mrsclem
mrsclem
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Nice renovation!
My goldfish pond
- Thread starter CometKeith
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Thank you. It was total accident because I was planning it on the other side. It took me some time to realize I could change that. So two things my pond "pro" told me were totally right. Look at a picture of when you dug the pond to see the shape of the earth under the pond and drain the pond and remove the fish and water. If I had done those two things it would have saved me a lot of grief. I like the way the fish go to the rounded perimeter of the pond now. So now that the water is so clear my wife can see the drain pipe that cuts across and even the lettering stamped on the pond liner. I think the lettering will get covered by algae soon because that is a plant shelf and it was out of the water when I drained down my pond to build my bog. I'm going to try to move one of my lily's and see if I can hide the pipe. I have them set on plastic egg crates so hopefully I can just move one of them. So how is your bog working out? You mentioned it was small. What percentage of your pond is the bog? My bog is about 20SF so it's around 15-18% of the surface area. It's raining here now but my plan is to pick up some more pea gravel today. Also I want to install the new check valve I bought for my pump. I can't get a lot of water pressure from my pump and I have a feeling the check valve is not working properly. The new one I got is made by aquascape and I'm thinking of mounting it horizontally outside of my pond so it will be easier to service.
@CometKeith - it looks amazing! You're going to be so happy with your new bog!
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Thanks.. but now my wife wants me to attack our home improvement projects with the same vigor! She has been home since mid March because of the stay at home orders here and she has come up with an endless number of home improvement projects for me to get done! The problem is I'm in construction so she knows I have all the resources to get things done if I really want to...
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If you want babies in your pond be sure to have some plants and areas where the fry can hide until they get bigger. Fish will eat eggs and fry and it's pretty natural otherwise you would have hundreds of new fish every time they start spawning. Once the babies start showing some color they will recognize them as other goldfish and leave them alone. I really like watching how babies change color over time and watching them grow. You may have to wait until spring before they spawn again.holy cow! I am hoping the fish breed soon in mine
mrsclem
mrsclem
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We just started another unexpected project. Another huge rainfall, almost exactly to the day form the one last year so more water in the basement. Pulling paneling and insulation to prevent any more mold! Don't have time for this!
TheFishGuy
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I am getting my paycheck this weekend so I will go to pick up some plants then!
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Wow, same thing here !!! We had a big rain the other night and water came in, in the only 20 feet not water proofed
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Another bog convertee! Way to go @CometKeith
TheFishGuy
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okay so I have made the decsision to convert to a bog, what container would be best? ( preferallybly and above ground container bog to start
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Hi. I actually did quite a bit of research before settling on what I wanted. The best articles I read about bogs were our very one Addy and her sticky note on gpf on bogs and also Nelson watergarden’s blog on the same subject. There are so many ways to build a bog it’s endless. I’m very far from any kind of expert. I was so unsure what to do I ended up hiring a consultant to help me. if you are doing it external I would guess some sort of container you could fill with 12 inches of pea gravel and have the water pumped to the bottom of the container and maybe create a waterfall so gravity brings the water back to your pond.
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Thanks Addy. I have read about your bog in earnest for quite some time and I wrongly assumed I didn’t have space for one. I only realized recently that I should carve out some of the existing pond to make one. So the question for me was do I want my pond size 80% of the current size but crystal clear water so I could see my fish or 100% of the size with dirty water. The 80% size was the clear winner!! One funny thing I didn’t really think about is that I kept measuring the river rock height and the pea gravel height from the top of the water. I didn’t realize the water level was slowly going up as I added all my stone. So I probably have more pea gravel and river rock than I thought! I bought 6 more bags of pea gravel today. I’m trying to clean it well before I put it in the bog. I still have 3.5 bags to go!
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Wow that sounds rough. When we rehabbed the building we are in we dug down the basement and put in drain tile all around the basement perimeter and a membrane to catch any water that might leak through the brick. It all goes to a sub pump that pumps water out to the sewer. We also installed overhead sewers. I think it helps that our street is on a slope so water always runs away from our property. 100 years ago our block was part of a beach on Lake Michigan! When we dug the basment down we had sand under our footings and we had to add cement piers for support.
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Sorry Tula. That’s not fun. I hope it’s not too hard to clean up. I was just thinking today that you bought pea gravel from a big box store for your project. I have done that too for small projects like repotting lilys. Today I bought 6 x 80 lb bags from a material supply house I go to. Each bag of 80 lb pea gravel was $6!Wow, same thing here !!! We had a big rain the other night and water came in, in the only 20 feet not water proofed
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lol that was the result of researching how to build a big healthy pond before I started my build. I was living on the monster pond forums, articles etc. A lot of them mentioned bogs. I have had bogs before but not like this one.
So finally I said the heck with it, quit reading about filters etc, dug my pond and bog and have not looked back.
Love the zero care ponding.
The admins asked me to write up a how to do a bog thread, so I did from my notes and a bit more research.