Well yesterday was the first new pond digging day. We walked the property and established a clear understanding of the project and the track hoe driver went to work. He cleaned up the perimeter drainages ditches and was just finishing the first bank build up when this happened.


The second picture is the rescue an hour so later. The good news is that the job will now have two track hoes and should be completed in half the time. More pictures to follow.

Oops!@!

Looking forward to seeing more pics!

Now THAT is what I call stuck.

How big will it be, Rad? Do you have anyway of giving us some sort of aerial perspective of the location relative to your house?

"The good news is that the job will now have two track hoes and should be completed in half the time."

Gotta love it when a plan comes together!

10 degrees 34 minutes 02.50 seconds North
99 degrees 15 minutes 46 .85 East
If you have Google Earth. The new pond is 100' east of the old one. The Google picture was taken about 2 1/2 years ago and posted some time last month.

The pond will be around 3/4 of an acre, 10' deep. Current plan is tilapia and peacock bass.

While they were digging the track hoe out I saw my first fresh water eel, wiggling around in the mud, so no telling what will be in the finished pond, don't know if you remember an earlier picture where there were 3, 10' wide x 5' deep x 150' long drainage ditches, but all were full and all had some kind of fish. The plot was full of locals scrambling around in the mud, fishing. Mostly snails, pond minnows, common silver barbs and a catfish.

Peacock bass, I just saw a fishing special on Peacock Bass. Those fish get big!!!!

So are you raising the Peacock Bass to be sold as food, or just for fun?

It's good to know that I'm not the only one that gets stuff stuck in the mud (only for me it's on a much smaller scale).

Jersey would appreciate the bogged track hoe...
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Wow, nice size project Rad. You know me...keep the pics and updates comin'.
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Are there any plans to have the 2 ponds connect in any way?

Man peacock bass are gonna be awesome! I wonder if TODD can get me some of these!!!!

Rad that is some serious mud. Usually those hoes can get themselves out using the arm - not this time.

He must have gotten into the old canal bottom.

Good and stuck... that was some serous mud.

Nice picts Rad. Keep them coming and good luck with the pond.

jeffhasapond, the fish are all for fun, one of the reasons for the peacock is that it goes looking for food as opposed to lying in wait, and it gets big.
Brettski, no the guy in the middle has promised the property to his 11 year old daughter, although that was the original plan.
ewest, exactly right, he was trying to cross and at the lowest spot on the property, we had 8" of rain 4 days ago and 2" the next day, so it was pretty wet, all that and more in the dry season.
heybud, thanks, they completed the bank around 3/4 of the pond yesterday so they should get to the serious digging today and I will be standing by with the camera.

OK Rad, we need a little more detail. You may have mentioned it on other threads, but this appears to be your construction thread so it would be nice to have it localized here.
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Can you walk us thru the steps you took to begin digging? I know you mentioned purchasing the parcel. Remind us how big it is and a quick re-hash about the topography and soil conditions. What type of soils are we talking about? If you are digging down to 10' deep, what is down there? Did you dig test holes, or are you basing it on excavation projects nearby? What kind of permits or licensing is required, if any. How did you find your excavator (and I'm not trying to be a wiseguy after the mud-flop). Oh yeah, and how involved is your partner?

Bruce, this is as aerial as I can get, balcony of my house.

Brettski,
The property consists of three pieces, the first purchase was 300' deep by 200' wide. It had no road access so I had to purchase two smaller pieces that were between the big piece and the road. Total size 1.6 acres. The pond plan moved from 1 acre to roughly 3/4 when we decided to try and keep the borrow banks as low as possible. We were hoping to stay closer to ground water level and keep a fuller pond. The old pond loses at least a yard in depth in the dry season.

The pond will be almost square and the only structural feature will be a 30' x 30' island that will be submerged during full pond. The island will be planted with a grass that does well in water and creates a safe place for small fish and a fishing place for small fishermen.

I am lucky in that the excess dirt is needed at 3 other building sites on my road and the owners are paying for the trucks.

The property was a rice paddy for 40 years, it has a thin layer of top soil, 1 to 2' and a thick layer of sandy/silt/clay, 3 to 5', then clay. There are no rocks, just dirt and water. We had a foot of water in the hole this morning. The soil sample was from our other pond about 100' feet west. No permits or licenses required, we are farmers and farming fish is allowed. I don't think we need to sell them to be a farmer and I know for sure I don't need to make money to be a farmer.
The track hoes came as a result of the original deal, the selling broker, also brokers track hoes, and he would cut his commission on the property if I would let him broker the digger. He makes a buck and a half an hour out of the 46 buck an hour machine cost.
Foreigners can't own land in Thailand, so we buy the land and put it in my partner's name and I lease it from her, I use a life time lease which protects both of us. She and I have been together for the last five years as of Valentine's Day.


