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Hi Gang, I'm absorbing tons of info here over the past several months, and it seems to be a great community! If you've seen my intro thread I apologize for the repetition but I wanted to be sure I am clear so you guys can tell me what you think.

This past spring my girlfriend and I bought a house with a tiny pond in the front yard. It's about .14 acres and it seems to go dry or close to it through the season. In the Pond 2 picture below you can see how high it can get, though I've never seen it within a foot or two of the rock at about 5 o'clock. I don't know if it was prepped to be a pond or if it was just a hole that was left to fill with water. I'm still learning how to determine a lot of those things.

My plan, is to make a swimming pond similar to anything seen here, though using the existing shape and structure of the pond I have. Ideally, I can figure out how to keep water in it (just read all about SoilFloc, looks promising) and can bring in various beneficial plant life to help filter and maintain extremely clear water throughout. I'd like to have some critters living in it, right now it's only frogs, and lots of them, but a few fish would be cool too.

It's hard telling how deep it currently is, but my guess is maybe 6-8 feet when it's full. I'd like to deepen it a bit and maybe widen it a bit, but not huge amounts as there are now trees growing around it as seen in the Pond.jpg below.

I'm reading that gravel, strategic plants, and good water circulation can make all this possible with relatively little upkeep (assuming I can keep water in it and in comparison to a real pool respectively).

With limited knowledge and funds am I out of my league? I'm not afraid to throw some money at it if it can work. My gf is very good with plants. I'm very good with swimming and minimally experienced with heavy machinery. Neither of us is afraid to work.

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pond.jpg pond2.jpg pond3.jpg

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Depends on what "limited funds" you have.

The things you are saying are correct in digging out so you have limited water less than 3 feet deep etc, but all comes at a cost. I would guess base cost in the $5-8K range. Of course you can spend Buffett money if you got it:).

Last edited by BrianL; 12/16/16 04:37 PM.

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I've been trying to think of how to reply to this post giving some useful information yet still trying to be positive and encouraging to someone willing to take on a new challenge.

First of all, I have no experience specifically with swimming ponds. But my also limited experience with a regular fish/aesthetic/swimming pond tells me that those pictures you linked to were all taken on the respective ponds "good" days. I would also guess all of those ponds saw their fair share of "bad" days when they looked noting quite so enticing. And probably a lot of other attempted swimming ponds that never looked anything like as good as those pictures.

If swimming is the main objective, I would think a concrete liner, filters and water treatment of some sort would be a much more "sure" thing. But I will say, if you can get a pond to look like any of those pictures it would be a great thing and be sure and keep us informed on your progress.


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If it were me (and it is not), I would start with getting the depth and contours the way I wanted and sealing the soil. I would want to have the depths right to discourage excessive plant and algae growth, and make sure it holds a reasonably stable water level. Next, I would add a way too access the pond without mudding it up. For me, that would be a dock. I would then establish desirable marginal plants to take up excess nutrients and add beauty. I would do this sequentially since the depths and water-holding ability are critical. I am no expert, but I do have a couple ponds and have learned a lot on this forum.

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Have you seen some of the ponds or "pools" that are special for a natural swimming area. They are built with stone edges/wood in the deeper area and the perimeter is shallow with plants that naturally filter the water. There is one guy near me who has been building one for a few years now. What I have seen of them, I would think it's a bit costly to build, but worth it if you like that sort of thing. What maybe you could do is utilize the hole for it's depth, and begin making one of those. Perhaps it will not cover that whole area, and you would fill in the perimeter once you got the "pit" built. Of course this depends on funds available. Probably a liner is used. There has been a few posts on here with people wanting to this, but none that I can remember have come back and shown progress.

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Thank you guys, your input it very valuable!

Brian, The $5-8K seems on the feasibly high side, but I would be doing this instead of putting a pool in which, I think would be similarly priced, if not on the low side, not to mention not having nearly as much character and having to buy chemicals and all that junk. I have some access to heavy equipment which I think will help with the budget.

snrub, I completely understand the mentality you are trying to convey. I'm trying to think realistically the same way! My assumption is that the good days you speak of come after many months/years of adjustments and maintenance, I think I'm ok with that. Once we get the insane amounts of honeysuckle under control I think we'll be a bit bored in the warm seasons on things to do...

RAH, I think that is the route I'm going. Below are some pictures of the layout. I'm thinking of having somewhat of a waterfall that I expect to have plants in and be able to control well to use to filter the water as it goes through.

fish, my gf and I have discussed liners and are concerned with the lifespan, we want something that'll last forever though re-claying the whole thing may be a bit cost prohibitive.

The left side of this picture is where I'm thinking of the waterfall and beneficial plants. The part that looks to fill up with water goes out to around the tree on the far left so I have some room to work with. I'm thinking of maybe using liners there in smallish sections, so I can control elevations and waterflow.


