Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat My Second Pond: Structure

6-ish feet. The top of the BG Condo is the highest piece, I think it'll have about a foot over it at fool pool.

Nice condo! I think that having water just a little bit over the top is a good deal. I can throw nightcrawlers in my pond and sometimes see the BG emerge from the condo to grab their prize.

This last weekend I added two small pallet structures, placed an 8' long piece of old steel gas delivery pipe to the top of the log cabin to help hold it down, and wired the solitary logs down to keep them from floating away. I had been kind of worried about this last task, but with simple tools, #9 steel wire, and used 15"&18" guard rail bolts for stakes, it was really easy. The bottom of my other pond (in basically the same soil) is firm enough to hold such stakes, so hopefully this'll work okay too.

Typical log wiring job:


The North SMB bed area, perhaps final configuration:
.
The South beds, ditto:

Theo are you sure those pallets have enough weight to hold them down? They tend to be hard to sink or keep down.

Each stack has 2 pallets and 4 interstitial 2"x4"s (underneath and between the pallets), topped by 6 or 8 rocks ranging from fist to head sized. Based on pallet experience in pond #2, I think that will keep them down; I know I can redo them from shore if they float up after it fills.

Theo, why do you want it a foot over full pool level. Did it just work out that way, or is there something I dont know?

Here's my thought process:

1) Based on extrapolation from the history of my first pond, which has basically the same soils (better, if anything, on #2), same watershed type (hayfield/pasture), very close watershed:pond ratio (#1 is 11 acres:0.9 acres, #2 is 5 acres:0.45 acres), and the amazingly similar insolation and evaporation factors that occur from being located all of 100 yds away, in an average year I expect the pond to be full going into Winter and to get less than a foot of ice thickness. So ice hopefully wont be a problem if the top of the BG condo is a foot or more below fullpool.

2) I expect to lose 6"-8" to evaporation in the hypothetical average year. So the condo should stay submerged most of the time.

I would have been happy with anything from 1' to 2', it just happened to come out to about 1' (I think; we'll see when she actually fills up). There is lots of other structure nearby (and a little more to come, weather this Fall permitting) which is farther from the surface, in case that works out better for the fish.

What about strapping concrete blocks to a pallet and placing it blocks-down, any advantage? You could position the blocks the tall or the short way. I'm thinking in terms of FH spawning, but maybe the extra clearance from the bottom would help other species too.

You are an engineer aren't you!

I started out with stacks of pallets for my FH's and sunk barrels and large pipes and other things they could get into. But found that when I started sinking large brush piles, including some big cedars that are so deep I never see the big ones even under extreme draw downs and keep stacking more brush on top of the 100'X100' trianangle section of my pond I designed don't swim danger brush I have had better luck on reproducing FH's. Also I have some of the brush extending above water all of the time and frogs, damsel and dragon flies love that, including my pair of pet GH's which like to perch as much as wade.

As far as catch fish I still do better off of earth struction, i.e. where channels meet underwater shoals that have drop offs that then open up to the main pond and deep water.

But I have thought about making one those condo things. But it will be next year before I could get to it.

Can't wait to see a picture of it full.

I put a couple of hedgeapple dock posts on Skull Island to anchor the pond end of a 8'x20' planned dock (so Alaska won't be the only place with a "bridge to nowhere"). I also built some medium-density structures, inspired by sputniks and porcupines, designed to attract fish and lures (on a budget). I dubbed these things "triffids" after 1) their tripartite composition (t-posts, black plastic water pipe, and insulated copper wire, all used), 2) their trilateral symmetry, and 3) the fact that seawater will dissolve them. Naturally, with all those "3"s involved, I built 2 of them.

Here's the view of Skull Island overlooking the North spawning beds


and here's a triffid. I think that in addition to being fish attractors, YP might use them for spawning structure.

You're having fun with this, aren't you! Way cool.

That is a lot of stuff in one small area. Is it just in front of where the dock is going? You keeping all of it there?

Yes and yes. I want to be able reach the area where the main structure is from the dock, with either hand tossed feed or a fishing line. I'm putting this stuff on the South side of the pond, so I can do my fishing (from shore or the dock) looking away from the sun and, hopefully, in the shade. And I don't want to spread the structure out over too much of the bottom. By the time you figure in the spawning areas, I think it's around the recommended 20%.

I am also excluding all structure from the designated seining area and from a couple of other stretches of shoreline where seining will be possible.

I hope to add some tire structures "connecting" the main structure area to the southside spawning beds via a mid-depth water route, and that may be it.

You may want to think about a sign that says "Danger submerged structure absolutely no diving from pier". We never put stuff around the piers. Under it sometimes but never where it could become a skewer.

There will be about 15' of empty submerged island in front of the edge of the dock (it will end at the two posts shown above), but it will be too shallow (3') for any diving as well. Then there's 5 feet of Halloween decorations and 5+ feet of empty slope before the first structure occurs.

Funny to think about a sign forbidding diving at one location when there is absolutely nowhere at all in either pond where it would be safe. I think I'd be ahead to post "NO DIVING, PERIOD" at both ponds, if anything. Thoughts?

Those "triffids" pipes should be a great place for FH reproduction.

...or engineering inspiration for a safe Texas A&M bonfire

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Since you need a couple of signs...

And how about a floating, solar powered gator head with light up eyes That would explain the skeleton at the bottom of the pond at least... [img][/img]

My wife has always wanted an alligator in the pond.

I-am-so-going to get a floating gator head with light up eyes when my pond is ready!

I may be done now. (Yeah, right!)

Today, I built another triffid (that's makes 3, to make the numerologists happy), added 36 steel belted radials worth of tire structure, and an old, busted-up round bale feeder that isn't worth wasting the oxy-acetylene on to fix one more time (it's in pieces, surrounding the 5' concrete tile that holds the hedge fence posts). I placed the new structures to sort of make a deep-water route from the skull island structure complex to the South side SMB nests. Here is the current view of the structure, with one of the South spawning beds and all of the North ones:

Wow it's looking good Theo. That is gonna be one fun pond to fish.

Oh and just in case anyone else was curious about the word Triffid:

According to Wikipedia:
The Triffid is a highly venomous fictional species of plant that appears to have limited intelligence and survival instincts.

But they make really good fish structure.

Now I understand. You put all that structure in one place to attract ALL the fish away from the SMB nesting area. That way the SMB will nest in safety and lots of their fry will survive.

Can we get a full pond view of all the structure?

Theo, that's beginning to look like a 'down south' pond, what with all the trinkets. A trilogy of triangular triffids. What say you damn yankee?