I might have mentioned before but we live in a modest tourist spot. I am planning on building 5 small cottages on the property not used by the pond. We will start with 2 units and work from there.

Club Rad...
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Great description; sure paints the picture...thx. Congrats on finding that special one to share this with.

Are the tourists gonna get to fish for Peacock Bass and Pacu???

Sounds like you have some great plans Rad. This is gonna be yet another fun project to follow.

jeffhasapond,
That is part of the plan, many of our tourists are northern Europeans and many of them come for a month or two to avoid the winter at home. Fishing will give them something else to do. Even with five, if we ever get there, cottages full the pressure probably won't be too great and there is always the old pond.
I have a ready supply of Pacu, but am looking for a Peacock Bass source, so far all the suppliers are shipping overseas or in quanities too large for me.

This is one of those when things go wrong projects. First, the extra track hoe I received benefit of because the first stuck, broke down, two days waiting on a mechanic. Got it repaired and had no driver, the trucks hauling the dirt were assigned to another job because the of the track hoe problem. The owner came by last night and we worked out a new plan based on three track hoes and 3 trucks, build a road to the places where two of the track hoes could dump directly into the trucks, the third would be at the dirt receiving end, trucks and third track hoe at no cost to me, sounded good, lets do it.
This morning a flatbed shows up and hauls one track hoe away and the other goes to the dirt receving end and I am left with nothing, two of the trucks broke down, so far just time delays.
But to top it off it's raining. all of that bare bank!

Rad, with all of those set backs you're sure to end up with a beautiful pond.

Jeez Rad, sorry to hear about all the problems you're having.

As GW said though, it's gonna be beautiful when you're done!

Thanks guys, it is not all bad, the old pond loves the rain. We got about 5" plus another inch over night and there are clouds on the horizon.
The banks can be repaired and more water in the new will work out fine.
It was just the combination of events that seemed strange.

just chiming in to say congratulations rad, and hope the contractors get back on yer job ASAP.

if'n i ever get to thailand, i'll know the perfect place to stay! (if you'l have me )

D.I.E.D. You and all of the Pondbossers are always welcome. I am about have way between Bangkok and Phuket, good for about a two day layover.

Well, the contractors have not gotten back since 2/25. While it has not rained every day it has rained a lot. Dichotomy, old pond loves rain, new pond hates rain.
Yesterday we had just entered our 4th dry day and the track hoe and trucks showed, the track hoe operator fired up and moved to the mountain of dirt that has been sitting there forever, when the deluge started. The low flat (sunken island) part in the photo went under water today.
So I am going on vacation, a week away will change everything. Anybody need anything from Hong Kong?

Rad, It looks like the Peter Principal is at work at your place. Have some fun in Hong Kong, drink some Asahi for me. Better luck when you get back.

Well, I had a first today!

The contractor showed day before yesterday and it looks like we are back on his to do list.

The trucks going up and down the road have turned the hardpan surface in to a fine 3 inch layer of dust, so we asked the track hoe guy if they had a water truck he said "no problem" and proceeded to the small pond we found on the property when we were clearing it and began dipping buckets full of water on the road. When a truck showed up he dumped several buckets of water in the bed and the truck drove slowly up the road, wetting it down.


Oh, the first, fishing with a track hoe, we caught 3 catfish in the first two buckets and two more from the truck. Probably not to economical but it was productive and the kids had a blast.

fish on!

glad to see it back on track..maybe?

keep up the reports rad, thanks,

That sounds like big time catfish grabbin. What size cats came out of that mini-pond?

ewest,
They are mini, my neighbors have been fishing the hole for quite a few years, so what ever is big enough to swallow a hook is dinner.

Well, the digger finished last week and we ran electricity to the property and should start the water system pipelines this week. I have the parts, just waiting on the labor crew. It will be the same crew that did the electricity, but I paid them for that and need to wait until it has been spent.

We moved 330 trucks of dirt, that accounts for about ¾ of an acre 6 feet deep, the other 3 feet we spread around filling in low spots. All of that dirt and I still had to bring in 10 truck loads of clay/rock mixture to build a road. With all of the rain we were having the ground became very soft and the trucks kept getting stuck.

With a little over a third of the pond dug we had 7’ of water, which had to be pumped down to 3’, man did I hate to see all of that water go.

We have also started planting the banks and watering by hand. The city water company is on tap to install a main to our location but we aren’t sure when, plus there is a rule that you need an address before they will hook us up. For an address, house plans need to be approved by the sub-district office then taken to the district office to the Address Guru. On the other property, when we needed electricity, we just gave the Guru a fresh fish and went home all addressed up, the house approval came several months later. So we will have to explore that one a little more.

