Sorry to hear of your injury. Hope it heals quickly.
Photos of expansion project
- Thread starter D&RW
- Start date
Slow down, work smart. You will get there in time. Get well...
Thanks you guys. I really appreciate it. I've been trying to slow down a bit and avoid injuries; this fall was just a fluke. Gad that ground is hard. Comes up really fast too!!! Xrays show no fractures and range of motion is very slowly increasing.
Liner arrives tomorrow. Going to try and go up on Saturday and pick up at least one of the transfer tanks, maybe both if possible. I can set them up and get them running, test the water, etc. and ready them for transfer.
We're just about to enter our rainy season so with my shoulder it may be awhile before I can do any more than that. It's going to be really messy when I drain the pond and pull the liner back to deepen it.
So, I guess I've no choice but to slow down a bit and let my body heal. I'd really much rather do the work myself when I can than hire it done. The fish are happy where they are right now anyway.
Liner arrives tomorrow. Going to try and go up on Saturday and pick up at least one of the transfer tanks, maybe both if possible. I can set them up and get them running, test the water, etc. and ready them for transfer.
We're just about to enter our rainy season so with my shoulder it may be awhile before I can do any more than that. It's going to be really messy when I drain the pond and pull the liner back to deepen it.
So, I guess I've no choice but to slow down a bit and let my body heal. I'd really much rather do the work myself when I can than hire it done. The fish are happy where they are right now anyway.
Shoulder's still sore, but much better. no fractures. Started digging on north side of pond. Also put up a tarp as the rainy season is coming and it gets to be a mud pit--lots of clay so it sticks to your shoes something awful. going slow on the digging I can favor my arm and shoulder and not exert them too much.
Picked up two transfer tanks from a sweet lady on KoiVet forum. She lent me a 700 gallon and a 300 gallon tank to house the fish while I finish the digging and insert the new liner. I wish I'd taken a picture of my little truck loaded down with an 8 ft. wide 3 ft. high tank with a 300 gallon rubber maid inside of it. I nearly lost it twice coming back-75 miles-finally figured out a way to tie it down securely. I'll take a picture of it when I take them back.
Replumbed one of the two irrigation pipes seen in the picture today. I cut one and nothing came out, i.e. it was hooked up to a controller. I cut the other one and it was a supply line-even through a small cut in the pipe water poured out-so I got a mud bath to work in anyway before I could get the water turned off. I replumbed the supply line and will do the irrigation head line tomorrow--I was out of 1 in fittings.
Also cut a 4 in hole in the easy pro aquafalls and installed a bulkhead with the top just below the waterline. Ordered a knife valve and will hook it up as soon as it arrives. I'm really interested to see if that one 4 in pipe can carry all the water and divert it from the waterfall.
Picked up two transfer tanks from a sweet lady on KoiVet forum. She lent me a 700 gallon and a 300 gallon tank to house the fish while I finish the digging and insert the new liner. I wish I'd taken a picture of my little truck loaded down with an 8 ft. wide 3 ft. high tank with a 300 gallon rubber maid inside of it. I nearly lost it twice coming back-75 miles-finally figured out a way to tie it down securely. I'll take a picture of it when I take them back.
Replumbed one of the two irrigation pipes seen in the picture today. I cut one and nothing came out, i.e. it was hooked up to a controller. I cut the other one and it was a supply line-even through a small cut in the pipe water poured out-so I got a mud bath to work in anyway before I could get the water turned off. I replumbed the supply line and will do the irrigation head line tomorrow--I was out of 1 in fittings.
Also cut a 4 in hole in the easy pro aquafalls and installed a bulkhead with the top just below the waterline. Ordered a knife valve and will hook it up as soon as it arrives. I'm really interested to see if that one 4 in pipe can carry all the water and divert it from the waterfall.
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Update. Weather's changing. Nearly froze last night. Since I had lowered the water to prevent the middle wall from collapsing, I felt it best to go ahead and move the fish. They are all now in the two tanks lent me by Kathy. Moving them wasn't as smooth as I would have liked, but the fish are doing fine in their temporary home.
I've started removing the middle wall now that the water's out. Gad there is going to be a lot of dirt. But it's going well. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain for a number of days so probably won't get to work on it for awhile.
I've started removing the middle wall now that the water's out. Gad there is going to be a lot of dirt. But it's going well. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain for a number of days so probably won't get to work on it for awhile.
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What did the large containers set you back? I am looking for something like that.
Borrowed, my friend! I offered to compensate her, but she said being able to help a fellow ponder was enough. She doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to buy her a gift certificate to Foster's and Smith, a store she likes.
checked around local venues and found that the 700 gallon tank sells for around $350 and the 300 gallon around $200.
Much digging to do. I've a contact for a guy that'll do the work--i'm worn out and need a break. fish are happy in the garage. i'd rather move them sooner than later, but another 5-6 yards of dirt to move causes me pause for thought.
