Heres the update with the stones loose layed. I'm still massaging them into place and will fill the gaps with sedums.

I raised the spill tray a bit so I have a downward plundge into the pond but it still feels minimal. The water is nicely disturbed from the bog overflow down to the final plunge and I am curious if this is enough? Water is clean and fish are not gathering near the falls.

(420gph pump in 250g+49gal spill tray. Took about 7min to fill the 40gal bog before rock and now it takes 3.5min)

Could you conceivably have super oxygenated water flowing below the surface of a stagnant pond and be ok with some minimal surface disruption like an airstone?

300 gallon water trough with about 125 gallons filled. theres porkchop rasbora x12, ember tetra x6, cherry shrimp x12, bladder snails, scarlet badi x1, dwarf bristlenose pleco x4, 3x different types of sword plants, an anubais plant, water lilly, papayrus, duckweed, water hyacinth, little specimens of java moss, mopani wood, huckleberry branches and leaves, bamboo leaves, alder pine cones, rocks, sand, guava leaves, more to come soon

300 gallon water trough filled with about 125gal. Theres porkchop rasbora x12, ember tetra x6, cherry shrimp x12, bladder snails, scarlet badi x1, dwarf bristlenose pleco x4, 3x different types of sword plants, an anubais plant, water lilly, papayrus, duckweed, water hyacinth, little specimens of java moss, mopani wood, huckleberry branches and leaves, bamboo leaves, alder pine cones, rocks, sand, guava leaves, more to come soon...

Thanks in advance for any insight.

We still have some detail work to do and the plants need some time to grow in but this is the pond it took way too long to build. As the title suggest we really thought we could knock this out in a week or two but that wasn't even close to the actual timeline.

I wanted to go with a natural North Carolina stream look and use it as a wildlife/native minnows pond. So far we only have Eastern Mosquito Fish but they're thriving. All the plants are native to the state.

It wasn't an ideal location in terms of terrain but we wanted a pond and this was the only available area. The backyard looks roomy but that whole area floods and when the hurricane hit the mountains not long ago that small stream turned into a 40 foot wide river.

The location posed a lot of challenges that we weren't ready for when the project started back in late June. Year to date rainfall at start of project was 7". In July we had 17" with three rainfalls of 2" in a quick window. This was a massive setback and we were basically cleaning up the mess the entire month.

We quickly realized we needed to do a lot of water runoff mitigation. This turned into 80 feet of French drains, a 5 inch high retaining wall on the upper side and reshaping part of the terrain so the water would run around the pond.

We didn't have a lot of wiggle room so the final size is a bit more narrow than what is ideal but it's 4 feet deep and the bottom is 2 feet wide. Water level can go a bit higher but we haven't had an in weeks so its down a bit.

DIY Skimmer box houses a 1800 gph pump that feeds into the 40 gallon bog filter. The bog filter has a 3/4" PVC pipe running the entire length on the bottom with holes throughout the entire run. Filters for bacteria to cling to are buried halfway down. Outflow pipe to stream is 3" and we have a 3" clean out pipe with shutoff valve running out the back. This is connected to part of the French drain heading downhill which connects to the longer drain running parallel with the pond.

Might be a while before I build another pond.

Hi All,

Long time lurker here, first time posting. Have some questions on a project I have ongoing right now and what to prioritize as the season starts to change. It has started to dawn on me that the amount of work I would like to get done and the amount of time I have available before winter are not going to line up.

A few details;
Location - Northern Ohio/Zone 6B
Size - Approximately 280’ x 90’ x 10’ deep. Approximate volume of 185,000 gallons.
Elongated kidney bean shape.
Nearly solid clay base - ground water runoff to fill (engineered grading plan and soil tests/test holes were completed prior to digging)
2.7hp variable speed bottom intake pump to feed approximately 20,000GPH over a waterfall along with an aerator feeding dual head bubblers.

Rough estimate for pond to fill is late spring 2027.