The only bad part, for now, is the weather, the wind patterns are already shifting to the first monsoon. Weather from that side, Andaman Sea, should not happen until mid May of a little later. That coupled with the monsoon from the gulf side lasting until a week and a half ago, usually finishes in late December or early January, leaves very little dry time for establishing ground cover on the banks.

The picture is another of my attempts at panoramic shots.

Rad, thanks for sharing this adventure. I'm fascinated with your journey and see that beuracracy is universal.

How does one say "baksheesh" (Arabic for bribe) in Thai?

congrats on the progress rad. i'm curious as to the overall square design......look easy to seine...and might double as a lap pool

DD1, we have been succesful with all of the bureaucrats, some were more difficult than others, but eventually they all come around. As I said we usually give them fish, some we have over for lunch, some we let fish, for some we buy perfume from Hong Kong, it varies.
Theo, I can't spell it in Thai but is called "tea money" which is meant to sound like a very small amount so as to sound like a thank you, as opposed to, if you don't pay you don't get. However the later is always true.

Dave, pond shape is based on land shape, trying to get the most water out of the size, we are going to try to break up the lines with the shoal and by pushing one of the houses over the water's edge. I am going to try to keep the foliage at a lower height than the first pond, hoping to keep a more wide open look. I, just today, found a mangrove tree for sale and will plant a couple of them on the shoal.

She be comin' along, Rad. I remember you once asked me where the swim-up bar was going to be located. So...?

Hang on, it is in the plan, let me stabilize the banks, then we will work on the bar. The biggest obstacle is shade, without it a cold beer is but a fleeting memory...

Here are a couple of catch up stories, snakes and birds.

A couple of days ago I was laying out the lines for the irrigation system when I noticed one of my dogs chewing on something. I wandered over to take a look and saw it was an egg. Something odd about it but I was busy and went on with what I was doing. The next day the crew showed up to start the dig and I watched as one of the guys was cracking open an egg similar to the one the dog was chewing on; what had been odd was that the egg shell was leathery and I had been thinking bird, so I asked why he was using sticks to open the egg and he pried the occupant out and showed it to me, a cobra. There were a dozen eggs, all near hatching. Had it not of been for an accidental fire burning some brush that was covering the nest we would never have know. Still don’t know where mom and pop are.

Yesterday I was walking out of the house heading for the new pond when I spy a dozen cormorants circling towards me. They have been gone for several months and it was the first I had seen of them. As they approached my old pond they split into pairs and headed to their old haunts, I am guessing here, the two assigned to pillage the drainage ditches that ar now part of the new pond circled lower and just brushed the tree tops as they prepared for their landing, they flared their tail feathers and entered a stall web feet forward in preparation for landing, when all of the sudden, abort, abort, only water, no place to land. They are able to save it, pull up and head to parts unknown. Today same dozen, but none over fly the new pond. I am taking that as a good sign.

May Nag and Nagina move on to a better nesting site as well.

Where is Riki when you need hin?

I sure hope not to Rad's other pond for a drink or worse to his house for a cool place to rest.

Ok!
Hit full pond yesterday. Rain has stopped at least for now and the crew is moving at full speed getting the building part of the project under way. The utility room is the one in the picture, it will start out as a supply storage place and finish as a community room. I will add an outdoor kitchen and 1/2 bath later.
It is a lot more fun when stuff is getting done.

More pictures and more details! C'mon, Rad...you're holdin' back.

I tried to do my best FattyMcButterpants, photo shoot, portraying the pond in it's best light, filtered by the exotic whispering palms, beautiful blue skies with the fluffy white cloud background, but I see now that that is not enough, ok tomorrow I will shoot the dirt, more to follow.

Thanks for the pics - more would be good. That way we can join in and experience a virtual build.

These are the work crews double cab duelies, typical construction workers vehicle

Rebar fabrication shop

Crew building column forms

Column forms in the background

Pile, little over 8" square an 16' long

End of pile that was hand chiseled off 16" below grade. Then a 16x16x16" box is poured and that is what supports the column, the fan belts are used to drag them around

Two 6" over flow pipes, I have els that allow for an increase of up to 9 additional inches of water height.

Minor erosion

Major erosion

Looking back with the planted shoal in the foreground

Wow...the stuff we take for granted.
Let me get this right...
They drill (or dig?) a hole in the ground and set the 8 x 8 concrete piles in as the footing for the columns that will be poured on top the them? If yes, how do they tie the pile to the column? (ie; there is usually rebar projecting from the previous structure that the next one is poured around to tie them together). You lost me on the engineering wisdom for the 16 x 16 x 16 box. How deep are the piles set? (no worries for frost heave me thinks).
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Pond looks great. Shangri-la #2 in the making!

