What does your pond look like ... Today?

[addy1]

fishy view of the lilies in the stock tank

 

[bettasngoldfish]

thank you so much haver for sharing your pictures and explanations. I have a couple questions for you. One is are the ball valves to help stop the tank from overflowing? If so how do they work or better yet how are they set up?

In you last photo you have a copper pipe with and yellow handle in the bottom cut out. Is that so you can easily drain the tank to clean it?

 

[max384]

Here are some pictures of my pond as it currently sits. I also posted these on my build thread... But I feel like being a picture whore today! I still need to do a lot of cleanup around the yard, and the grass is ridiculous, but it's getting there... I recently put in the stone floor for patio furniture. I'm still waiting for the rock to settle and the gravel to settle in between the rocks, so there is an overflow of gravel there, but once everything settles, I'll sweep away the excess. I recently planted the weeping larch, the hosta, two Hinoki False Cypress trees, and some creeping jenny in the stream. I still need to do some landscaping, get the water chemistry under control, and CLEAN UP THE YARD!!!

Here's a quick video also:

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Well, the rain broke most of my Coreposis Mardi Gras


But I got my first water lily bloom today!

The orange and white fish in the center, and the all orange on the bottom left are babies from last year, but they are growing up!

 

[Troutredds]

I love all the different summer pond pics on this thread. Here's a late afternoon shot here. Our hyacinth are finally spreading a bit.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Here's my water lily now that the sun has come out.

and my pond today...

and a short video...

 

[j.w]

Your pond is spotless JB and look at those fish checking out your new lily. Good thing they are not koi!
That lily is such a pretty color!

 

[Sunshine]

These are my lilies I got from Addy this year. I love, love, love the yellow !!

 

[addy1]

nice yellow! mine vary between yellow and white

 

[max384]

Well, the rain broke most of my Coreposis Mardi Gras


But I got my first water lily bloom today!
View attachment 72079
The orange and white fish in the center, and the all orange on the bottom left are babies from last year, but they are growing up!
View attachment 72080

Wow. The color of your lily flowers is amazing. Did you touch the picture up? Or is that the natural color? Are they tropical lilies or temperate?

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Wow. The color of your lily flowers is amazing. Did you touch the picture up? Or is that the natural color? Are they tropical lilies or temperate?

Its the natural color, only brightened to what the actual flower looks like, because my original photo turned out dark or dull (original below) because my 'exposure compensation' was set too low. The brightened photo is much more accurate to what my eye sees. Oh, and they are hardy.

 

[haver79]

thank you so much haver for sharing your pictures and explanations. I have a couple questions for you. One is are the ball valves to help stop the tank from overflowing? If so how do they work or better yet how are they set up?

In you last photo you have a copper pipe with and yellow handle in the bottom cut out. Is that so you can easily drain the tank to clean it?

The ball valves are to control where the water goes. Yes if I only had one hose to the skippy, it would overflow. If I had a good size waterfall weir it may not but with only the 3 exit pipes coming out it does not exit as fast as it is going in. So I have the main ball valve on the top of the skippy where the water would flow down the pipe to the bottom of the skippy. This is where I control the flow of water going into the skippy. I have 1 hose coming from the pump out of the pond to the just before the skippy where I split the 2 lines. I would prefer to only have the one line going into the skippy but I cannot till I get I get a weir or something to let water OUT of the skippy faster. The second ball valve which you see down lower where the 2 lines are split is wide open. It is just there in case I want to shut off the flow to the extra hose. The vertical black pipe you see sticking above the skippy is not capped and prevents water from running back into the pond when the pump is shut off. I dont know if you want to know how the pvc is set up inside the skippy or not but if you go to the diy section of the forum there are some threads how to make your own stock tank filter. That would show you much better than I could explain it. lol
The ball valve and copper pipe you see at the bottom, backside of the tank, is how I drain the skippy. The copper peice is just something hubby found laying around that fit the hole and I wanted to drain it into a preform i have so I could use the water in the garden. I need to get a fitting to put on there and take off the copper thingy, so I can just attach a length of sump pump tubing so I can easily just let it run down the slope if I want.
Now just saying, I do not like the connections where they are before the skippy, if any of those hoses came apart, it could drain my pond. Better to have fewer connections, or have them in the water or we should of used rigid pvc and glued the joints. Till I make up my mind what I want to do with a bog and the falls, this is what I ended up with for now.
Hope this helps, I certainly am no expert on this subject just showing you what I have done. Some others have their filters situated so they cannot be seen like mine. Well hidden etc. so maybe someone els will chime in and show you theirs. I know Sissy keeps all her tubing going to her filters inside her falls and there is liner under everything just in case. And check out the construction thread as it has a lot of helpful information there.
I'm happy to answer any of your questions but remember i"m pretty new at this and I'm sure there are better ways then mine.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

thank you so much haver, you have been a great help

I will check out some of the other threads. Unfortunatley I have a hard time grasping all this DIY stuff. I do much better when I have a visual. Or someone else to do it for me lol

 

[Imatation Crab]

Haven't been on the forum in a while here's some more pond pics and some pics of my new tortoise pen I built.

 

[j.w]

How big is that tortoise? He looks good sized but hard to tell in the photo. Nice pen you made.