The Pond

July 3, 2010
I've started work on building a pond a couple of months ago. The plans have evolved and changed as I have been both digging and planning it. The pond is almost excavated and I should finish that by the end of Monday. I will then need to level up the base so I can begin placing concrete blocks. The sketch below should give you an idea of what I have planned...let's hope execution comes close to the planned version. I'm fairly certian that the pond will be 40 inches deep (5 rows of concrete blocks). I think I'll be able to get 3 blocks below ground and only have 2 blocks above ground. I think that will make it look better and having the majority of the water mass below ground will help buffer the temperature of the water in both the winter and the summer when we hit our extremes.

Pond plants: I have a dwarf lotus growing in a whiskey barrel (with a liner), several pots of horsetail, some Creeping Jenny and some chameleon plant growing in my front yard. Hopefully I can get the pond construction finished and be able to start filling it by the end of July or mid-August so the plants can aclimate thus bringing new habitats and all kinds of small "critters" to the pond for adding fish.

I plan on having a few butterfly koi. I'd like to keep the number on the low side. My main concern is keeping them from eating the water plants. I've seen a few things that can be used to act as barriers to keep the fish from the plants. I may have to go with one of these so I can have my koi and plants.

After the koi get a little size, I'd like to introduce a few frogs (green frogs, tree frogs, etc.). Tree frogs could come and go as they please. The green frogs would be able to leave, but would have no way to get back in the pond.

Geeking up the pond: I plan on having a wireless outdoor webcam so I can view the pond. Also I'm going to add a sensor so I can monitor water temperature via my greenhouse weather station. I'll be adding a few floating solar lights and MAYBE I'll add some bright LED underwater lights that are solar powered (via solar panels, 12 V battery, etc.).

I guess the best description for this photo is "The Hole". We haven't had rain in weeks and the clay soil is as hard as a rock!

The lower end is not too deep, but the end toward the camera is about 2 blocks deep (except for the lower end, all blocks are stacked outside of the hole). Unfortunately the ground has a slope that goes away from the camera and to the right. That means I'll have a "home" for all this dirt that I'm digging out. I'm also unearthing big chunks of pavement that weigh between 50 and 100+ lbs. These things are a bitch to move!

July 17, 2010
Naturally I'm thinking this weekend will be a good one to spend the morning leveling up the bottom of "the hole"....but Mother Nature had different plans. We had a lot of rain earlier this week and then more yesterday afternoon. So now "the hole" has a combination of mud and water on the bottom. So instead of digging, I'm working on cutting chunks out of my concrete blocks that will hold the horizontal rebar that I will use on the bottom, third and top layer of concrete block to reinforce the whole thing. One thing is for sure; it's not going anywhere! For what it's worth, my little masonary saw slices through concrete block almost like butter. It's pretty darn incredible!

August 29, 2010
Finally it is cool enough and dry enough for me to get out in "the hole" to dig. I've done some work to square up the hole and while putting blocks in the hole have discovered that the base is off by a few inches here and there. I think that except for one spot it only about 2 inches off (which is very significant, but that means not that much digging). I've got one short length on the greenhouse side that is probably off by around 4 inches. The good part is it won't be that long before I start really stacking blocks and filling them with rebar and concrete! Here's a photo before I started leveling the sides and everything.

Sept. 4, 2010
Talk about tedious tasks! I finally have the base leveled and the first set of blocks laid. Time to call Home Depot and order rebar & concrete.

Sept. 11, 2010
Placed my order at Home Depot and they discovered that they were out of rebar....so cancel the order and come home. I just got online and placed the order at Lowe's. So I got all the vertical rebar hammered into the ground, 2 1/2 layers of concrete blocks down, but needed to cut more channels into block for the horizontal rebar (this is why I only got 2 1/2 layers of blocks down). BTW, I found out that you could use zip ties to join rebar where it crosses in the place of tie wire. It makes sense because the tie wire is not there for strength, but to get the rebar to join for added structural strength. I was not looking forward to using tie wire and pliers. As a kid I learned the joys of using a pigtail to quickly tie the tie wire on rebar. At any rate here is some of yesterday's work before I called it a day. You can now see the greenhouse in the background.

The space between the greenhouse and the pond is about 4 feet. I would have made this more like 6 feet, but I had a tree cut down early in the spring and that would have put the upper end right in the middle of the tree stump/roots. The stump & roots are dead now and much easier to deal with. I hope to finish stacking all the blocks, tying the rebar joints and start pouring concrete today.

Sept. 19, 2010
First off....everything hurts! ;-)
At this point, I have all the blocks filled with concrete, but with a little room left at the top of the blocks on the lower end so the waterfall can be added and shallow cuts in the blocks can be made as necessary for a spillway, tubing, electrical cords, etc. I'll go ahead and say that the waterfall is a work in progress. It is such an awkward size when you pair it with the concrete blocks. In the photos below you can see where I've added what will be shelves for plants at the corners. You can also see where I'm making a space for the skimmer on the upper end of the pond on the left. Depending on the number of concrete blocks left, I may keep it in this corner instead of making this corner just for plants and the skimmer directly in front of it. At this point it can be changed to suit my whim.

Ignore the two milk crates on the bottom...I was checking them to see how high they would hold a submerged pot off the bottom of the pond. Also sorry about the lighting in the photos. It was part sun and part shade so a lot of stuff in full sun is completely washed out. I should finish filling in the shelves and around the skimmer this week. I'm hoping that I will finally put down the underlayerment and liner next weekend.