Wisconsin Pond Build

[addy1]

What about something like spray on rubber? I used something like this twenty years ago on the floor boards of an old car.

Rubberizing spray like undercoating, they still have it, made for steel though. And they have that super stuff they are advertising even sealed a screen door they put in the bottom of a boat................

 

[herzausstahl]

I put on latex gloves, find the leaking weeping areas and goop it on. let it dry well, turn the pond back on, look for any more problem areas,......................repeat lol

Thats what I was thinking, how bad did it stick to the gloves? Mine is more, fill with water and see if it drains out. It holds water well for several minutes so it will work when the pond is on, but i want to run the stream on a timer this year (only during the day, my filter pump is enough to cycle the water by itself once an hour, plus I have a little giant air pump now too) so I want the upper pool to hold water so I can leave the gorge waterway I just built running around the clock but not have to worry about the pump only sitting in 14" or so of water, would it was closer to the 20-24" if I get the water as high as the dam.

herz your going to make that daughter into one strong independent women and no harm in that .I turned out alright (well I think so ) some people will debate that .But then again I don't value there opinion very well ,unless there joking LOL IF THERE NOT LOOK OUT :yikesu:

LOL, Her mother and BOTH grandmothers already are, and she already is too, so not worried about that!

What about something like spray on rubber? I used something like this twenty years ago on the floor boards of an old car.

Rubberizing spray like undercoating, they still have it, made for steel though. And they have that super stuff they are advertising even sealed a screen door they put in the bottom of a boat................

That is pretty much what that Mighty Sealer is supposed to be, spray on rubber. They claim it will work on leaky pipes, roofs, etc and is paintable. So I am curious to see how well it really works, couldn't find any real reviews online. Good news is that it was on sale at Menards for 7.99 a can with a $5 mail in rebate (so eventually $2.99 a can) so I picked up 4 today, will try 2 when the weather is warmer on the dam and see if it works. If it does I will use the others on my waterfalls in the stream and probably pick up a couple more to keep on hand. Only downside is that the Menards rebates are in merchandise credit checks, good news is that they always have stuff I need (I mean want), heck even got 40# bag of bird seed last week on sale for $10, love that place.

 

[herzausstahl]

So for the last week and a half I have been busy trying to add the waterfalls to the stream and the dam to the upper pool, after about 7 cans of waterfall foam (extra due to some aforementioned laziness/hurried contstruction due to a willing helper, i.e. my 3 1/2 year old daughter) the stream and upper pool will hold water (didnt take a picture when I tested it) well enough that I put a hose in the upper pool and ran it; it filled up the upper pool, overflowed and filled up the space in the stream behind each subsequent waterfall so there was standing water behind everything. But as I mentioned in my most recent posts, I did not completely waterproof it all, but I have enough of a foundation of waterfall foam, that I can try to waterproof that. So here is what it looks like now:

Here is the dam before I added more foam:



Here is the stream with the falls added:



Here are each of the falls:



And the other side of the dam:



Here are the areas I added foam to the falls to force the water over them instead of through and around. This is the 2nd falls (going upstream from the pond):

 

[herzausstahl]

Here is the first waterfall:



This is the 3rd, hoping for more of a narrowing rapids effect here, might add rocks to reflect this, will see in a month when the danger of freezing temps is passed and start the stream pump.



Here is the 4th waterfall:



For the waterfalls in the stream I did add foam to the backsides (upstream side) to the rocks that were on the sides of the waterfall rocks. I did put these back after, but if the spray on rubber works on the dam I will add it to the falls areas. Or try the pl goop smeared over the waterfall foam to try and seal it.

Here is the work I did on the dam:



As you can see in the second to last pic, my daughter loves walking in the stream when it is dry. Mostly have to stop her from picking up the small rocks and throwing them.

Here is what it all looks like again:



So my next step is to try to waterproof all the areas that I added the waterfall foam. Step one is to try the Mighty Sealer spray on rubber and see if that works because if it does, that would be the easiest. Hey some of the "As Seen on TV" products have worked, right? LOL well I will find out and at a fraction of the cost if I had bought it online from their site, although I seem to recall "fishin4cars" mentioning it in a post on here somewhere, but can't remember if he had used it or not and if it worked. If that fails I will return the unused cans and get some roofing sealant like Addy said, some rubber gloves and try that.

