The pond dig has begun!

[addy1]

good luck!

 

[sissy]

You just have to replace the hose clamps before they rust to much on most of them .I buy a bag of hose clamps at harbor freight for 5 dollars and it has 50 of them .But the plumbing supply store sells a brand that does not rust ,they are more expensive but worth it if you don't want to take the chance .I paid 6 dollars for 5 of them ,says surgical steel on the bin I got them out of

 

[j.w]

Wishing and hoping you have success CE on the first trial! Pix would be great!

 

[CountryEscape]

Well, crap, one thing then another. Car is in shop with transmission trouble. Went to take truck to town to get the last connector (yep, I was short one Grrrrrr) and battery was dead. Had it checked, ORIGINAL battery was still in it and it's a 2001 truck! So, kept truck running went to get it replaced when got connector. While in town, got seed for pasture.
Then, got all parts cut, put together, taken apart, measured, etc. ready to glue .... stupid glue is dried up!!! What else?! So, back to town I gotta go to get the glue. The cleaner stuff is fine, guess the glue decided it had been used enough, darn it. Oh well, still will get it all put together tonight, test it in the bathtub, if all goes well, the waterfall WILL be up and running tomorrow. It's so windy today, probably would not have been good day to try it out anyhow.

 

[CountryEscape]

That was a short trip. Good thing I thought to call before I headed to town ... they closed 40 minutes ago. Not going to drive 30 miles just to get the glue. Will just have to wait until I go to work on Monday. Ho hum .... oh well, supposed to be cold again tomorrow anyhow, and the wind is making enough current on the top of the pond to circulate it somewhat. Guess I'll just have to clean house instead.

 

[addy1]

at last resort clean house................

 

[j.w]

Ewwwwwwwwwww, oh no the dreaded clean house cuz there is nothing better to do syndrome? Sorry it didn't work out today CE, guess it wasn't meant to be. Better luck next week!

 

[pondlover]

CE - sounds like you deserve a nice break. With gas the price it is, who can blame you for waiting till Monday. I'm anxious to see what your new waterfall is going to look like. I bet its going to be awesome. Maybe next weekend it will all be going again.

 

[CountryEscape]

PL, when I look at other's waterfalls and streams, mine looks pretty small. But, when I remember I have a totally flat yard ... it's pretty hard to have the beauty others have with their sloping yards. But, the waterfall will be at least a little more dramatic, with more "falls" rather than just a sloping stream. At least that's how the test run looked. I'm anxious to get the rocks back in place, too. Thanks for watching, I'll be sure to post pics when I get it put back together! Yeah, the gas prices make it counter productive to drive 50 miles total for one bottle of the pipe glue, darn it. Always Monday evening, and soon we will have daylight savings so more time in the evenings. Woohoo!

 

[addy1]

CE this is my stream in arizona, the land was flat, with just the slightest drop to the back yard.

 

[CountryEscape]

Addy, you have given me hope that I might be able to do a stream yet!!! My thought for the new pond is to have a stream looking like it is flowing from the main pond to the lower pond, but "cheating" and just pumping the water to the head of the stream, even make it look like it's overflowing from the main pond. So with your picture above as guidance, I will see about using the dirt from the new pond, building up the stream from the existing pond dropping to the new pond, and still keep the new pond slightly above ground level, and flow into the new one. That way I can put the new pond maybe farther over than I had planned. The issue of the sump pump pipe being buried in the area I wanted to build, and having a 12' tall "stump" (I had them cut the top out, left the tree trunk for my bird feeders and huge wind chime) plus a wide stump (3' across) with all the roots that go with them, makes my area more limited. Plus, I planted a burgandy leaf red bud tree in the area that I think I will have to use, so may have to move them (one on each side of the wide stump) before proceeding. Need to go outside and start measuring. I'm thinking next weekend I will begin digging ... weather permitting. Yikes! I just gave myself a time-line and schedule, so better stick with it.
And, maybe I'll get ambitious today and draw out a diagram from above, to show where everything is now, and get ideas from others as to where to put things. But, this afternoon is dedicated to going to a winery with girlfriends, then cooking rib eyes on the grill. LOL Priorities, you know?!

