Pond renovation

Steve writes "I started out by taking a digital photo of the garden as it was with the overgrown bushes etc, then I drew the pond and garden that I wanted. Hired a mini digger for the day and set to with digging the basic pond and building the top raised pond and stream at the same time.

Finished the rest of the digging out by hand, luckily our garden used to be the shoreline here many many years ago and so I was digging mainly sharp (as raised) sand, problem with that was we hit the water table at just over 4 ft down so I had to raise the edges slightly to get the 5ft depth.

Then I looked around the internet for liners etc and got the three liners
required (main one being 11 metres X 10 metres), and a good thick underlay I use a Biotec30 filter with an OASE Aquamax 15000 with 3330GPH rate for the filter feed and a Bitron 36 UV light. And a submersible Draper with a 3300 GPH flow rate for running the top pond and stream.

Normally the filter may have struggled with the amount of water but the
stream has watercress growing in it and the roots take a lot of the
impurities out of the water and aids the filter process.

I have a Koiair air pump and two air stones for getting the oxygen into the water and for a nice effect when they are on at night with the coloured underwater spotlights on the bubbles.

As there are no fish in the top pond I have a Mister that provides a great effect but only when there is no more than a slight breeze.

The lights are operated from 2 X 6 switch control boxes one mounted either side of the garden and the cables laid underground with light sensors to switch them on and off.

The bridge I built myself from a long joist and some rough sawn timber,
plain but works and was economical

There is also 2 tonnes of rock on order. The stones already there are 20mm round gravel and pebble size stones just to hide the liner and give a 'beach section' to the garden.

We had a very bad problem with blanket weed over the past two months and we were continually cleaning it out, but we have now put BARLEY pellets and some BARLEY straw in netting and put them in the stream and (fingers crossed), it seems to have had the desired effect and rid us of the problem, well almost.

Nothing better than watching the wild birds around here, we get Swallows diving into the water for the insects, hoards of Starlings etc bathing in the stream and several Pheasants drinking.

Not much more to say really except that I am looking forward to being able to just sit and watch my fish all day,,,,,,,, in about 20 years time. LOL "

Words and pictures courtesy of Steve from Lincolnshire (June 2003)

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