It looks like I'm in this for the long haul. Lately I've taken a short break, because I had to work at my bread-winnin' job. But it's been good for me because I'm nearly exhausted and that puts me in a frame of mind to "just finish it", i.e. settle for less that I really want. Gad I'm tired of digging--and the deeper I go the harder it is to get the dirt up and out. The guy who was going to help me hasn't called. I checked with day labor outfits, but they want $20/per person per hour. I'm not sure how much I need them and hate to pay so much when I can do it myself, just way slower.
The fish seem pretty happy; No illnesses, no erratic behaviors or signs of problems, water's checkin out good, 10-15% water changes once a week. So, even though my preference is to get them back into the pond post haste, I've got a few things to think through first. And, I need some ideas/advice/suggestions please.
1st--fish motion/habitat. before i had a waterfall at one end and a skimmer at the other with a sloping bottom toward the skimmer. Still have that in the old hole, but the new excavation is a shelf about 1.5-2 ft above the other hole bottom. It has a steep wall. I'm thinking either of going ahead and excavating all of it (oh, my, god. is he crazy) or at least creating a sloping edge at either end so the fish can swim up and around on the ledge without having to change "altitude". smooth transition from bottom at either end up onto the ledge. is that dumb?
2nd-flow. do i need to figure a way to keep the water on the ledge moving somehow. the plan is for that ledge area to be for lillies and other plants so I plan to direct the waterfall toward the old pond to minimize surface water movement. so maybe I could put the outflow from the second pump (going through the bead filter) under the surface and against the wall of the ledge to encourage flow in the same basic direction as the waterfall, overall counter clockwise toward the skimmer.
3rd-enhance aquafalls filtration. The bead filter i have is for a 2000 gallon pond. the aquafalls filter is supposed to handle up to 6,000 gallons which i may approximate if i excavate the ledge. I'd like to enhance the fines filtration of the aquafalls. what do you folks think of putting a few cubic feet of the plastic type biomedia in the bottom? then, what'd I do is make a 2 in. pipe to come off the bulkhead and run across the bottom of the filter box. cap the end and drill multiple large holes in it to distribute the water rather than have it rush out of one orifice. my thought is the fines will have to work their way up through the biomedia before they hit any of the matting. then the filterfalls comes with two bulkheads, so the other will be setup as a backflush. do you think this would help with fines? I can't really afford a bigger bead filter right now.
well, that's it for now. attached are a few pictures, one at night. I got bored and couldn't sleep.
The fish seem pretty happy; No illnesses, no erratic behaviors or signs of problems, water's checkin out good, 10-15% water changes once a week. So, even though my preference is to get them back into the pond post haste, I've got a few things to think through first. And, I need some ideas/advice/suggestions please.
1st--fish motion/habitat. before i had a waterfall at one end and a skimmer at the other with a sloping bottom toward the skimmer. Still have that in the old hole, but the new excavation is a shelf about 1.5-2 ft above the other hole bottom. It has a steep wall. I'm thinking either of going ahead and excavating all of it (oh, my, god. is he crazy) or at least creating a sloping edge at either end so the fish can swim up and around on the ledge without having to change "altitude". smooth transition from bottom at either end up onto the ledge. is that dumb?
2nd-flow. do i need to figure a way to keep the water on the ledge moving somehow. the plan is for that ledge area to be for lillies and other plants so I plan to direct the waterfall toward the old pond to minimize surface water movement. so maybe I could put the outflow from the second pump (going through the bead filter) under the surface and against the wall of the ledge to encourage flow in the same basic direction as the waterfall, overall counter clockwise toward the skimmer.
3rd-enhance aquafalls filtration. The bead filter i have is for a 2000 gallon pond. the aquafalls filter is supposed to handle up to 6,000 gallons which i may approximate if i excavate the ledge. I'd like to enhance the fines filtration of the aquafalls. what do you folks think of putting a few cubic feet of the plastic type biomedia in the bottom? then, what'd I do is make a 2 in. pipe to come off the bulkhead and run across the bottom of the filter box. cap the end and drill multiple large holes in it to distribute the water rather than have it rush out of one orifice. my thought is the fines will have to work their way up through the biomedia before they hit any of the matting. then the filterfalls comes with two bulkheads, so the other will be setup as a backflush. do you think this would help with fines? I can't really afford a bigger bead filter right now.
well, that's it for now. attached are a few pictures, one at night. I got bored and couldn't sleep.
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Hurray!! Digging is done. 5'5" deep at the deep end. I carved it out a bit and sloped the side to the left. I've hired a man to come by tomorrow and remove the last of the dirt. Now I'm finishing filling the gaps in the wall with "great stuff" which is working, well, great. Then I'll tack carpet over the top of the wall hanging down. And then we can put in the new liner.
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Don't trim the liner until it has been full for about 24 hours. It is going to gather and settle a bit.
Ok, thanks.
When you do trim it, I suggest leaving it bigger than you want. You can always come back and re-trim it later.