A better shot of the left side. That rock, in some satellite shots is touching water, though I haven't seen it that deep yet, but we also haven't been here through a full spring. Is it advisable to remove all the scrub plants through the winter or should I wait until we really start?


The third and fourth picture are the "dam" side but I thinks it's more a spillway. The ground, as seen in the fourth picture, is pretty level with a pipe running out of the high level of the pond to a semi-dry creek that's probably about 50-75 feet further back.



A panorama of the whole deal. It's about 90' long by about 50' wide.


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Since you have access to large equipment, I think I would consider digging a test hole next to the existing pond to see what the soil down there is like. Might make it a lot easier to develop a go forward plan and understand the required budget.

Last edited by Bill D.; 12/19/16 06:23 PM. Reason: Typo

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I don't know if this link will work, but they are commonly called "organic pools". I think this might be what you are after? If the link don't work, do your own search. Notice the rock edges that create the swimming area, and then the shallows for plants. They frequently have a waterfall feature of some sort to help with water quality too.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=org...lay&first=1

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Bill, That's a good plan. Is there a thread that will help me determine what I need to look for? I know the make a ball of clay trick (I think), to determine that, but I'm not sure what else to look for.

fish n, so pretty! The third picture over, on that link, is incredible! So is this That's fairly precisely what I'm going for, and I was thinking more about your comment to build a box of sorts. I'm now wondering if I can build a box for a diving well then have water that is like 2-5 or 6 feet deep outside that box in places... I'm not necessarily opposed to like concrete block or something like that to create some edges. Or maybe do a tiered version of that? It would be great to do that with real stones and tier it while still looking natural if I could but I imagine the expense gets high quickly!

I'm also going to leave this one here for reference to myself...

Last edited by aighead; 12/19/16 08:29 AM.

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Originally Posted By: aighead
Bill, That's a good plan. Is there a thread that will help me determine what I need to look for? I know the make a ball of clay trick (I think), to determine that, but I'm not sure what else to look for....


I don't recall ever seeing a thread dedicated to assessing soil for suitability in pond construction but there might be one. I do remember reading that you can send samples in (I think to TAMU) and they will provide a report. I also seem to recall there is a test you can run on the soil using a bucket with holes in the bottom but I don't remember all the details. Sorry I can't be of more help. Hopefully, one of the other members will chime in with better info.

Good Luck!

Bill D.

Last edited by Bill D.; 12/19/16 09:50 AM.

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Possible soil tests to try:


Bucket

Otto's

Last edited by fish n chips; 12/19/16 12:24 PM.
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Thank you, Bill and fish n! You guys are great! Reading up on it all now...


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Looks like fun!

Have you measured watershed? I'd be most worried about not having enough inflow.

Do you have a source for cheap rock? Around the property maybe?

I presume y'all are ok swimming with snakes? Looks like a good place for snakes.

Last edited by crazyj; 12/20/16 08:03 AM.
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Looks like a very cool project! And if you are like me (and it sounds like you are in this respect), the journey is as important as the final destination.

Keep us informed. We will all learn something! wink


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Thanks crazyj and snrub!

I'm not entirely sure how to measure watershed. I do, just visually, see a lot of water added to the pond every time we get any kind of wet weather. My entire front yard slants toward the pond, except on the spillway side, where it then moves to dumping into a dryish creek. Currently the some of the house gutters are also draining into the pond, though I could add some there. I think if I could seal it up I wouldn't lose too much water? Snake swimming is half the fun! so far we've only seen a few snakes. Frogs aplenty though, like a lot!

snrub, the journey makes me a little nervous, but I hope you are right!


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Your county may have a gis system that shows elevation contours. Usually these systems have tools to measure area. If you stare at the contours for a few minutes, you should be able to figure out how to draw a line that separates water that would run into your pond vs water that runs away from it. The line should form a loop. The area inside the loop is your watershed.

I'm not super experienced with this stuff, but it seems you may want to keep the pond quite small, maybe even smaller, since it doesn't sound like you're dealing with a lot of watershed. Maybe deepen it and surround it with good sized rocks so the water level can change 6-12" without looking anemic and exposing muddy banks. Or maybe you have plenty of inflow and the soil is just leaky...

Last edited by crazyj; 12/20/16 09:20 PM.
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Thanks crazyj, I'll check into it!


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From what I can tell, you could improve the inflow by contouring the land around the pond to capture more runoff. Similarly you could add some drain tile to your land and connect up the gutters also. The pond just has to be sized appropriately with the amount of area you can capture.
For example we need about 7 to 8 acres to support a single acre non leaky pond. We have somewhere in the vicinity of 12 acres in a leaky half acre pond and it works well enough.


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