My first pond build - in slo-mo

[sissy]

To expensive for me to purchase but is an interesting piece .I watch my pennies being retired and all but if I could afford some of there stuff I would purchase some .You never know what the future brings and what will come next .

 

[johnnyi]

Sissy,

You're right, their stuff generally isn't cheap, except that "bulkhead" fitting is way less than the other alternatives I had.

John

 

[sissy]

I got my bulk head at tractor supply here and it was 9 dollars .I could not find one anywhere else here .It seems even places like lowes or home depot do not sell them either .i went to 2 plumbing supply stores and they did not have them and then funny thing happened I went to a winery and you can buy half barrels there for 5 dollars and each barrel had a large tank adapter and a small one .The bigger one was 3 inches and the smaller one was 1 and half inches .If you bought the big barrel had a 5 inch one and a 2 and half inch one and those barrels were 10 dollars .I like the barrels as they make pretty end tables on my front porch .The guy told me they sell the barrels off after they cannot be used anymore ,not sure why ,he just said they become unusable after awhile .They smell good too.oh forgot to say also they have a shape of the barrel so they are great for use with the plastic barrels

 

[johnnyi]

Ordered my liner pieces, underlayment and pump last night. We're picking up the liner locally this afternoon. The pump is coming from azponds.com and will be here at some point, hopefully next week. I ordered the Laguna PT-350 2,900 gph submersible. Things are going to get real here very soon!

John

 

[j.w]

Cool John and we would love to see you in action getting real and putting all this together. Happy pondering :goldfish:

 

[ponddigger]

best o f luck with your pond construction ,keep the photos comming. :beer: littlepond :beer:

 

[sissy]

gosh you got a second Christmas coming when you get every thing .I bet your excited now

 

[johnnyi]

Sissy,

I'm definitely excited and there will definitely be more pictures. My concerns will be mostly associated with the pump and plumbing and the flow through the system, but I'll have to wait until I see the pump before getting into that.

John

 

[sissy]

knowing you that will be simple once you sit down with all your new stuff and think about it and good luck .You are going to be like a kid in a candy store .LOL

 

[johnnyi]

Hi all,

We got the liner last week and got the pump today. I haven't done anything with the liner yet but I hope to this weekend. This is how the pump came, no padding at all in the outer box:



The product box was in shrink-wrap plastic and there was a little styrofoam inside:



Filled with cool things:



The pump output line measures 1" and they have a quick connect adapter the goes from 1" to 1.5":



I then filled up a 20 gallon plastic storage bin with water, dropped the pump in and plugged it into power:



And it works!

Now for positioning in the future pond:



Need to buy a couple of fittings and some 2" flex-hose and it should work.

John

 

[johnnyi]

We unrolled/unfolded our 20' x 25' EPDM liner on Saturday afternoon. It was about 60 degrees F and it was easy to manipulate.



Refolded it to aid in the deployment:



Put the underlayment in:



Drag our liner into the hole, then unfold it within and tuck in the extra (not trimming anything just yet):





You'll notice we put the streambed liner in as well.

At this point we are debating whether to create a space on the bottom of the pond with soil covered with pea-gravel to have some grasses. As soon as that's decided then we will begin to fill the pond!

John

 

[j.w]

Looks like you are having fun and pond is really starting to look like a pond now.............pretty soon comes the water and before too long you will be sitting out there sipping your cold lemonade enjoying the sounds and sights...........relaxing and getting all kinds of other pondering dreams to add to make it your perfect little spot of Heaven!

 

[taherrmann4]

I would not trim anything until a few weeks after you have had water in it and everything up and running. You may also want to do some tweaking here and there.

 

[addy1]

Rather than put soil on the bottom of the pond with gravel over it for grasses, put the soil and gravel in oil pans, or pots, easy to move around to clean. The grass will grow great. Makes it easy to move the grass somewhere else if you change your mind.

 

[sissy]

yep better to wait until you trim it as liner will settle down more as the water puts pressure on the ground under the pond my liner would slide into the pond 2 or 3 inches every week or two .I kept putting marks on the liner to see how much it would sink .It stopped settling after a little over 2 months and we have red clay here .