Flashbacks to early ponding mistakes

[Mikey]

The threads by El Jefe (Andy) have brought back into remembrance my first newbie ponding mistake some 9 years ago...  I was in the process of building my pond and in the meantime I decided to make a small watergarden in a large plastic pot.  HD/Wallmart etc. didn't carry pond plants then so I ended up driving some 40 miles to a pond supply/nursery that had overpriced water plants.  I spent about $80...... for just a few plants and a pond book written by the owner of the nursery.  An employee steered me away from Helen Nash's pond book saying the owner's book was much better......

I think I was still using the Rec.ponds newsgroup for my pond information and I was told to plant my pond plants in a good top soil. So I wandered on down to HD and found a soil amend titled "Top Soil".  So I planted my little watergarden in that large pot and about a week or two later I noticed the water was becoming amber colored and then a darker amber.  A few weeks later I noticed a foul oder coming from the water garden and the plants were not doing particulary well.....  One day I went out onto the patio where I discovered a complete mess.  Our dog, a Siberian Husky, had pulled all the one-gallon potted water plants out of the large watergarden pot and had dumped the contents onto the patio where she proceeded to chew up many of the plants.  And the smell!  The smell was horrible!!!. 

I made further inquiries with my Internet pond friends in an attempt to find out what I did wrong.  It was then that I learned that when someone said to use "topsoil" they meant soil from my garden, not that compost filled stuff from HD...... 

While reading this I'm sure some of you had your own flashbacks to early ponding mistakes either due to a misunderstanding, a lack of pond knowledge or plain stupidity....   So, what do you wish to confess?

[slackjeep]

ok, i'll jump in so you all can get to know me.

i put in a 45 gal sushi bowl for the raccoons to eat out of.  That wasn't the plan mind you.    The first time they hit, they ate all our fish (GF).  DH couldn't find our frog that we had raised from a tadpole.  He searched for him all day.  Towards the end of the day, after he got over the devastation, he decided to clean the pond of the massacre... at the bottom, he found the frog legs.  The raccoon had left the best part!  At least that is what the french think right.   

so after about 5 hits of the sushi bowl, we are building a bigger and appropriate pond. 

Fortunately, I didn't have room for plants so I didn't make the topsoil mistake.   

[Esther]

I couldn't wait for my pond to cycle so decided to go the way of quilt batting for extra filtering. I found a square wire basket, lined it with QB and rested it in the Skippy over the exit to the waterfall. Smart huh, I was determined to filter every last drop of water. Well of course it did the trick but eventually clogged with crud and blocked the exit and the Skippy filled up and began to over flow. So I was actually emptying my pond at least down to where the pump sat. Luckily it started to happen near morning and my DH noticed what was happening on his way to work so unplugged the pump before an actual disaster. Now as if that wasn't bad enough. I actually did the same stupid thing several weeks later. Again, we caught it quickly.

Now when I need extra filtering, I use a couple of those curved plastic plant baskets, fill it with QB and sit them under the steps in the waterfall.

 When I replaced my old pump I purchased a Tsurumi  with a shut off float.

[Mikey]

SlackJeep: I enjoyed viewing your webpage.  You've taken your jeep through terrain I wouldn't dream of taking one....   

How are you going to "racoon proof" the pond you are building?  I've not had a racoon problem here as yet but I built mine with verticle sides to keep out herons and it seems to have worked.  I have a plant shelf all along the inside of the pond and it is about 12-13" deep.  I wonder if that is deep enough to discourage bandits?

[CT]

My first year I planted all of my plants in red Oklahoma clay with nothing over the top to stop it from leaching into the water. I had a cloudy red mess with a half inch of red mud on the bottom of the pond. Then of course we had to "clean" pond. Total water change, catching fish all day, sucking up what seemed like thousands of toadpoles with a wet vac so I could "save" them. We started at 6am and ended at 2am the next morning with portable lights. I sat there picking out toadpoles from the mud until I couldn't see straight anymore. We slithered into bed about 3:30am and slept for 16 hours but we had a clean pond and I saved those little #$%^'s (DH refused to touch them  ).
 .. and then there was the battle of the small child sized yellow iris rootball. I ended up in bed for a week after pulling that thing out of the pond by myself and hacking it up into merely gigantic pieces to give away. Live and learn.

[slackjeep]

I am so glad I have not had the "colored" water issue.     but I tell you, that would have so much better to deal with than dead pets.   

