping it nice and clean.

I agree Colleen, you know alot of people dont like the algae, but i think it gives it a natural look and the babies love to hide in it. Lots of good surface area and good bacteria!

 

[callingcolleen1]

There's not enough algae for that in my pond, the algae on the liner looks like it was shaved down to the bone, the green floating plants you see is hornwort, not algae. The babies do hide in the hornwort good. Algae grows just as quick on rocks too, but it still looks good and your right, it is very natural, just as long as is not to "long"!

 

[waynefrcan]

Thanks fishy Wendy lol, when I get all setup with lights, i'll post photos.

P.S. How often does your setup require a cleaning?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

No pictures huh?
No problem, here's a thread from another forum about cleaning rock bottom ponds, and it has plenty of pictures.
http://www.koiphen.c...Rocks-In-Ponds!

 

[taherrmann4]

Thanks fishy Wendy lol, when I get all setup with lights, i'll post photos.

P.S. How often does your setup require a cleaning?

Waynefrcan just a suggestion but why don't you start a build thread or a showcase thread. You could post the pics of your pond build, I always find other peoples builds interesting to see what trials and pitfalls they have come across and how they remedy the unexpected things. If you are waiting for everything to be completed we will never get to see the pics of your pond, as I don't think anyone is every completely finished with their pond.

 

[waynefrcan]

No pictures huh?
No problem, here's a thread from another forum about cleaning rock bottom ponds, and it has plenty of pictures.
http://www.koiphen.c...Rocks-In-Ponds!

Pics are coming. Working on lighting and elecrtrical. Actually finally finished the electrical.

Yes thank you for that advertising of ugly ponds. You have mentioned that link before.

I can't tell you what happened to all of them, but for sure one problem is lack of proper filtration. Pumps and skimmer boxes too small. Poor pond design is another. Why blame the poor rocks when humans messed it all up.

Instead of pulling rocks, re-do the design and add better filtration.

I won't ever have that wrinkled liner show.

That link is a good example of why not to do a bare bottom pond. Yikes! If I want to look at bare bottom all day I would have put in a pool, not a pond.

 

[waynefrcan]

Waynefrcan just a suggestion but why don't you start a build thread or a showcase thread. You could post the pics of your pond build, I always find other peoples builds interesting to see what trials and pitfalls they have come across and how they remedy the unexpected things. If you are waiting for everything to be completed we will never get to see the pics of your pond, as I don't think anyone is every completely finished with their pond.

You know, for what ever reason I never was interested in taking pics of the building process or following someone else's build. I like to showcase the final product. Maybe see the beginning and the end, not the middle.

 

[brandonsdad02]

I do have some rocks in my pond, but not a whole bunch. I plan on getting a el-cheapo pool in the spring to pump the water in my pond into and put the fish and mortor in the the rocks and try to hide the liner that is exposed above the water line. I want to have the appearance that its rock all the way to the bottom

 

[waynefrcan]

Cool idea!

Did you see the photo from that link showing that large rectangular pond and that tiny little filter box at far end lol?

No wonder that one had problems. Pond that size needs triple the filtration and skimming and at least 2 5,700 g/hr pumps

 

[pecan]

The rock - no rock flame war has been going on in pond forums for many, many years. People say they dislike flame wars but the number of views are always some of the highest.

I mortar the rock so I get the look of rock I like and a surface smoother than a wrinkled liner so cleaning is easy. Cleaning a bare liner pond never gave me much satisfaction..."oh goodie, I can see a wrinkled liner". I'd rather have the muck. Cleaning a mortared rock bottom looks better the cleaner it is kept imo.

Of course then I get to be flamed by the rock haters and the cement haters. The more people making disparaging comments the more I figure I must be on the right path, statistically speaking.

Sounds to me like you got the look of the rock with the ease of a bare liner... Strong work!

 

[Fishylove]

Wayne, my pre filter does a pretty good job of keeping the muck out. and the waterfall and over flow keep the water churned up nice so it Can filter, just a few leaves hear and there. so I clean my pre filter once every 10-14 days or so . I cover the pond in the fall through to spring to keep out the yard stuffs ( use deer netting on a frame build to size)
My small pond is almost total shade, so not much algae. The new one however, has sun from early morning to about 1pm so lots of string algae. I feed the fish a small amount maybe twice a day, so they eat the algae. Same thing in the spring when its warm enough to start feeding, feed them only once a day and they clean up the algae pretty good
Cant wait to see the pics! I haven't started on the lights on mine either, need to tho it's really dark out there
Good Luck!

 

[waynefrcan]

Ok, thanks. I never get the green string algae, just the brown colored film over the rocks. So you don't ever do a complete drain and cleanout then? I'm on my 2nd year with no clean out and I see no sludge. I will do one before winter as I re-did the waterfall and got cement residue in the water.

 

[waynefrcan]

This topic is now over 1100 views, thanks for the interest people!!!!

 

[Mucky_Waters]

This topic is now over 1100 views, thanks for the interest people!!!!

Well that's understandable, there's really no place to go but up when you start at "rock bottom".

 

[Fishylove]

Lol mucky! Wayne, Yes I do. But this is the first year for my bigger pond. The small one I did some thing like what you posted, but without the utility pump. I just take the fish out, drain about half the water with the hose to the pond pump, then start stirring it up! Lol, then I'll suck as much water as the pump will get and refill a bit, rinse and drain again. Then I fill it half way, put a five gal bucket with batting in it under the spill over and fitter out the rest. But it's defiantly not an unmessy thing to do!
Lolol. I look look a swamp monster after I'm done! Every two years about, I'll do that.