Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Faux trees & plants

Has anyone ever used faux trees/plants like the ones attached when building their pond habitat/structure? Just curious. Might be really inexpensive in a garage sale, or even free from a manufacturer if they were defectively shaped or colored, like their rejects perhaps. It occurred to me as I was seeing the prices of some of Mossy Oak’s retail habitat items. Some of those are upwards of $300! 🤦🏻‍♂️

I like your idea. Just wondering how they would hold up over time. The fake ones I have looked at online look a bit flimsy but, as you said, are expensive. I would rather have these in my pond than brush which will deteriorate.

One of the FB live Pond Bosses they talked about using artificial Christmas Trees incorporated into habitat. If that works, I think this would too. Fish like Christmas too!

I’ve ordered some artificial plants and grass from the cheap Chinese site “Temu.” I’m also planning to buy a couple of artificial Christmas trees of FB Marketplace and I recently bought a bunch of vinyl window blinds there. I cut the strings and removed all the slats because that’s what some of the homemade habitat looked like to me (see pics).

[img]https://www.fishiding.com/west-virg...and-fishiding-complete-habitat-projects/[/img]


I’m second guessing the blinds though. Even though I got them cheap (less than $4 each) for brand new blinds, all of them are rather brittle. If you bend them in half, they break. With hindsight, aluminum would be much better than vinyl because you could bend them into whatever shape you want. I expect they’d be more expensive if I could even find them. “Ya get whatcha pay for.”

Anyway, I think the Christmas trees will work good. The ones I’m hoping to pick up later today come with three parts. A base section, a middle section and a top. I should be able to stick each section in some concrete blocks for some inexpensive habitat that’ll be good hiding cover for minors and fry. We will see.

I frequently drive by commercial or residential renovation construction sites and see tons of material that would be awesome in a pond.

I suspect if there was nothing hazardous in the construction dumpster, a polite inquiry might yield a pond master a bonanza of fish habitat material.

I built this bed yesterday. I had a bunch of cut cedar fence boards left over from trimming out an interior wall in my cabin and a few pieces of treated lumber. However, I ran out of screws while making the shade on the deep end. Used artificial plants on the backside placed in small concrete slabs. Thoughts?

That looks nice enough to me that you could probably charge your fish some rent!

Perhaps put one big rock or cinderblock in the middle of the gravel. That way the fish don't have to guard all side of their spawning bed, and you have a chance of getting two beds on one gravel pad.

fishiding.com uses vinyl siding.

😂


Excellent idea. I’ll do that. Thanks! 👍🏻

I can’t find that site. What’s the url again, please?

only one h if you had them doubled up.

Thank you. 👍🏻

better not use the first one, it will be destroyed soon.

Deertexas, I’ve used lots of stuff. When the pond was dug, there were lots of big rocks. I had them piled up. Then I added some big trees. I figured I had it made.Then we got the big rain I had been wanting. The couple of acres pond filled about 3/4 and I stocked with fathead minnows and small bluegills. Everything was great for a couple of weeks. Then the water turned black and my fish all died.

Long story short. I had used oaks. Oaks have something called tanins that poison the water and kill the fish. I spent a long time pumping it dry. Then I burnt the whole mess and started over with cedars. Prior to the cedars, I used the front end loader on my tractor to remove the ashes. As you might expect, the next rain didn’t come as soon as I hoped.

Test. Get a dozen minnows and put them in a bucket with whatever wood you want to use.