Hi Everyone,

My wife and I are building a home on a 5-acre lot in Caldwell Idaho and we're
considering adding a pond for aesthetic reasons. We don't want to swim
in it or use it for fishing although it would be OK to have fish if it helped
keep the algae down.

The pond would be 40'x70'. The ground has a very slight slope. The soil
is very sandy and will not hold water so I was going to install a plastic liner.
I have access to an irrigation pump once per week that I can use to keep
the pond full.

It gets really cold here in the winter. Last winter it was -22 deg F and easily stays
below 0 for more than a week at a time. Not much snow though. In the summer
it's pretty darn hot. At times it is over 100 deg F for a week at a time. My initial
plan was to have it be 3' deep max which means it would get hot in the summer
and would probably freeze solid in the winter. This eliminates the possibility of
having fish to keep the algae/bugs down to a minimum. I could make it deeper
though. There is hardpan 8' down so that is the max depth I could go without
spending lots of $$$ to dig through it. I could use 1/10 of the water each week
to irrigate a small vineyard which would completely replace the water over a 10-week
period in the spring/summer. This is only true though if I keep the total size to
100k gallons or less.

* If the water is replaced every 10 weeks would I need to worry about algae buildup?
* If I make it 8' deep would that prevent it from freezing solid in the winter? Would this
could allow me to have fish?
* Would an aerator prevent it from freezing over completely even when the temp
is below 0?

Sorry for the long-winded post. I am a bit overwhelmed by all the information
available. I like the idea of having the pond as natural as possible and I don't
want to spend a ton of $$$ filtering it. Installing aeration would not be too difficult.
I was also planning on pumping the water through a small artificial stream/waterfall
near the house which is about 5' above the pond level which would flow back
down into the pond.

I would appreciate any help you guys/gals can provide on how to get started.

Victor