My goldfish pond

[addy1]

What bog plants are you looking for?

 

[rubyduby]

I ordered from William Tricker. This is my second order from them this season and I've been very pleased.

Tricker's® Aquatic Plants & Outdoor Decor - Water Gardening & Outdoor Decor

www.tricker.com

Thank you, I will order from them

 

[CometKeith]

Sounds like a well thought out plan. Are you laying the cinderblocks flat? Hacksaw (any saw) works, draw a line all the way around the pipe with a marker to help you get a straight cut and deburr it with a box cutter. Clean dirt off with a rag. Dry fit them, Use primer on both parts, and I like the blue cement making sure to coat the entire gluing surface of both parts w/o pooling it. 1/4 turn (this creates the weld magic I think) when joining and hold tight together for 30 seconds.
The pond digger has a good video for joining PVC and why he recommends the blue cement.

Do I need to lay them flat? It will take a lot more room in the pond and I will need more of them to do that... but I absolutely don’t want the wall to topple over. That would be a disaster! I appreciates your thought on this. Thanks!

 

[Tula]

What bog plants are you looking for?

@CometKeith .....yes, you know I have Pennywort - LOL

 

[CometKeith]

@CometKeith .....yes, you know I have Pennywort - LOL

Yes. Thanks. I’m going to have my wife very involved with the plant selection process. This is one part of the process I’m willing to give over to her. One thing I know is she doesn’t like yellow flowers! So I did some measuring this morning. The bog will be approximately 1/2 of a circle that is 9 ft in length acroos the longest side and 3 ft in the opposite direction. If it was 9 ft in diameter all around it would be 31 sf. If it was 6 ft diameter it would be 27 sf . It varies from 30 inches deep to 12 “ where the shelf is. I bought 800 lbs of river rock and 800 lbs of pea gravel. I’m guessing I will install about a foot deep of river rock and the same of pea gravel. I do have a 2x3 shelf in this area which complicates things a little. Also I showed my cement block to a neIghbor who is a mason. He said to put the solid ie foundation block on the bottom and he showed me it was 8” x 6“ which I hadn’t noticed and said to make sure the wall is 8” wide by putting the solid block so it lines up. So far I spent $130 on rock and gravel. I decided 1600 lbs was enough to buy because I didn’t want to overload my suv. I figure if I need more I can always go to Home Depot.

 

[IPA]

Do I need to lay them flat? It will take a lot more room in the pond and I will need more of them to do that... but I absolutely don’t want the wall to topple over. That would be a disaster! I appreciates your thought on this. Thanks!

I think I was imagining the cinder cap blocks that are 4”x8”x16” but it sounds like you have something different.

 

[Tula]

Tricker's® Aquatic Plants & Outdoor Decor - Water Gardening & Outdoor Decor

www.tricker.com

Keith, maybe this site will be of interest to your wife. It's one of the oldest water garden suppliers ( with quite an interesting history ) and I've found their customer service and plant material excellent.

 

[CometKeith]

I ran into problems yesterday. There is a clay drainage pipe running under my pond that I didn’t demo when I built it. The pipe runs across the section I wanted to build the wall between my new bog and the pond. Where you can see two blocks in a row is the direction of the pipe. I thought about it last night and it makes the most sense to build it on the other side of the pond now. I’m guessing I will make it either 30” or 36 “ wide and 78” long about. I’m trying to decide if I need one or two pvc pipes for it. I’m guessing If it is 30” one pipe is enough. This is a picture of failed day one and where I stopped. There is also a big plant shelf on the right side where you can see I put 2 pieces of flagstone. If I did the bog there it would be half moon shape but the deeper end would be very small because I had to move the wall because of the pipe.
I think building it on the left will be way easier.

 

[Tula]

There are challenges when adding a bog to a existing pond. We had to take into account our water fall plumbing runs under where the spillway from the bog to the pond is.

 

[Lisak1]

I ran into problems yesterday.

@CometKeith - I feel like that statement could be the caption of nearly every day of my life! haha! All of these challenges just keep our minds sharp as we work to figure them out... or at least that's what I tell myself!