 

[herzausstahl]

So I have also been busy creating a feature for my mother-in-law. I forget how it started, but she has a northwoods/bear theme in her basement and loves bear statues. We saw this fountain in the Menards ad, http://www.menards.com/main/lawn-ga...mother-and-cub-fountain/p-1735746-c-10121.htm and knew she would like it so we showed it to her. (I also saw this statue and figured she would find it hilarious: http://www.menards.com/main/outdoor/lawn-dcor/24-wipe-your-paws-bear/p-1735752-c-10144.htm) She had this area that needed landscaping:



Its in the front of her house as you approach the front door and I asked her if she wanted me to create something to highlight the fountain for her. So I had the idea to create a small stream with a falls in kind of mountain theme that would sit behind the fountain. Then she could also add more bear statues to it if she wanted. Here is the progress:



Here is the waterfall drop:



The small pond at the bottom is roughly 3' wide and about 4' long I believe. Here is when I began adding rocks to it:



I wasn't planning on adding rocks to the plant ledges in the pond, but I did stack some up by the stream entrance to cover up the liner there where the viewers focus would stray. If in the future she doesn't like the liner showing (I doubt she will, just a pet pieve of mine that I try to cover up in my pond to make it look more natural) I could always add plants on the ledge and then stack rocks on the ledges and up the sides next to them.

Here is where I finished the other day. I've got 1 1/2" corrugated tubing running to the top and have the same 1500 gph pump that powers my filter ordered to run it all. The pond is about 20-22" deep, the mound is about 18-24" high, and the tubing will end up being about 16' by the time its done, so I figure about a 4 1/2' to 5 1/2' head for the pump so I am guessing it will be around 800-1000 gph by the outlet. The waterfall rock is probably 8-9" wide and the stream is about 16-18" wide and she wanted a steady flow, so that is why I went with such a strong pump.

 

[addy1]

That is very nice! great job herz love the look of your build for you mil. and your build too

The pl roofing stuff sticks to your fingers, makes them black for a while, I have used mineral spirits to remove it. Gloves are easier, just peel off and toss lol

 

[j.w]

Your project is looking good and nice one you got going for your MIL! Those statues are cool! I need the one for DH saying wipe your paws,lol!

 

[sissy]

that rubber stuff they show on tv i saw at walmart in Danville and wondering if all walmarts are going to carry it .

 

[CountryEscape]

Very nice design for your MIL, Herz! Love the bear statues, never seen the mother and baby bear waterfall at our Menards, though! Cute "Wipe your Paws" with the gnome on his paw. LOL I like gnomes.
And your waterfall is coming along very well. Can't wait to see it complete and running and hear you report no more leaks! Good luck with that! Come on warm weather, come back to us so Herz can finish his sealing efforts.

 

[herzausstahl]

That is very nice! great job herz love the look of your build for you mil. and your build too

The pl roofing stuff sticks to your fingers, makes them black for a while, I have used mineral spirits to remove it. Gloves are easier, just peel off and toss lol

Yeah I learned that the hard way with the waterfall foam for my filter return waterfall. Sat in the yard scrubbing the skin off my hands and washing with dawn soap and the hose. For some crazy reason thought I could be careful and not get it on my hands, so ever since then I always were gloves when doing that or the roofing glue. Although it was a little chilly so I had a long sleeve shirt on when doing my mil and using the roofing glue, got some on my sleeve, didn't notice and then wiped my face with it. Luckily noticed right away then and scrubbed it off before it dried.

Very nice design for your MIL, Herz! Love the bear statues, never seen the mother and baby bear waterfall at our Menards, though! Cute "Wipe your Paws" with the gnome on his paw. LOL I like gnomes.
And your waterfall is coming along very well. Can't wait to see it complete and running and hear you report no more leaks! Good luck with that! Come on warm weather, come back to us so Herz can finish his sealing efforts.

