For a long time we had an old couch and some old twin size bed box springs (mostly a wood and metal frame with a little fabric on top) in our basement. This spring we threw them on the wet brush pile to get some heat. They burned pretty good (especially the foam in the couch!) but not completely clean. Then this fall we made another brush pile and this time the pile was pretty dry so we had a good hot fire. The wire from the box springs that we had left was pretty clean.
I thought this would be a good chance to make some structure for the pond. I had a double size box spring with closely spaced springs (that became the bottom of the new fish condo) I set that on the ground. Then the twin sized box springs had a pretty open structure and that seemed to be a good A frame roof for the condo.
We used some left over underground dog fence wire (16 gauge with outdoor rated wire insulation) to wire everything together.
It was quite comical wrestling this thing on to our aluminum boat. We tied a long stretch of wire on the top in two places like a big 'handle' so I could let it down from both ends and position it correctly. We put it perpendicular to the shore line underneath the pond light. We tried to have it so as the pond water fluctuates the shallow part will still be under water by a few feet and the deep part will hopefully be in a setting where the fish will feel comfortable.
The long triangular shape has fairly open spaces at the top sides but I doubt predator fish will cruise in there as they have to carefully work their way between the metal. The smaller fish no doubt will easily go in and out.
We then had some left over rolled galvanized wire fence that had closer spaced mesh used for keeping rabbits out of the garden. We were going to keep the ends open like a fish 'highway' but in the end wanted to use up the wire fence pieces so we closed the ends. This means that only fish say 2" or smaller will easily swim and out. Once the metal rusts or gets coated with green? it should be pretty interesting to see it under the water.
I hope we don't have to many mats of FA or too many leaves getting hung up in it as we don't want it completely covered.
We almost lost it when it went over the side. It wanted to go straight down and then tried to flip over on to its top. Thankfully with the guide wires we were able to flip it back over and get it in position and then cut the wires so they don't snag into a boat prop etc.
Hope the fish like it! Saw a few very nice dead tilapia while doing it. They did grow this year!
1. Before the wire fence 'end caps' were put on. I suspect the bottom which is pretty closely spaced springs and lighter gauge wire will such down into the bottom a bit. You can see the roof panels have vertical projections that stick out about 6" or so. We thought it best to have them sticking out like a 'prickly roof' rather than having them pointing in.
2. Ends are on! getting ready for a dunking.
