Hey y'all.
I'm planning on building my second pond this winter, and would like to get some help with ideas.
I have an existing wildlife pond I built in 2021, but it is intentionally not a goldfish pond. It's shallow (18 inches at the deepest) and has a small bog filter. I'm happy with it as it is, but also want a deep goldfish pond. My thinking is to build the new pond next to the old pond, but then build a deck between them, so it has the illusion of being one big body of water.
This is my existing pond (it's an old photo, it's more grown in now). It's about 12 x 6. I would build the deck where I'm sitting to take this picture, and it would overhang the "beach", so you look down from the edge and see water.
My idea for the new pond is a roughly 20 by 8 pond, 3 feet deep. I would have a bog filter that pours into the distant end in a low waterfall, and have an intake bay and viewing area up by the deck.
Here is a horrible, but to scale, layout.
The new pond would be landscaped similar to above. I like plants, and am probably as excited about a big bog filter to plant in as anything else. I am very much a diy sort of person - no shade to anyone, but this won't be sponsored by aquascape.
The house has no windows that look over the backyard, so views from the house is not a thing. The current pond ends roughly at the right-hand side of the chimney, leaving 32 feet between the end of the current pond and the rose trellis to work with. It's currently just grass. The area is relatively flat, but has a slight slope diagonally towards the rose from the wildlife pond. I'm not worried about that - I figure I will have about 13 cubic yards of dirt from digging it out, so I can use that to build up what needs building up.
Electricity for the pump is already by the chimney, so easy access to the intake bay. This is on the eastern side of the house, so the bog area gets sun until 3 or so. I live in Jackson, MS, so it's hot in the summer, and by 3PM we are grateful for the shade.
As I said, I like plants, and so figure shelves on both long side, but leave the ends sheer. We don't have kids, but we do have wildlife, including racoons, so I figure the sheer sides and the depth will help with predator protection for the goldfish. I think this is about 3,000 gallons.
Our soil is thick clay, but no stones and no roots where the pond will be. It's not hard to dig, and it holds shape well. But it's like digging in modeling clay.
Questions/musings
Thanks - y'all are the best forum on the internet. I could not have built the first one without the info I learned from lurking here.
I'm planning on building my second pond this winter, and would like to get some help with ideas.
I have an existing wildlife pond I built in 2021, but it is intentionally not a goldfish pond. It's shallow (18 inches at the deepest) and has a small bog filter. I'm happy with it as it is, but also want a deep goldfish pond. My thinking is to build the new pond next to the old pond, but then build a deck between them, so it has the illusion of being one big body of water.
This is my existing pond (it's an old photo, it's more grown in now). It's about 12 x 6. I would build the deck where I'm sitting to take this picture, and it would overhang the "beach", so you look down from the edge and see water.
My idea for the new pond is a roughly 20 by 8 pond, 3 feet deep. I would have a bog filter that pours into the distant end in a low waterfall, and have an intake bay and viewing area up by the deck.
Here is a horrible, but to scale, layout.
The new pond would be landscaped similar to above. I like plants, and am probably as excited about a big bog filter to plant in as anything else. I am very much a diy sort of person - no shade to anyone, but this won't be sponsored by aquascape.
The house has no windows that look over the backyard, so views from the house is not a thing. The current pond ends roughly at the right-hand side of the chimney, leaving 32 feet between the end of the current pond and the rose trellis to work with. It's currently just grass. The area is relatively flat, but has a slight slope diagonally towards the rose from the wildlife pond. I'm not worried about that - I figure I will have about 13 cubic yards of dirt from digging it out, so I can use that to build up what needs building up.
Electricity for the pump is already by the chimney, so easy access to the intake bay. This is on the eastern side of the house, so the bog area gets sun until 3 or so. I live in Jackson, MS, so it's hot in the summer, and by 3PM we are grateful for the shade.
As I said, I like plants, and so figure shelves on both long side, but leave the ends sheer. We don't have kids, but we do have wildlife, including racoons, so I figure the sheer sides and the depth will help with predator protection for the goldfish. I think this is about 3,000 gallons.
Our soil is thick clay, but no stones and no roots where the pond will be. It's not hard to dig, and it holds shape well. But it's like digging in modeling clay.
Questions/musings
- What else can I do to make it safer for the goldfish, other than a cage or fence or something like that? Are there design decisions that will make it harder for the racoons? It's worth noting that my wildlife pond has some minnows in it, and the racoons have largely left them alone (I think they eat my frogs, though). But I figure a fat goldfish is a different sort of thing.
- I have fantasies about seeming the existing pond to the new one, or running a pipe to connect the two, or something, but really, I like the idea of two ponds with different purposes.
- I have played with various layouts, and I think this gives me the things I want without being so huge to be unattractive in the space. But I'm open to other ideas.
- I'm trying to figure out what the bog filter will look like. Most of the pictures I have seen of raised bogs that empty into ponds look like boxes. I want it to look natural. I do NOT want some volcano in the corner. If you have pictures of natural looking bogs, I would appreciate it.
- My whole county was historically a prairie - the only rocks here people brought here. So I need enough rocks to look natural, but not so many it looks "unnatural". But I haven't really seen other ways to edge a pond that work as well as rocks.
- Is it safe to assume that if it's a 3,000 gallon pond, I would need a 3,000 gallon pump to run through the bog?
Thanks - y'all are the best forum on the internet. I could not have built the first one without the info I learned from lurking here.
