wanting to say Hi from Jacksonville

[robertmathern]

Well obviously I am new here and would like to set up a little pond in my back yard. Here is a little info on me. I have been keeping reeftanks for about 5 years now and love the hobby. I bought my house back in 08 and it had a above ground pool in the back yard. After about a year no one swam in it no more so I decided to get rid of it so I would not have to keep up a pool nobody enjoyed. Well its been a couple years and not even a blade of grass has grown where the pool was. So I have decided to do something and a pond would be a nice touch with a nice water fall. I just sold my 180 gallon reef tank had bought a 92 gallon reef tank and to hold all my livestock I picked up one of those 160 gallon kidney shaped ponds from a friend who had it in there yard just laid up against a fence. I have put it in the ground out there up next to where a power to run the pool was. I think that will be a decent sized pond could go a little bigger but thats what I got to start with and see what I want to do. I am currently looking for ideas for my water fall/filtration. I am DIY ll the way as I have been on my reef tanks. I was thinking of using 2 mag 18 pumps for the pond to the water fall and making 2 filters on each side out of tub. connecting them together with some PVC and cutting a slit in the pvc to start the water fall. I was thinking of having it drain into a smaller pond for vegetation then overflowing that back into the main pond. Thinking of making the basic structure of the waterfall out of milk crates and buying so nice rocks to hide the crates or do anybody here have a better idea. Sorry for the long post but thats where I am at so far with my build and looking to get some ideas on what direction to go or just anything I might see as usefull . I will need some help I am sure as I can keep reeftanks nice and healthy but give me a betta and he will be swimming in that toilet bowl in the sky in 2 weeks

 

[sissy]

welcome and to our big pond and hope you can use some of the great info here to help you get what you want.Not sure what those pumps are but I had the kidney shaped pond as my first pond and all I had was 1 tote and 560 gph pump and that was more than strong enough had a small preformed waterfall to go with it and a year later dug my new pond koi get big fast .Shame you did not save your pool liner my neighbor used his after cleaning it good for his pond .

 

[sissy]

you should post in the introduction area of the sight and introduce yourself there so everyone can see you are new and say hello to you , let the pond shine on lol

 

[addy1]

Welcome glad you joined!

Sounds like some good ideas you have.

 

[robertmathern]

Thanks I did not see the new to the site forum till after I posted this lol. I mag 18 is a mag drive pump made by pond master I think and it kicks about 1800 GPH. After reading on here though I think that to of them will be to much. I am just used to my tanks and they need lots of flow but after some reading plants dont like that much flow. I also have to do a little more reading on the nitrogen cycle as a pond. It is different than what I am used to the principle is the same just not how you go about it. But I dont plan on having the pond completely done till late june early july. As the rocks are going to be pricey I think. All in all I am looking foward to reading and watching this project progress. This site seem to have some good info glad to be here.

 

[koidaddy]

Welcome to the forum. You bet rock will be pricey. I have over $1200 just in rock alone. I am also using a couple of the PM 1800 pumps. Nice little pump for the size. Going with two is a good idea. You can divert the output so it doesn't disturb the plant to much. More filtration is always better. Plus if one malfunctions you have a backup. I am adding a Sequence750 4200 in the next week. It runs at less watts than the PM 2400 and pumps almost twice as much.