Anyone have a pond?

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Kootenay

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Location
Fruitvale B.C. (Canada)
Does anyone have a pond at their place?

When we moved in here I discovered a cement fish pond in the yard. It stunk to high heaven, but this spring I was determined to clean it out. I removed about 1 ton of rocks and mud-(by myself, as hubby was out of town), cleaned and refilled it. I then let it sit in order to get the water established, then I put in 11 goldfish.

It's still in it's rough stages. I've been using a sump pump set in a homemade 'canister' system to keep the water flowing. I'll be taking more pictures the prettier it gets.
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--Isn't landscaping fun?
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--Oh--it's a pretty big pond. I figured I could park a whole Volks Wagon beetle in it.
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:Kim
 
Very pretty setting
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Makes me feel like cleaning out our messy hole we call a pond :DOH!
 
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Ooh...I'd love to have that to work with! I'd get more rocks like in the rock wall behind it and hide the cement, then add water lilies, a gunnera (leaves get up to 12 ft across...the common name is Dinosaur Food) and other water's edge plants, and a place to sit and enjoy it all!

Have fun!
 
I have had one for several years now. When those leaves start to fall you may want to cover the pond.. What I do is take an old sheet & slide a long piece of PVC pipe into a hem at both ends. Then lay this across your pond to catch the leaves.
 
I have had one for several years now. When those leaves start to fall you may want to cover the pond.. What I do is take an old sheet & slide a long piece of PVC pipe into a hem at both ends. Then lay this across your pond to catch the leaves.

I totally agree about covering it. Maple leaves are no fun at all. Lately it's been the little green 'buds?' that have been falling into it. I've been constantly trying to skim those off before they sink. Both maples are different also. One is a red maple i'm thinking, and the other is maybe a silver maple.

There is so much work to do on it to make it pretty again.
 
Oh you're going to have so much FUN with your pond!!! I've been pondkeeping now for about 15 years and love every minute of it! You're off to a good start with a nice sized pond. Here are some pics of our pond.....and take a look at our website for more pond pics....under "Nature around the Pond". Ours right now is semi-raised pond landscaped with slate rocks. We down scaled due to the great Blue Heron using our ponds as a sushi bar. We had two before...a big one and this one side by side.

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Sterling, your pond is Beautiful!!!!

I love the slate rock, and hope I can incorporate some into mine. I'll have a look at your site here soon---as I was driven in the house by a bit of rain that may turn into more rain :DOH! .

I wish I could get the clarity of water you have, but with the maples dropping leaves and 'things' into it, that the water seems brackish. The fish sure don't seem to mind though, thank goodness. Oh--and no herons or other birds bothering it yet,,,, . The maple trees seem to be sheltering it from their sight for now at least.
 
Having such a deep pond is a great defense against herons, raccoons, and other predators...and rock outcroppings make great hiding places for fish.

Beautiful pond, Sterling!
 
Great save on a great little pond !
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All the work that is put into a nice pond is definitely worth the effort and pays back two fold in peace and tranquility. My pond is my sanctuary ( besides my mini's of course ) I have had garden ponds for about 10 years now and have truely enjoyed them.

My biggest pond is 15' X 20' and about 2 1/2 feet deep with a four foot waterfall backdrop. My hubby and I made two, two hour trips to the local rock quarry to bring home just over 2 tons of flagstone to line the pond and waterfall. It has taken me close to four years to get this pond to this stage and I'm still tweeking things a bit. This is my main waterlily growing pond. These aren't the greatest pics but all I could find right now.

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Two years ago we added this raised pond to the edge of our deck. This is where I keep my precious Japanese Koi. It is 4' X 9' and 6' deep.( Koi require deep water )

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Did some say pond!! You guys have some really beautiful ponds. here is mine. The horse are not allowed over there anymore because i am afraid the might get hurt. They just loved it!

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Wow those are all beautiful guys. The rock garden in front of my back deck had a pond and a small waterfall in it when we moved in, not a real big one, maybe the pond was about 6 ft long by 3ft wide, probably only about 1 1/2ft deep. I couldn't keep my lab out of it, so we took it out and covered it with dirt
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and planted some shrubs with more rocks.

