Mr.Wizards Pond

[cajunmeme]

Is there anyway you could share the placement of your liner for the waterfall. I have the same waterfall and have been struggling on how to hide the plastic waterfall. I really like what you have done and I think I have most of the supplies needed to do one like yours. Thank you for any help you can give.

 

[Mr.Wizard]

It is not the best example because I ended up taking out that whole waterfall setup. It was setup with the waterfall box inside the liner. I had placed cinderblocks around the sides to build the shape then tucked a 5x5 pond liner into it.
View attachment 98686
You can kind of see it in the back of this picture.
I had several issues with it. #1 was the water would travel horizontally along the blocks and drip into the dirt. #2 I didn't account for splashing and the water would splash onto the flagstone and drip out. It ended up being a mess.

 

[Mr.Wizard]

I haven't made much progress lately. It seems like all my free time coincides with rain storms. I did however drop the waterfall box all the way down and attached the pond line to the face of it. I cut a notch in the liner and used silicone to attach the liner to the water fall box under the spillway.

I then stacked rocks around it to hide the liner. The top will probably stay open because I want to add floating plants, Similar to this https://www.pinterest.com/pin/389279961511916806/
Hopefully we get some dry weather soon, my entire backyard looks like a disaster right now. The pond water looks horrible, wind rain and algae have turned it into a greenish-brown soup.

 

[sissy]

just watch what plants you put in there and trim the roots .I love plants in my filters

 

[TAHOE]

I hope your silicone holds, I've not had much luck with it sticking to liner/rubber materials and also the hard plastic like your spillway, comes lose after a short time. I've found the black roofing caulk works the best for this, I normally use Locktite PL S30 as it's what I found at local box store.

Your set up looks nice!

 

[sissy]

addy uses pl roofing goop and it works better .I used it to attach the liner under my filter to the pond liner

 

[Duck Farmer]

I like the look of that lowered waterfall!

 

[addy1]

addy uses pl roofing goop and it works better .I used it to attach the liner under my filter to the pond liner

My favorite ponding goop!

 

[sissy]

and it works when I took the pond apart that stuff was holding it's seal .Could not even pull it apart .I used it again .Do you know you can even glue rocks down with it and it holds them in place .I did it by accident and leaned on the rock and it glued tight down too the liner .I went to move the rock off the liner the next day to fold the good parts of the liner up and the rock would not budge .

 

[Stephen T.]

There is a place about 30 minutes away that sells native fish fingerlings. They have bluegill, red-eared sunfish, largemouth bass, channel catfish, hybrid carp(goldfish+common carp), and even sturgeon..

One of the most attractive is the pumpkinseed sunfish. They have iridescent colors and generally only get about 5" long. They are carnivores and love earthworms. I had a pair in a 15 gallon aquarium for several years. They got quite tame and liked their backs gently scratched! Out in a pond, they build a nest in 2-3 feet of water, cleaned so it's just sand and small stones. At this point, they are very territorial, attacking anything that gets too close, including a hand or foot!

 

[Mr.Wizard]

It's looking like a pond! I now have 8 goldfish, they average about 2" long. The pond is so green can only see about 6" deep. Still need to plant some grass seed and clean up the area. I also have some small river rock to spread around the back of the waterfall filter box. Plants will be my next focus; I am thinking Lilies, iris, hornwart, watercress and some marginal flowers in the pond. Along with a mix of wild flowers along the back fence should blend everything together.

In regards to the loctite S30, I have some, I will keep an eye on the liner and correct it as needed..

 

[Lisak1]

Do you know you can even glue rocks down with it and it holds them in place

Good thing you didn't glue yourself to the liner @sissy !

 

[sissy]

I thought about that since I was leaning on it at times and it squeezed out the sides of the rock .The stuff glued my gloves to each other when I took them off and lucky I had lots of gloves or I may have been using my bare hands and would have learned the hard way .I did have a little on my skin but nail polish remover got the tiny bit off .

 

[addy1]

Mineral spirits works and I think it was lowes that has a package of wipes you can buy that takes it right off. In the isle with the tubes.

 

[Mr.Wizard]

It's so GREEN. I know everyone says that new ponds turn green, but it is GREEN! To make things worse, I tested the water: pH is off the chart, 9 or higher(probably due to algae), zero ammonia, zero nitrites and zero nitrates. I think I need to add ammonia but I looked around but couldn't find ammonia at any stores in town. There is an Ace Hardware by my work and I know they carry pure ammonia.

I did add an aerator to keep the oxygen levels up while the algae is taking over.