Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Pond Excavation Pics

I would say set it up so that the joists are an inch or so out of the water at full pool. Your dock may disappear like Theo's during a heavy rain when the pond goes over the spillway, but that is better than having the dock joists constantly submerged.

That sounds a lot better to me

Hi,

Once again technology rules...

Mike Otto wanted me to let everyone on the forum know that he has had a major crash in his email system and webpage server and he can't use either at this time. He is working furiously to try and correct the problem and will be back on the forum as soon as he can. You can contact Mike at the office 1-940-665-2258 or 800-882-3478 from 8 am- 12 noon, Mon-Fri.

Kathy
Pond Boss Magazine
Office Manager

OK folks, I just spent 3 weeks at home and spent every bit of free time on my pond. The excavation had been completed before I went home so I just had to tie in the water well, add structure, sand, plant the grass and erect the piers. Here are a few pics. I am proud to announce that last night we started filling it.

I am really struggling to keep water on the grass. We laid it on Monday which was a day before the tropical storm Edouardo was to hit. We were right in its path and as I was laying the grass I felt like the smartest guy in the county because I was positive that Edwardo was going to dump a couple of inches of rain on my new grass. Well, as it turned out the rain from Edwardo stayed east of us and we didn't get a drop. We are struggling but I think we are keeping adequate water on the newly planted grass.

I have not seen discussion on here about planting St. Augustine grass around the perimeter of a pond but I assume that it will work out well.

Here are some pics. Any comments, questions, praise or general remarks are welcome.

This is a picture of some of the structure. I anchored MOST of the trees with concrete. I think the PVC pipe wedged into the culverts will work out well.






Here is a pic of the grass just after we laid it.



Here is a pic of one of the piers.

Wow, that is very slick, Makoclay!
Love the pond, the structure stuff, and really dig the awesome pier.
I understand the planting process for St Aug grass; just always assumed the plugs were alot smaller.

It looks like planting a living chess board.

That is gonna be a great pond!

First of all, congratulations on your pond project..I know you already have St Augustine partially sodded, but IMHO unless you get rain all the time(like in Florida)& have plenty of shade( you don't), the St Augustine would not be my first choice. I would go back in with a couple of pallets of Common Bermuda in front of your next expected rain event because it's too late in Texas to plant with seed..

Thank you all for comments. I don't disagree with David. The grass that we laid was mixed grass with St.Augustine and bermuda. It was inexpensive because it was contaminated with Bermuda but that made it more attractive to me. If the St. Augustine does not do well, hopefully the Bermuda will survive the heat and eventually take off.

The advantage of laying the blocks of grass instead of seeding is that with the lack of rain we have had I was concerned that Bermuda seed would not take root soon enough to prevent errosion. If we ever do get rain, the blocks would prevent any deep channels of water being cut into the bank.

This weekend I am going to spread more Bermuda seed throughout the blocks of grass just as a back-up plan to ensure that something grows.

The next project is stocking fish!!!

Makoclay

If you get any water in the pond you can get a small pump that will run 1 or 2 sprinklers, It will take the worry out of the grass planting.

It looks great.

otto

Our pond is pretty much done!!!! Now it is only a matter of waiting for the fish and vegatation to grow. We had problems getting it filled but were are able to finally get the bottom sealed off after an application of bentonite. The water color is staying a real pretty green which makes the wife really happy.

The piers worked out well and I am happy with the level of the piers in relation to the top of the water. I cut the overflow pipe so that the water can rise to the level it is at in this picture.



I will be filling this pond exclusively with well water. I drilled a well close to the pond and put a high volume pump on it. I have not measured it, but I think I am getting over 100 gpm. Anyway, I have plumbed it so that there are 2 different methods of putting water into the pond. Below are pictures of both. When I want to change how the water is added, I just slip on the different extension pipe.

The first is for normal use. Because the well water will not have any oxygen in it, I wanted to do something to increase the turbulance as the water hit the pond. I took a 45 degree PVC fitting and flattened it at the end. Generally, this is the application that I will use almost exclusively.



If for some reason I ever want to circulate the water in the pond and pump well water into the bottom of the pond, I would use this extension. It is a bit longer than the other one and the fitting at the end is pointed down. This will direct the water to the bottom of the pond. I am not sure if/when I would ever need this but it is an option if I ever feel I need to recirculate the water. The rope and shovel use is just for the sake of this picture. After I backfilled the trench, the discharge pipe is right at the waterline.



I ended up stocking it with only perch and minnows this year. Next spring I will stock bass and possibly some catfish. This year I put the following in it

Fathead Minnows - 12,000
Golden Shiners - 3,000
Coppernose Bluegil - 1,200
Hybrid Perch - 450
Redear - 300

also 6 domesticated ducks (roens and muskegee) but only 4 of them are still on the pond. I think the coons and coyotes got a couple of them.



The pond is about 1.25 surface acres so this amount of fish may be a bit of overkill but I lost probably 25% of those fish when I lost the water on one end of the pond.

I am about to have a couple of bald cypress trees planted right at the water line

What a great example of a job well done! It looks fantastic, Makoclay! The pond, the dock, the critters....awesome, my man!

Great job !!! You should be ok with those fish if you stock some LMB this spring. Feeding the BG will help.

Nice!

Looks great. Thanks for the pictures.

I enjoyed following your progress and want to compliment you on your success!!! It looks very natural there, which I think is important for the overall appeal.

Thanks for sharing,
Eddie

Eddie! Where ya been? How goes Manitou Marabou?

Yeah, Eddie, haven't heard from you in a while. You've got to be
building something!

The pond looks great. The addition of the well is a great idea. What did you mean by "lost the water in one end?"

-HH

Thanks for the compliments. It has been fun and the tips I have found on here have made my pond better. I am down to only 3 ducks. I think I need to build them an island so they can escape from predators.

There was a guy on here that built and sold floating islands. I corresponded with him a few months back but now he is not answering my e-mails. Does anybody know of anybody that sells islands? I think about 10-15' diameter would be about right. There was a link on here of islands that some Pond Bossers were building. Can somebody please forward me the link? I am not opposed to building my own, but I will only be home for a couple of weeks and I am not sure if I will have time to complete a construction project.

Man, the pond looks great. Love the pier.

Good idea to build your it yourself. No plans but how much fun would it be to build it yourself. Go for it.

Not a lot to report here, but I was able to go home for the holidays and do some work on our place. There wasn't much to do with the pond. I got busy planting trees so I didn't get an opportunity to build an island. We commenced an aggresive tree planting program in November and we followed it up with more trees while I was home this time.

This is one of the two cypress tree I planted at the water's edge.


We planted some live oak trees around the pond. The natural tree line is to the south and west of the pond. I planted these on the east side and left them pretty wide so it will still feel open.



Another duck picture. In the background is my fish feeder and my ATTEMPT to sink a log. When I filled the pond, it was the only one to float up. I have is suspended in the middle where I want it to sink. It is held there by fishing line. I thought that over time it would become saturated with water and sink but it hasn't happened yet. The water was too cold to get into it and tie something to it but I guess that is the next approach



We planted trees along both sides of the road going to the home site and pond. At the road entrance we planted 2 magnolia trees on either side of the front gate. Here is a pic taken from the county road. The pond is just beyond the view of the picture back to the left back behind that pick-up

Looks great Mako. You planted some good sized trees!