They just built a new Menards here and she got the fountain there. Gonna try to get out in the warm weather tom and see if I can try the spray rubber on the dam and see if it works. Hopefully will be like a spray paint can so I don't have to use the whole thing all at once like waterfall foam.

 

[addy1]

Neat make sure you let us know the outcome.

 

[herzausstahl]

So I did have a little bit of time today to work on the pond. First I got out my filter and hooked that up and the 1500 gph Algreen Max Flo 5000 pump that I left on the bottom of the pond over the winter (also the same one that had the cord chewed completely through by I believe a rabbit) started right up just fine. So it is good to have the sound of substantial water (more than the trickle my 450 gph gave it) flowing over the waterfall again. I also began doing more trying to waterproof the stream.

First off I found this larvae right in front of the 2nd waterfall:



Anyone know what kind it is? I was guessing some kind of dragon fly (hopefully), either way was cool looking.

So I decided to first add some roofing glue around the seams of the waterfall foam before I tried the spray on rubber because I didn't know how the rubber would react. I am leaving the first waterfall alone, and the other two that I would like to waterproof as much as possible (besides the dam) is the 2nd and 3rd one. So I used the roofing glue on all the seams on these two.

Here is the 2nd waterfall,first before glue and then after:



And here is the 3rd waterfall with the glue:


And here is the 3rd with the spray on rubber, this took 1 whole can and just part of another (the glue I used 3 tubes of on the two waterfalls):



I must say it seemed to work well. I tried to spray on any areas that I thought would need sealing and cover them thoroughly layering it on. It comes out like spray paint, but then you can see it gel and collect on itself as you spray more. The can says more than one coat may be necessary, so my first coat was kind of heavy and I will give it a light coat tomorrow. It seems like it could work. I think tomorrow with the 3rd waterfall I will add a 1st coat to cover everything, wait the recommend 20 minutes (probably closer to an hour) and then add a 2nd coat and try to make both coats even this time (instead of a heavy 1st coat followed by a lighter 2nd coat as I will do with the 2nd waterfall). After using it I might have been able to avoid covering the seams with the roofing glue, but glad for the overkill. The spray seems like it would do what spreading around the roofing glue by hand would, plus not sure how good I would have been at that. So tomorrow I will also have to go to Menard's to get a couple tubes (plus some extra cus its on sale too) of the roofing glue to cover the seams in the dam (I want to add it on the bottom rocks for more overkill and anywhere else I might want some extra seeling power) and will probably get some more Mighty Sealer while it is on sale with the awesom rebate since I am making the trip. Then I will test out the 2nd waterfall between Saturday and Monday (before I do the dam) when I have time to see if the Mighty Sealer worked (if it didn't will return the extra cans, if it does will probably hold onto them since the eventual price of $2.99 is hard to pass up on).

I also added the new stream outlet that has the sump pump hose one way valves on it. So now I can turn the stream on when I want or after I get a timer, but I think I will wait until I get my electrician out to add some outlets by the pond so I can add lights later this summer.



I also had one idea if I fail to seal the upper pool, I will get a 2 outlet timer instead of the single outlet. That way I can hook the stream pump to it and also the gorge water feature pump. That way the upper pool will be all the way full when the gorge feature runs so the pump will reside in more 14" or so of water (level above the rocks in is current state) while it runs.

Also while I was working on the pond, my wife gave my daughter a snack of green peppers. She was riding her tricycle in the garage at the time so when I went in there, this is what I saw:



Was too cute not to share, she put them on the back all by herself.

 

[addy1]

Great job Hertz! bet it will work just great. That looks like a dragon fly nymph. I have a monster one in one of my stream ponds.

She is learning to drive and snack, very creative.

 

[sissy]

I noticed yesterday that lowes sells a rubberized coating in a spray can also ,at least the lowes in NC does .Hey smart girl she has take along food and it is take out too lol.IT WORKS

 

[j.w]

Your glob job looks good herz! That will all blend in nicely once it's all up and running. Your little one is learning how to make use of her time eating on the run! Good that you give her healthy snacks.............although I must say that back in the 50's when I was little if my mom gave me gr. peppers instead of twinkies to snack on I would have just stood and stared at her funny,lol!