What would you have done differently building your pond(s)

[bagsmom]

Sounds like an dogwood achusa tree. The absolute worse tree that i know are the pine trees and the always wonderful southern catalpa. it grows 100 feet tall flowers like no ones business looks like popcorn all over the tree. so those flowers fall in june and turn to this gunky sticky mess. then the leaves fall in yes the fall , the cigar pods open in december and spread seed all over . then you have the pods that fall in january. I HATED THAT TREEEEEEEEEEEE they met the chainsaw

We had a catalpa tree on the playground at my elementary school! We used to collect the pods at recess and then pick out the shiny beans. (Why? Who knows?!) But I remember we all smelled TERRIBLE from messing with those pods. Our hands stunk to high Heaven!

 

[TheFishGuy]

Sounds like an dogwood achusa tree. The absolute worse tree that i know are the pine trees and the always wonderful southern catalpa. it grows 100 feet tall flowers like no ones business looks like popcorn all over the tree. so those flowers fall in june and turn to this gunky sticky mess. then the leaves fall in yes the fall , the cigar pods open in december and spread seed all over . then you have the pods that fall in january. I HATED THAT TREEEEEEEEEEEE they met the chainsaw

I only have an Apple tree luckily, but we do have a few of those on my property!

 

[Miami Al]

Slightly bigger, 50% in both directions. I thought I picked a good size, would have liked bigger. When I renovated and redid it at my second pond, going bigger was too much work, so I'm this there.

Smaller PVC. I went with 3" under the pond to the bottom drain. For my small pond, 2" was plenty. I could have done 2x 2" to avoid vacuum possibilities at the same price and with less aggravation. My skimmer has a 1.5" outlet, I have a reducer so it flows into a 2" pipe, even that was silly, 1.5" was plenty for what I was doing.

More plants early on. Fish are fun, but I love what I found for plants, could have used more.

More bog. I love what I did, I would have enjoyed 67% more bog. I used 3 planters, would do 5 if doing again.

In general I was much smarter for v2, but overthought a few things and was slightly limited by v1 decisions.