 

[rubyduby]

@CometKeith - I feel like that statement could be the caption of nearly every day of my life! haha! All of these challenges just keep our minds sharp as we work to figure them out... or at least that's what I tell myself!

mine too! I just can’t seem to get a break...every day it’s something else

 

[CometKeith]

So now I know why the “pro” said two things. He wanted a picture of my pond when I dug it. I have it somewhere but didn’t have it handy when we met. If he had seen that picture we could have seen the drain pipe and changed plans before starting. He also said it’s easier to get a large tub and take the fish out and work on the pond with the water out. It seemed like a major hassle to do that but I could see it’s much easier and safer doing things that way. Also if I wanted to mortar the bog wall as some people recommend I could never do that with water in it. I built the wall yesterday, but it was a straight line and my wife hated it. She was right it didn’t go with anything else. So I refilled the pond and figured I would revisit it in a few weeks after thinking it through and getting more advice. I found some 1.5 inch tubing and moved my pump to the other side of the pond and started filling the bog when the water was even on both sides of the wall. You could see water moving from the bog side to the pond side which was cool even thought I didn’t have the under bog tubing and gravel in yet. This morning she asked if I could try to curve the wall. I started it this afternoon and couldn’t believe how easy it was with all the water in. The heavy blocks moved so easily and the liner was held down by water and I didn’t have the problem with water under my new liner like yesterday. So it’s curved now. I’m thinking of getting the pvc for the bottom tomorrow. I need to do it in black to hide it. I can’t wait too long. I still have 1600 lbs of stone I need to get rid of! This is how it looked at the end of the day. The new bog wall is on the left. The bog is about 30” x 78”. Depending on how high my water is the water
is it will either trickle through stone openings and run slowly over the top of the flag stone wall or it will freely mix with the pond water. I think either way it will be fine. For plantings for now we are going to keep it really simple. Just some dwarf sweet flag planted in the bog and floating water lettuces and see how that work out. We saw a picture of them mixed together and it looked nice. So far my total cost has been $130 other than paying the pro. I reused a pump and flexible tubing I had. I used concrete block from a job site someone was throwing away. I used a liner I got somewhere and never used because it was so small. 8x10. I used flagstone and limestone that I had from previous projects. The only thing I bought so far was the river rock and pea gravel!

 

[Tula]

Wow, you've been busy !! The curved wall looks more natural then a straight one and I'm glad it was easier moving the blocks with the water raised.

I'm trying to understand if you're using a separate liner for the bog? Is it laid over the pond liner?

It looks really neat looking down from above !

 

[IPA]

This pipe?

My new goldfish pond build

I'm starting a new thread just for my new pond build. We are moving in less than 10 days and I have to dig a new pond at our new property and move all my fish! It's not my first choice but we got a great offer on our house and couldn't turn it down. Also we are very busy moving after 18 years in...

www.gardenpondforum.com

 

[CometKeith]

Wow, you've been busy !! The curved wall looks more natural then a straight one and I'm glad it was easier moving the blocks with the water raised.

I'm trying to understand if you're using a separate liner for the bog? Is it laid over the pond liner?

It looks really neat looking down from above !

Hi Tula. Yes well I can thank Covid for me staying home 3 days straight for the holiday with nothing really planned other than this. Yes that’s what the pro suggested. It is way easier than removing the old liner and putting a new one down. This way it like a pond in another pond. I read Nelson water garden‘s blog and she suggest to lower the water down a foot and lift up the old liner but that sounds like a lot of work and a dirty job. By putting a new liner I was able to seal off the wall with the new bog liner. It’s funny once both the pond and bog had the same amount of water I was able to adjust the liner really easily. He suggested cutting just below the top of the wall but because I’m going have water for the top 6 inches I don’t really see a need to cut it and tucked under the limestone on the top few inches. The only real issue I had is when I put down the new bog liner there was a lot of water under it. I tried putting down some gravel to push it down but once I filled it with water it forced all the water out that was under it and laid down nicely. Here is another view.