Pond

After 3 years of digging the same hole and having the winter and spring rain collapse it all in again, I thought the time had come to dig it and finish it all in one go. A task I wouldn't recommend without an excavator.

Since the volunteers miraculously forgot to turn up when the concreting had to be done Annie and I mixed and set over 6 tons of the stuff ourselves, also not to be recommended.

The base was set first over the high pressure pipe work in a 14 inch layer then the sides which are 18 inches thick, all reinforced with rebar and nylon fibres. 5 days after that had set, 2 applications of cement render were applied and this lead on to the next mistake! The isolating pond paint had to be applied to the rendering before it hardened (not very long on a sunny day), and after the whole surface was gone over with a blow torch to remove any fibres that were poking out. The paint also had to be applied in 3 coats which had to be done in one go with an hour in between each coat. Having started the job at 10 in the morning, (without reading the paint instructions first) I was still at it with the help of some floodlights, at 1am the following morning.

The next day it was ready to receive 4,500 gallons of water (no meters in this neck of the woods thankfully!) Which took 9 hours. 

Having set up the particle, biological and ultraviolet filters all that was left was installing the electrics in a small tool shed at the back of the pond and building the waterfall. After this I let the whole thing settle down for 2 months with everything running.

The day finally came when we could get some fish in it and a trip to the koi farm sorted us out with 10 six inch fish to start with. Since then another 10 have gone in and they are all about 11 inches long now and happily settled in their new 7' deep home.

Click on the pic for the full size