what to think of, new design, another beginner

[browfish]

We are about to embark on some pretty major alterations to our bungalow to add a second story and modernise its appearce. With the facelift to the front elevation i intend to install a pond feature. The front garden slopes away from the house so i intend to build a series of 3 semi raised ponds with the top one feeding down to the bottom. See the very amateur visual of the kind of thing attached.

View attachment 4528

The construction will probably be blockwork with a white render to match the house and a slate paving caping. The corner few stones will be a few inches lower to form a an infinity style water fall into the second pond. The third section probably wont be a pond but a raised bog garden with the overflow from teh second pond feeding this.I want it to look fairly contempory

I dont intend the pond to have a heavy fish population, it is more for the feature itself and the planting, however i have no doubt that once i have it in operation the koi bug might bite just as marine fish did indoors (buy buy £1000's).

If i need space for filtration etc, then there is plenty of room behind the pond as there is a 1600mm wide section down the side of the house which is just used for storage at the moment.

Has anyone any advise on anything. I havent got a clue where to start as i have never had a pond before. What should i be thinking about, how should i build it, any design ideas etc etc. I am fairly handy so should be able capable of doing all the works. Hell, i am building the house, im sure the pond cant be any more difficult.

Thanks in advance.

 

[DrDave]

Welcome to the forum. I'm sure you will get lots of advice here.

 

[addy1]

Welcome browfish to the group.

That looks like a great design. Check out the diy section and construction section, do a lot of reading to get some ideas. It will help you firm up your ideas and give you ideas on filters etc. All of the people in this forum will help you out, and you will get a lot of different ideas.

I have a large bog as my filter, they do look great. Sticking with goldies and shubunkins, don't really want to deal with koi.

Every pond I have build, I have spent hours reading articles to see if I wanted to change anything.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

My first concern with that design would be access. How will you reach across the larger expanses for maintenance? The areas around falls can get blocked up with debris, plus you will get leaves in the Fall, and the occasional dead bird or other critter that you have to pull out. Make sure you leave yourself room to get a net into all the corners so you can clean things out.

Since you have multiple ponds, be sure leave yourself a lot of extra depth in the bottom pond, above what the normal water height will be. Consider that when your pump(s) are turned off for maintenance or power-outage, you will have a certain amount of water that continues to drain from the top down to the bottom pond. If you don't allow for that extra water, you will have to refill every time you turn your pumps back on.

If you are planning on having the bottom pond as a bog area, why not use it as a huge filter for your entire pond? Plan for a constant flow of water from the second pond, with a deeper spot at one end that your pump will draw from? Even in the Winter when the plants are dead, the gravel will still provide some filtration, and I think the amount of area you have there would provide plenty of filtration even for a heavily-stocked koi pond. You cannot OVER-filter your water, so why not use the bog garden to its full potential, then if you add fish later, you don't have to worry about adding filters?

The only other thing I can think of is a concern about putting the back side of your water garden up against the house. No matter how you line the pond, there is always the concern of leakage. You want to consider what happens if you lose 500 gallons of water right along the foundation of your house. At the very least, I would think about installing some kind of drain across that area so if any water leaks behind your pond, it can run through a pipe or something and safely drain out to the sides of the pond where it can run downhill.

 

[browfish]

Thanks for the input.
Very valid point about the drain along infornt of the foundations. Had not thought that slow leak could gradually wash away the soil around the foundations of the house.
I had not considered using the bog as a filter, it was purely so that i could grow loads of things that i cant elsewhere in the garden. Will look into that.
I had considered the extra volume for the bottom pond as it is similar in many ways to the sump tanks i use for filtration in my marine aquariums. That is the sort of advice i am after though. Thanks.
Does anyone have any construciton plans for this sort of thing?

 

[digginponds]

Does anyone have any construciton plans for this sort of thing?

do you mean for drainage?

 

[browfish]

I mean for the whole project
eg what the foundations should be, wall construction, should the base be concrete too or simply a liner, should it have bottom drains? if so how are these installed etc.
sorry to be vague but i dont know where to start at the moment
thanks

 

[addy1]

a good liner,
some like installed bottom drains, some like retrofit bottom drains (no hole in liner)
keep plant shelves away, helps keep predator birds from eating your fish
if it is cold where you are at, try to make your pond at least 3-4 feet deep.
figure out the size you want
from that you can figure out the filter system
from that you figure out the pump you need

 

[DrDave]

A sloping bottom to the next pond wall, Overlapping liners so it does not leak, circulation pumps to keep the water moving in a circular motion. I see a need for 3 or 5 of them plus big one to feed the top pond. Bottom drains are useless since these are going to overflow into each other. The top 2 will skim as they overflow into the bottom.

 

[Bruddaman]

I mean for the whole project
eg what the foundations should be, wall construction, should the base be concrete too or simply a liner, should it have bottom drains? if so how are these installed etc.
sorry to be vague but i dont know where to start at the moment
thanks

I am building a raised rectangular pond similar to yours (but much smaller). I am a rookie compared to many around here so I will not give filtration, drain, pump advice but I am a builder and will give my 2 cents about construction. The force that thousands of gallons of water will put on the outside walls will be great, so you will need to build strong. I built a 4" concrete slab with rebar across the bottom turning vertically at 32" intervals (especially at the corners). The rebar was then lined up with concrete blocks and mortared in an alternating pattern. The cells that had the rebar inside were filled with concrete all the way to the top. This is for a concrete bottom. You will have so many square feet of pond bottom it may be just as well for you to do footings with a dirt bottom. There are many suggestions on the forum of inexpensive underlayments for dirt bottoms...I think most pond bottoms are dirt. The size of the footings will depend on the height of your walls.

However you decide to build it, the bottom of the foundation MUST be below the frost line or the first hard freeze will heave your pond out of the ground!

There are a couple of photos on my post for some ideas: https://www.gardenpondforum.com/new-pond-underway-t6765.html
I am looking forward to some warm weather to get my project started back up!

I like your design! Keep us updated!

 

[sissy]

I think sometimes taking care of the fish is harder than building a pond .They become children and just like children they depend on you 100% .I am now building 1 new waterfall and started another and putting in a new bigger filter.The wood is the new vinager treated kind they say it is even safe to eat yukk not trying it so don't ask

 

[j.w]

Boy sissy you have lots of nice looking rock there :regular_waving_emot

 

[sissy]

all from my property came to the conclusion that since this property was a cow farm for over 50 years cow poo becomes rocks:regular_waving_emot and guess what lots of rocks ,by the way digging one big one up now when I hit china I will let you know

 

[sissy]

I cut some up with a diamond saw blade not sure what they are but some have a sort of pink and cream and peachy color and some are slate from a nearby creek that I soaked for a couple of weeks in salt water and peroxide and then chipped up and cut to the size I needed

 

[j.w]

No rocks here to dig, only sandy soil. Have to get all our rocks down by the river or from the ocean or buy them. I bought most of mine for $5. a truck load several yrs ago.
They let us put hard hats on and pick them out by hand one by one...........whew that was hard labor but well worth the effort