I'd like to make my pond more shallow, any ideas?

[BRayPond]

I have a concrete pond that is about 12'Lx7'Wx3'D, it is kidney bean shaped and has very steep sides (probably to keep out prey from getting the fishies) the pond is also covered by a wood trelles and is under shade of trees. The pond has been at the house since I bought it, but I am concerned about children and pets falling in and would like to fill it in so it is only 18" deep (I know very sad to loose the nice deep pond). Any ideas on what would be best to fill it in with?

I'd rather not use more concrete because that would mean no going back, and if I ever wanted to take the whole thing out it would be a real pain. We thought about big rocks and gravel but it seems like it would make it difficult to keep clean...any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[HARO]

I would try pea gravel, the smaller the better. You could plant oxygenators directly in that, and if you change your mind it's not that hard to shovel it out. Also, detrius is less likely to fall between the stones to cause problems. Just my opinion. John

 

[sissy]

why not put sand in the bottom of the pond and then lay a liner over the sand it would bring the water up the height you need the only problem you may have is water getting under the liner if it is not weighted down to keep water from going under the edges of the liner ..You may be able to stop that from happening by spray foaming it in place Not sure if it would work .Question being does the spray foam stick to cement and would it break down over time and would it be easy to remove when you want to reverse it ..

 

[Waterbug]

I turned a swimming pool into a pond once and did it the hard way...you don't want to know. Later I saw a site of a guy who filled his pool partly with pea gravel, much better idea. Wish I had done that.

Later I did fill one of my ponds with pea gravel and plants, worked great.

Of all the materials, river rock, sand, pea gravel the pea gravel is the easiest to shovel by a long shot. If you really wanted to you could put down some pipes first so later you could pump water up through the gravel. Great filter.

 

[herzausstahl]

I would agree with Haro and Waterbug. I'm sure you can ask Addy1 about her bog about how stable her pea gravel is (as in can you walk on it), but she uses that for her pond filter. It would kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak for you (depth and bio-filter), and I would go with waterbug's idea to put plumbing under the gravel to circulate the water down there (Check out Addy1 pond build in the pond showcase and you can see how she did it).

 

[addy1]

The pea gravel would work great, I walk on my bog all the time, your feet don't sink into it. I have around 2.5 feet of pea gravel in my bog with 2 inch pvc running below it. I would (if I was doing what you are doing) add some pvc below the pea gravel, with holes/slots cut into it, pump you pond water through it. That will help with two things, it won't get stinky and stagnate, it will help filter your pond. You most likely will want to have a way to suck off the muck that will settle on top of the pea gravel over time, like a fish tank cleaner. With your pond only 18 inches deep you could use one to suck the top layer of gravel clean.

Take a look at this http://www.gardenpon...4-bog-building/ to see ways to pipe under your pea gravel.

I used one similar to this http://www.petsmart....ductId=11147172 when I had a 175 gallon fish tank, it works great. Just hook to your hose and suck out the muck. You would need to add dechlor as you clean. You can get a longer tube to reach down into the pond easier.

Or if you have a retrofit bottom drain you could stir things up and have the bottom drain suck out the stirred up muck. A vacuum would suck to much of the gravel up.

The other thing that would work well is http://www.cheappool...51~product.html just a garden hose needed, the net would gather up any large muck, I used one to help with my end of season bottom cleaning. (Had to pull out a lot of tadpoles, snails, and even a frog that collected in the net)

Hope this helps.

Oh and welcome to our group of pond fanatics!

 

[koiguy1969]

you might consider a liner .. and build up the floor with sand/sand bags etc...tthe liner would go on top of the sand bags. you could sculpt the pond with plant shelves and varying depths etc..

 

[adavisus]

As it's child safety that is the object, howsabout banging some 4" posts around the pond, clamping rebar over the pond area, then the little darlings can dangle directly over the pond as much as they like



Regards, andy

 

[BRayPond]

This is a lot of help! Thanks for all the replys!

I will most likely be using the pea gravel w/pvc at the bottom as many of you have suggested. I'm excited to get to work on my pond! I will take pictures along the way, if anyone is interested to see.

It will be nice to finally have a pond to enjoy, we only had it full for a year, and it was a painful year, because the previous owners had planted a climbing fig that had over taken all the rocks (didn't even know they were there), plants, trellis, and even particially covered a fountain by the pond, then all year it dropped figs into the pond! It was a mess, now the pond is empty and I have removed the climbing fig (painful, as it had grown over very pourous large rocks). Now to fill it in and get it full again!

Thanks again for all the replies and Addy1 thanks for the very detailed information you have provided!

 

[Waterbug]

When you fill the pond with water it will be very muddy, but should clear over a couple of days, maybe a week. Depends on where and how the gravel was mined. I've tried pre-washing the gravel but that is really hard and doesn't really help much. Doable if you don't need that much.

 

[addy1]

No kidding about pea gravel, that stuff holds on to dirt, we had so much quit washing it (hard on the well), just made a fines filter and ran that for a few days to clean up our water.

 

[BRayPond]

Got another question....does it matter which way I have the water flow; can I pump from the pipe at the bottom of my pea gravel to the top of my waterfall, thus only having one pump to do both jobs? Some of what I was reading made it sound like the water is suppose to be pumped from the pond, down and out of the pipes?

 

[addy1]

You might not have enough water collecting to pump from the pipe at the bottom of your pea gravel. The main thing you want to do is pump from your dirty area send the water to your cleaning area. if you have enough water in that pipe you could pump it to the top of the waterfall.

A lot of people split the plumbing of one pump to draw water from two places.

 

[BRayPond]

Thank you for your assistance...I am still a little bit confused.
Here is a diagram of what I planned to do: I put arrows in to show water flow. You think I could split the plumbing from the pump to provide for the waterfall?

 

[addy1]

Nice picture,
I pump water into pvc to exit under the gravel and push water up through it, makes a great filter keeps the water moving in the gravel. Reverse your arrows, that is how mine works.

Your diagram looks like it is pulling water out of the gravel, not sure that would work as well., ie keeping it fresh, that would seem to me, draw debris down into the gravel.

Your pump could push water under the gravel and push water to your water fall. Just do a T, you might want a ball valve to control the flow more or less to the two areas.