Mikey... I spent a few hours getting those photos upline last night and I'm not done.  I have some great shots of one of the Jeeps doing some tricky stuff.  The challenge is to capture the difficulty or steepness of the obstacles we do on ... hmmm... can't say film any more...    on a 2 dimentional medium.

Anyway, I plan to do what you did, vertical sides and a 3 or 4' depth.  I will add two upper 'veggie' filters to house most the marginals and whatever lillies or lotus I can get away with.  I'll put lillies in the main pond on plant stands so the fish have at least something to hide under if a predator decides to visit. 

Right now my fish in our hot tub.  My fingers are crossed that a coon won't show up before we get the big pond done.  Here's a pic of the tub just before we brought the fish back there.  Also, we went to 20mil liner from that cheapo stuff that leaked.

[El Jefe]

I don't know if giving inspiration to this thread is a good thing or a bad thing. I know If I had better foresight I wouild have drained the pond in the begiinning, scraped it down to the hard pack  brought in  some sand to shallow it up a little and either lined it or  because of it's size used the natural way of lining it as suggested in this article in Mother Earth news http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green_Home_Building/2002_August_September/Natural_Swimming_Pools Given the fish in the Jacuzzi trick I may well rethink that idea. 

[Teresa]

I have an early ponding mistake coming back to haunt me now . . . wrong hoses used to plumb my pond . . . need a really good pond guy to fix it, and don't exactly have one just now . . . .

[Chris]

My biggest boo boo was not to install a bottom drain like the book told me...did I listen...of course not. Well I have have one now and just tell me "I told you so" as I told on the old forum
Another big mistake was overstocking my old pre-fab. It was at max probably all of 700 gallons with at least 100 fish. Surprised me that most of them survived until I got the second pond of 5000 gallons. Live and learn was what my father always told me...and do lots of research! Another comes to mind is build it bigger cuz 5000 isn't suiting me at all. Thanks for all the input and suggestions over the past seven years.
Chris

[Johns]

DUH!


I made EVERY mistake possible in my trek through the watergarden adventure!  Notable was way back when I made my first "goldfish" watergarden out of black construction plastic (EDPM was not available to me then, or for that matter, to anyone else, as a matter of fact, it was called EPDM from the 1960's when it was first employed as a roofing material.), and after a couple of years the  pond began to leak.  (Note, I still line plant ponds with construction plastic, but replace it every two years.)

Next in line was the first concrete pond I made.  Of course it leaked.  Concrete is not waterproof unless coated with cementitious material like gunnite or drylock.

My first attempt to create a koi pond out of concrete was done before I read up on the requirements of koi.  After my 200 gallon pond was complete, I read about koi.  Then I got out my 16 pound sledge hammer and cut the pond in half and  increased its volume to 800 gallons.

I now have ponds lined with concrete, EDPM, and HDPM.  I also consider myself an expert on the use of all three  liner choices.

Over the years (How many since 1972??) I have tried out many filter system designs, some abject failures, some successful.  My website indicates a working system although I have "tweaked" the designs since the site has been updated.  There are ALWAYS improvements to be tried.


BTW, if you have installed Google Earth, you can actually make out a couple of my ponds from the satellite photos. (Type in 7501 Lawyers road, Charlotte, nc). The circular item in the backyard is my wife's herb garden.  One pool is just straight up and a little left of it.  If you follow the house roof line to the right, you will see the 2,700 gallon pool and just above it is the filter system ( the rectangular item. Plant pools can be seen along the fence line between me and the church property to the right.  My other pools are obscured by trees.

If you don't look at your life as a journey, you are missing the point of it...

[tinkster]

I woudldn know where to start with all my mistakes.  My big pond has been concreted and busted out so many times that I cant keep count of it. 

I guess the one I hated the most was before my big pond with my small pond.. I wanted a huge bullfrog...my brother had a big lake on his property and the county came out with a boat and was shocking his pond to take count of his fish.. they got me a huge bullfrog and assured me they did not eat fish.. so I bring him home.. he sounds great.. looked a bit odd in my small pond . like a giant... and the next morning my 3 year old prize bubble eye goldfish was gone.... after a few days and a few more loses I netted him back out and took him back.

tinkster

[Johns]

Tink,

And at what age did you decide that you really couldn't trust your brother completely??  Ya gaotta know that he knew what BFs eat. 

[tranquility]

way too many mistakes to mention  ......but, the good thing about mistakes is that you can learn from them  ....
Lawanna

[Viv]

Should have gone for the sunniest spot.