The ancient pile driving machine is delivered in pieces to the job site. The crew assembles it and they use it's engine, railroad track, cables and pulleys to move it around the site. Once in place they drag a pile into position and begin driving it into the ground by dropping a 3 ton weight on it.
An engineer determines the size of the pile, in our case 8x8"x16', by drilling a test hole and the load it will carry.

Not all of the piles can be driven their full length into the ground. they hit bedrock, so they are chiseled off. There is rebar in each pile and it is bared and tied with the rebar in the 16x16x16" piece which is tied to the column rebar. The 16x16x16 covers the connecting joint between the pile and the column.

The workers make between 7 and 9 dollars a day. So they are not yet driven by technology. Drives me crazy if I watch too long, but beer is cheap and that helps.

Thanks Rad - the pics tell a story of how much of the world operates. Progress may be slow but at least you don't have all the stress of the million mile an hour advanced ( - ) western world.



BTW beautiful setting.

Brettski,
This is as close as I could get to a swim up bar, those poles will support the forms for the deck

Here is a look at the 16x16x16" (they are really 24x24x24", I miss heard the builder) footing I was trying to describe, the top of the post is near floor height

Forms for the deck? I don't get it. Are you going to pour in the water area? or...pound in a few more concrete piles and form/pour above the water line?
Who designed the project? Are there any regulations or codes that must be followed?
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Oh yeah, the swim-up bar. As I recall, that was your idea right from jump street...

Calm, calm, you are getting ahead of the story, in a day or so they will have it formed.

I designed it and had an engineer/architech calculate the steel.

Now given that I know little more about designing houses than I do about ponds, this will be interesting at worst.

This is the platform for the beams that hold the whole thing up. I will get photos of the next step when they form the beams. The 5' wide cantilevered deck/balcony is about 3" lower than the house floor. And as you can see a little too high for the swim up bar.

A 5' projection of an unsupported concrete deck will require some fairly impressive rebar. Yep, I am anxious to see this one, too. Definitely the better decision to have an engineer on the staff. Will there be abutments supporting the deck, or will it be totally flying?

Remember that we are speaking 3 different languages, Thai, English and the one that covers everything else. It is the one where there are no coresponding words in either language or the interpreter doesn't understand the question, to which the answer is usually "yes".

When the architect and I were talking about the deck, I was thinking 1 meter, (40") and he offered up 1 1/2. So I asked how and he said we would use the pre-stressed pieces. So our intent is to have the whole 5' cantilevered. If they are bracing back to the piers I have seen any indication yet.

But, as we say here, "let's go see"

Great stuff Rad, keep it coming.

Here is the photo I said I would post about a year ago. Brettski was asking about a 5 ' cantilevered balcony so here is a picture.

The plant life has taken off and the place is now starting to shape up. Still lots to do clean up, erosion damage, weeds and ants, they are here in the billions. They seemed happy in the jungle but now want in the house???

Beautiful Rad, almost makes me want to forgive the fact that it took you a year to answer my post. Almost.

Are those banana trees I see? I always wanted banana trees in my backyard, but with temps dropping below 0 degree Fahrenheit, I doubt they'd do very good...

Musa basjoo should be able to survive in Virginia. They would die to the ground, but should come back each year from the corm.

I have banana trees here in Midwest this year, I helped a guy dig his up last fall and he give me a few and I over wintered them in the basement until it was warm enough to replant them, our growing season is not long enough for them to bare fruit that is ripe. They are one tough plant and grow very fast. Last year a couple of the trees grew 12'. since planting them this spring mine have grown 6' easily. Big pain though to dig them up every year and put them in the basement.

Someone should invent a banana tree warmer.

What some people will do in the north is put a wire cage around the banana and fill it with mulch and I think throw plastic over it all so it doesn't get wet. That gives the psuedostem a chance to actually survive and flower and fruit, but basjoo fruit isn't palatable, so people are mostly just protecting the psuedostem so it gets taller than it otherwise would.

Nice looking place Rad. How is the new pond doing?

Sorry Jeff.
Yes those are bananas, they grow pretty well around here, some of the plants, we have several different kinds, reach 12 to 15 feet as the fruit matures and then they are cut down to harvest the bananas. Our temps rarely dip below 80.

ewest, the new pond has responded differently, the water is a different color and clarity is about a foot. The old has suspended clay with about 3 inches clarity. The tilapia are slow to establish, part of that is from birds, but not all. There is quite a bit of cover but still reproduction and survival is slow. I am now adding mature fish and will add another 1000 1 1/4" long. I am trying to have a solid forage base so that I can stock Peacock bass.

The plants in the water are on a shoal that is in about 3 feet of water, but even they are slow. I am not getting the nutrients here that I am in the old pond and they are only 100 feet apart.