Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat How do I best use large tile?

Newbie here. Love the site, I've been lurking in the shadows for months as my pond was renevated. So much good info.

Here's my issue, I've followed many of the posted suggestions for structure and felt like I was pretty well done. However, I recently had a new main installed in some farm land of mine and have several of the 24" core tile that they use to spool the 16" tile around for transport. Off hande I think I have 8-12 of these and they are each about 8 feet long. I haven't seen anything posted with anything this large and wanted to see what suggestions the pondmiesters would have. Any great ideas?

Thanks in advance!

What material are the core tile made of? I mean, are they so heavy they would be difficult to place in just any position/orientation?

No, not at all. They are more ackward do to their size than anything else. I haven't looked at them too close, they're about an hour from the house, but from what I remember they are just a solid wall (not perferated) 24" black plastic tile. I would guess @ about 100 lbs.(?) One got dislodged from the barn during the wind storm and was pushed about 50 yards into a standing bean field! To roll them onto ice or into a position by hand is no problem, nor would be cutting them with a recipticatiing saw.

How about cutting them in half so you have a 4 ft. section and then stacking them in a pyramid.

I've considered the idea of pyramiding them, I just wasn't sure that with the amount of area these can cover if there wasn't a better use for them.

How about cutting randomly sized holes all over them? Sink the for artificial hollow logs.

Here's the deal... I was driving back from Michigan the other day and stopped at Cabela's to look at the fishes. Nothing revoltionary aside from noticing how all the bass are congregating under suspended tree stumps and other structure in the aquariums. This gets me thinking that maybe these tile are better for providing cover similar to a tree stump or a dock. If you cut them in half length wise and fasten back together you have a canopy of 48"...but its solid. Certainly the fish would like something like that, but if the fish are under this and its submerged can you even get to them. Or is that even a concern? Or should I just stick with the simple pyramid?

Here's a couple of ideas that may work better than just laying on the bottom.

For LMB:
How about anchoring 1 end and floating the other in about 5' of water. It would give the fish a little shade and you'd easily be able to see where it's at because the floating end would always be near the surface.

Or, float both end and suspend off the bottom with ropes tied to some sort of anchor.

For BG and minnows, the pyramids seem like a good bet.

Based on personal experience, I would not be surprised if plastic pipe which was initially anchored in a floating (submerged) position became weighted down with algae growth and then sank. I'm pretty sure that's what happened with all the floating plastic pipe structures I put in my pond early on, as they are all down on the bottom rather that up floating at the level they started out at.

Since the pipes are plastic, I would anchor them to each other and to the bottom regardless of what configurations you decide to put them in.

Here are my ideas/suggestions, from the Structure Archive thread: