Newbie: Mortar and Fish

[tbeck11]

I'm in the process of starting a new pond and have made my walls vertical to keep the fox, coons and heron for eating for free. My question is this... can I stack my rocks and mortar them in place? I hear the phrase, "acid wash" before adding fish and plants. What is the procedure for this?

Thanks,

Todd
Reading, PA

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the forum !!
I have always dry stacked my rocks , so im not sure about the wash steps

 

[taherrmann4]

Welcome to the forum. Why do you wan to mortar your rocks in? I just dry stacked my rocks, makes it easier to tweak them especially for your waterfalls.

 

[j.w]

Yes we do love to continuously tweak our rocks,lol don't we? We are never satisfied w/ the way it looks, at least I never am. I have taken my whole waterfall apart several times!

 

[koidaddy]

Welcome Todd. I was born in Reading and lived in that area untill 1980.(Shillington, Birdsboro, Westlawn) All I now of the acid wash is I had some jeans that were back in the 90's.

 

[tbeck11]

The reason I was looking to lock the rocks in was the walls in my pond are almost vertical to keep the local critters out. I think I am just going to tweak the walls and dry stack. The picture I have posted was the 3 dry fit of the waterfall and I'm not sure if I'm sold on this layout yet or not.

I picked up the underlayment and liner yesterday and the rock is showing up today. I might be swimming by Sunday!!!

Koidaddy, I'm up near the intersection on RT 222 and Rt 73 in Blandon. Be glad you are not in Reading (the city) anymore!!!! It's a hell hole!

 

[taherrmann4]

tbeck11,
I see in your pics that you have the waterfall facing the front door and the skimmer facing the driveway. Is this so you can enjoy it from your porch? You may want to try and envision what it would look like reversed, so when you are walking toward the house from the street you can take in the view of the waterfall. The way you have it now is anyone who walks up to the house will have their line of sight on the skimmer and this usually isn't the most attractive part of the pond. You can disguise it however. Are you going to have two waterfalls?

I would encourage you to dry stack it b/c you will want to change it once you get water flowing over it. I have changed mine and tweaked it a dozen or more times, seems to be a yearly ritual for me. My wife always yells at me to just leave it alone it looks great, but in mind I always think i can make it better. At least she knows where to find me. :razz:

Are you going to lower the height of the dirt that is up by the house? It looks like it is up against the siding of the house which will cause you problems with moisture and potential rotting of the wood on your house. I know you are still working on it but just wanted to throw that out.

Don't hesitate to ask for questions and we all have opinions on here. :goldfish:

 

[tbeck11]

Todd, Thanks for the input. The pond is the first of a two year front yard landscaping plan. The skimmer end is at the porch which is where we will be sitting and relaxing to enjoy the pond. The way the street curves infront of the house, the view from there will be very nice. We have people driving past all the time now nose-poking to see how far I am.

I am going to just dry stack the rock inside the pond. I can't wait to rock it in this week!

I will have two waterfalls, staggered to give a different water flow pattern over the rocks. i will be moving that dirt at the house. In fact, I will be doing that tonight You coming over? LOL!

Thanks again!

 

[taherrmann4]

tbeck11,
I meant to ask you how deep your pond is going to be? Are you going to house any fish? I see your ground seems to be a bit rocky be sure you put down a good underlayment. I think you will be happy with the dry stack.

I will have two waterfalls, staggered to give a different water flow pattern over the rocks. i will be moving that dirt at the house. In fact, I will be doing that tonight You coming over? LOL!

I wish I could come over and give you a hand sounds like a lot of fun, but I will be backpacking in the hills this weekend. Be sure you take some pics and share with us. You can also start your own thread in the showcase section, lets us live vicariously through you and reminisce about the good ole times when we were digging, sweating, cursing, and just plain stumped as to what to do with a problem we encountered.

Most of all have fun doing it.....

 

[addy1]

Put in small back slanted "steps" in your pond to set the rocks on. I found that to be the best way to handle covering our slopes with the rocks.

Make a each step a little further back to set the rocks on top of each other. With the small shelf to set them on you can push the liner back onto the shelf, makes the stones real stable.

 

[tbeck11]

My pond is going to be approx 30"+ at the base of the falls to 24" at the bottom of the skimmer. If you look close at the pictures, you can see i added a Koi tunnel to connect the waterfall side and the skimmer side. What I am planning on doing is placing a piece of slate over the tunnel to give protection to the fish.

In the spring I plan to add the fish and maybe some red-eared sliders. My goal for this year is to get the water in and running then add the fish and plants in the spring.

My rocks were just dropped off. Gonna be a long night after work!

I added a pick showing the front of the house "before" the BIG DIG started.

 

[j.w]

Neat tunnel idea for the koi. Are you covering the whole tunnel? If so you might want to make the slate easy to move so you can net out any gunk that gathers under there now and then or I guess you could shove a vacuum hose in there to suck it out or use a garden hose to push it out where you can grab it out.

 

[fishin4cars]

Just throwing my two cents here, 1 if at all possible, go deeper, My pond is that depth way down here in Louisiana and I have problems watching close during really cold snaps but even worse the high temps of summer, 30" should be your shoallow end to eliminate most of your pedators, I've seen crains and coons stand in 24" of water! second, once you have your dry stacking and you think you need more support, Waterfall foam does great, just shoot a dab between the rocks and it will fill in gaps but still give some support to keep rock slides down, Need to let it dry for 24hrs but it's 100% safe and doesn't need anything done to it to keep water PH stable like motar. The only time I would use cement would be for wall construction then I would seal it.

 

[tbeck11]

I am going to cover the Koi Tunnel with at piece of slate. I'm thinking about a 18" - 24" long piece so that they have enough for protection but not big enough that I won't see them again.

I might go a little deeper in spots. I did a PA-ONE-CALL to locate my utilities and I am close to the water main.

 

[tbeck11]

Added pics into a new showcase if anyone is interested.