Pond Vacuums

[CometKeith]

For more than 100 years concrete and modern mortars have been made with portland cement which when mixed with water creates a different substance from its ingredients through a chemical reaction called hydration.

To say concrete contains lime is to say PVC contains chlorine just because it's a big ingredient in making PVC.

The concrete myth is sooooo easy to disprove. Put a chunk of concrete in water and measure the pH. Done. But I guess its even easier to just repeat what one hears because it sounds smart.

Waterbug, Concrete products can raise PH when they breakdown. Obviously Portland cement is more inert, but concrete pavers and similar products can produce alkaline by-products as they decay. I have witnessed this myself and it is not something I "read" on the internet. Also you claim that water out of your tap starts at PH 8 and goes to 9. Surprise, but most ponds go down in ph after a while and not up. I saw your fancy web page with all the concrete ponds. If they are all yours I am really impressed... If not then I have to assume your are a paid blogger for Portland cement.

 

[Waterbug]

Yes, the portland cement industry pays me. Busted. And yes, I totally made a fake web site to do what? To sell ads? No ads. Couldn't possibly be I just love the hobby and dislike all the misinformation being given to new ponders driving them away from the hobby.

Many studies have been done on concrete sewer and water pipes. Easy search. Sewage is acidic and will attack the concrete. Even in those cases the concrete has little affect on the pH of the sewage. Yes, when concrete breaks down it would raise pH. If you take the total amount of calcium in concrete, and it's potential to effect pH, and spread that over the 100 years it would take that concrete to totally dissolve you would get a monthly increase of 0.00000076 increase in pH. Concrete is not magic.

Adding 8 ph water to a pond that becomes 9 ph...yeah, must be the concrete. Couldn't be evaporation. Are you a paid blogger for the sun?

 

[SmithRiverPond]

There seems to be a bit too much anger and arguing going on here. I'm sorry I asked the question that brought all this about. Perhaps this isn't the forum for me.

 

[taherrmann4]

SmithRiverPond in a forum you are going to get different opinions about what can and can't happen, what you should and should not do based on the peoples experiences of what has or hasn't worked for them in the past. This really is a great forum and the majority of the people on this forum are here to help, give guidance, help you avoid our mistakes we may have made over the years and lastly explain things in an easy to understand way.

 

[sissy]

thats true tmann most of us give our opinions and some do not agree but to find about everyones opinion is what is important .I will never be perfect and think there is not a perfect person out there .We sometimes go into things on this sight that sounds aggressive but is not meant to be .Cement has always been a big debate seal or not seal or if a pond should be lined with 20 mil or 45 mil and even if rubber roofing is safe and the same .We sometimes express the opinion to aggressive that scares some or makes someone mad but no harm is meant .I'm sorry this has jaded your opinion of us we are harmless and from me sorry very sorry

 

[addy1]

There seems to be a bit too much anger and arguing going on here. I'm sorry I asked the question that brought all this about. Perhaps this isn't the forum for me.

You will find they get into discussions that go back and forth. Everybody has an opinion some are strong about them. But most will try to help you out and get an answer to your issue. Everybody that has a pond, they have set that pond up that might not be the same as the next person but it works. That is all that matters if it works for you, and by sharing you might help the next person out.

Over all this is a great place and we would hate to see you leave.

 

[CometKeith]

Smithriver, most people here are very nice. I probably shouldn't have continued the cement discussion on your introduction page. I was just a little surprised by the attitude someone had and they way they said it. This is the first time I have encountered anything like this on the forum since I joined last year and I am not used to being bashed by anyone. Most of the conversations on gpf are very civil and the people here are generally very nice and extremely helpful. Hope you stay. regards cometkeith

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Well I'm new here too. This "discussion" seems pretty typical of most forums I've ever been in. Although maybe a little inappropriate to be held in someone’s introductory post.
With regard to just how harmful concrete can be in a pond, my last pond (I built myself), was an un-sealed concrete pond, so I have a pretty good idea of who’s shooting a little closer to the mark on this one.

My old cement pond
http://southokanagan...d2005/index.htm

 

[sissy]

that link you just put has a TROJAN HORSE virus my puter just blocked it mucky waters not sure how it got there

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Thanks for the heads up Sissy. It was not really a Trojan, but a java script imbedded in the html. Not sure why your virus checker would list it as such, but anyway, the script was unnecessary and has been removed.

 

[sissy]

I have my puter on high alert all the time and the virus protection I have is a commercial application and when it kicked in my puter did four scans to isolate it both came up and froze it and deleted it so no harm but took my puter over 2 hours to check all the systems when that happens

 

[addy1]

I got something called startnow when I used IE one time, (usually use firefox) startnow is a re-director of web sites. You think you are heading to one end up somewhere else. Had to go into reg edit to get rid of the exe. Firefox caught it and my malwares proggie blocked the ip it was trying to re direct me to.

 

[sissy]

I use moziila and internet explorer