Here is what it looks like now, actually this pic is a couple years old. You can get an idea where the pond was. It really was cute and I loved sitting on the back porch and listening to the waterfall (there weren't any fish in it when we moved in, but I was planning on putting a couple in there). I just couldn't take the dog being in there. We'd let him outside to go to the bathroom and all he'd do was play in that pond (which hadn't been cleaned out yet and boy did it stink). Plus we have mosquitos really really bad here in the middle of the woods not far from a wetland area...we didn't need anymore breeding ground for the skeeters.

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Where the purple cherry and hostas are is where the pond use to be. I hate that downspout where it is.

After seeing all your pics, makes me want to dig up those shrubs and start over!
 
Love the ponds! They're beautiful! We don't have one, if we did the dogs would be in it 24/7.
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Thanks for the compliments ladies! I enjoy looking at other's ponds and rock gardens to get new, fresh and great ideas too...and have to say all these ponds are just beautiful!

Sonya.....we keep our pond constantly moving during the year to keep mosquitos at bay. We also have resident frogs that like to gulp them up. We sometimes change back and forth from a water fall (which is what's running now) to a fountain to keep the water constantly moving. Mosquitos don't like moving water. When we first set up our first pond years ago, our ducks and chickens would get into it. So we ended up setting up a patio type of lattice around it. I don't know if you could do something like that for your pup. Now we just keep the livestock in their own pens which solved that problem.
 
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Here are a couple more pics. i love my pond! To keep out mosqitos you can get mosqito fish from the county. We were given a few from the pet store when we bought the Koi. They multiply fast! With more water movement the lees chance you will get mosqitos. Japanese Maple trees are poisionous to koi. If you have koi be very carefull not to let any maple leaves fall into the pond. Every year ours gets better! It was a lot of hard work, but totaly worth it. I fenced mine off so the dogs don't fall in. We did have to fish them out a couple of times. We now have a yard for us and a yard for them.

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Oh Neat Oh! I want one!!!! Are they allot of work?

I will be moving a mile down the road later this summer, or fall..... and my step-dad & mom have talked about putting a small pond near my place because of the creek close by.......but if they do make one, it will be more like a regular pond, pond that you could stick a small paddle boat in it. I won't hold my breath on it though. Thanks for sharing!
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Different than the pond you guys are showing. Here is ours.

Someday would like a to put a bridge and a nice fountain.

As of now just use a sumersible sub pump.

Started with rainbow trout till the crane ate us out.

Than put in about 100 goldfish and they keep populating and doing well, on an nice sunny day, the

pond is full of gold...
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Oh Neat Oh! I want one!!!! Are they allot of work?

I will be moving a mile down the road later this summer, or fall..... and my step-dad & mom have talked about putting a small pond near my place because of the creek close by.......but if they do make one, it will be more like a regular pond, pond that you could stick a small paddle boat in it. I won't hold my breath on it though. Thanks for sharing!
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The type of pond you are referring to is a completely different issue. The one you describe could require very little maintenance. You would have to make sure the creek has enough water flow all year to keep the pond filtered. that would determine the size of the pond you could have.

You may run into trouble with environmental issues. (Yes, I am from California) You could not restrict the water from anybody downstream and would need to be made so that fish could swim upstream into it and beyond. You would need to be very careful about not polluting it. Such as polluted runoff from the field or too many people in it. You wouldn't want to put anything motorized in it except maybe those remote control boats. You may have a bigger problem with mosquitoes because the would find places to breed in a pond that large, On the other hand it would attract a lot of nice wildlife.

In a closed pond the water should filter 4 times an hour. If it were fed by a steam and new water was coming in it wouldn't need to be that much. If the water gets stagnant it will be toxic to wildlife and yourself. The water would need to flow in on one side and flow out on the other. That will replace the existing water with fresh water. Try not to have any dead spots that don't flow.
 
I'm not even going to show you photos of our sludge pond. It does not hold water and is leaking. it's green and stinky and full of branches and fallen leaves. It needs work and after seeing the gorgeous ponds you guys have, I'm inspired to fix mine!
 
What a wonderful place to relax!! It looks great!!

Oh my goodness--I just read the other replies--there are a lot of beautiful ponds out there.
 
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