 

[taherrmann4]

CE I have attached some pics of a smaller pond that fed into a creek which then fed into my big pond. This smaller pond only has about 30%-40% of my total pumped water going to it the other 70% is down my main waterfall. The smaller pond was basically built up, so very little digging down it basically sit on top of the earth and I created the hole by using stones on one side to make a wall and the other side was backfilled with some of the dirt from the big pond. By doing it this way I was able to create a small waterfall that flowed from the small pond to the creek. In the creek it had very little slope to it maybe an inch or two if I can remember correctly and it was about 15' long. It flowed into my main pond with about a 6-8" drop. When I built the big pond I made the water level sit below the ground level about 4" and the reason was so I could do this creek and have a small waterfall. Hind site I didn't have to do this and I still would have ended up with enough of a drop to have a nice water fall.

 

[addy1]

I used the dirt from the dig to raise the land slightly, mainly around the edge of the stream to keep the water in. The stream was 40 feet long, the water was pumped from the pond up to the top (which was the filter waterfall, right next to the swimming pool diving board) it flowed very nicely back into the pond. Not much drop just like t-mann says. It just needs to have enough drop to make the water behave i.e. flow downhill.

My house is on a acre, in arizona, every house has a slight drop to the back fence to handle any massive rains that might come, i.e. the run off. If we had a bad rain we would end up with around 1.5 inches of standing water, back by the fence. We put in huge gravel pits to handle the excess water.

CE have your stream go around the stump on both sides, as if it grew out of the stream.

Very nice t-mann, love the look you created.

 

[CountryEscape]

Great idea about the stream and the stump, Addy. Hmm .... I was thinking of the stream coming out from the lowest end of the existing pond, which is the skimmer end (left end when standing on my deck. Maybe I need to rethink and put the second pond straight out, but then it would be farther from the house, and electricity. And, now that I have measured and looked at the area, I'm thinking of having the stump removed. It was supposed to be in the middle of a seating area, and still would be; however, it would be VERY difficult to get the ground level around it to put pavers for a patio. Might leave it still, but here's my preliminary plan.

So, look at the layout, let me know what you think. I could swing the new pond more to the far side of the red bud tree, have it more visible from the deck. As it is in this drawing, it would be visible easily if I was sitting on the deck in the middle. From inside the house, I would be looking through the railing for the left half of the pond, which would be ok. That's why I've curved it to the right (south) so that more of the waterfall/water wheel part is visible from the deck and/or inside the house.
My son will build me a bridge (he doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to ask for it for my birthday, LOL) and I know I can build up the edges of the stream so that the water won't run in from the ground, and I think I have plenty of fall (maybe 6" or so from the main pond) for it, espeically since I will start the stream above ground level at the other pond. My other thought is to take the water from the skimmer (if the pump is strong enough, but it should be) and split it to go about 70" to the bog area (on the top left, ran out of room on paper) and 30" to the top of the stream. I'd make some type of a fall look from the main pond, to look like it was flowing from the main pond, then going down the stream and into the second pond. The main pump would be in the middle of the pond, and feed the waterfalls (dual, one on each side of waterwheel) and waterwheel. I may even have more pressure from that pump (it's a 4200 gph Laguna) than the skimmer, which would be more like an 1400-1600 gph size. I guess I would bury the electric line for the pump, or run it next to the stream under the back side of the liner.
All thoughts are more than welcome! This is just the beginning planning stage, and as before, it will probably not be anything like this, but I needed to get my ideas down on paper to get the thought train going.

 

[CountryEscape]

Just thought of something else. The size and dimensions of the pond may change when I find out what the widths of the EPDM liner are that are available to me at the local lumberyard. If I'm close to the narrower width, I may go with that and just make it long and narrow, but probably will be more of a square piece, once I get the size figured out and the depth and can calculate the size of liner I will need.