Pond has a 6’ shallow shelf around the perimeter with depth ranging from 2” to 8”. I have roughly 200 tons of sandstone that I need to manually set once the excavation process is fully wrapped.

I have (2) roughly 6’ wide x 40’ long bioswales cut in at the 2 main intake points.

Questions/Advice Needed -

Should i prioritize getting the sandstone set in the shallows this fall? Before the pond fills and i either have to pump it down or work in 6” of water? OR should i fully flesh out the bioswales by getting the stone in place and all the filter plants planted?

With winter approaching, I’m not sure the filter plants will do much through the cold, but having them in place for the start of spring may help filter some of the sediment as it gradually fills up.

The sandstone is for the most part ornamental, but it may never be easier to set than when the pond is empty.

Would it be smart to try to filter the water progressively as the pond fills? Or let it fill and then try to address the entire body of water at once?
Any other factors I should be considering?

I appreciate any guidance this sub can provide!

I’m guessing I need to make a cut somewhere but my brain just can’t compute it. Anyone able to help me out and explain it like I’m 5?

I have, why I believe to be hydrilla growing in my pond.

Arkansas 8b

How can I kill or at least manage just the hydrilla without killing my native plants or harming my fish?

I’ve considered a few sterile carp as well.

Pond is around 1.5 acres or so

I’d like to leave all my native vegitation intact.

I’ve considered manual removal but I’m afraid it will just break apart and make it spread even more.

We have a stocked fishing lake on our horse farm. That is about 6 acres. I would like to expand it to about 10 to 12 acres but I don’t want to lose all of the existing fishery.

My current plan is to determine where the new shoreline would be on the raised dam, and then I would do excavation of the second area next to the existing Lake but not cut through until after I had it fully excavated. The current pond/lake is Fed by a small stream and has never gone dry even in drought.

Has anyone ever done something similar to this? Any thing that I need to be aware of or problems that you think I might encounter.

The dam overflow is a siphon dam overflow. We are only looking to raise the water level to the current top of the existing dam, which is about 2 feet. I’m assuming I need to hire a surveyor to mark where the new boundary of the expanded Lake would be after we raise the siphon and from there I should be able to bring in excavation equipment to dig it out.

I really love the look of ponds with a dense green carpet across the bottom - the reference photo is roughly what I mean.

I’m wondering if I could recreate something similar in my pond.

I’m in Central Europe and have a 500L (130 gal?) preformed pond, about 45cm (1 ft 5.7 in?) deep. It’s been in place for around 25 years, so it’s very established. I have goldfish and water lilies - the lilies are in baskets, but otherwise the bottom of the pond is completely bare.

The main thing I don’t want to do is put a layer of soil/substrate directly across the pond floor and plant into that. I’d still like to be able to clean the bottom relatively easily and remove the planting if necessary.

So I came up with an idea and I’m wondering whether it’s clever or absolutely terrible:

I was thinking of taking shallow garden seed trays (see the second reference photo), cutting/arranging them to roughly fit the shape of the pond floor, filling them with aquasoil or another suitable substrate, and planting them with Sagittaria.

The idea is that the individual trays would eventually visually merge into one carpet, but whenever I need to clean the pond I could lift each whole tray out, clean underneath it, and then put it back.

Has anyone tried something similar?

My main questions are:

1. Would Sagittaria actually form a reasonably dense carpet this way
2. Would the plants spread between/over the edges of the trays enough to hide them?
3. Is there a better removable/modular way of creating this kind of planted pond floor?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you think this is a terrible idea.

Recently bought my mom’s house which has a koi pond and want to try to keep the leaves out of it as it is under a tree. Usually she’d put a netting over it in the fall but didn’t last year and it got too many leaves in it and contributed to algae this summer.

Any recommendations for a good cover to keep the leaves out for the next month or two now that leaves are starting to fall?

Hi Everyone, I have a small, shallow water feature with a potted lily pad. I’ve had to replace the plant every 2 to 4 years when it doesn‘t come back in the spring. I’m up in the northeast US (zone 5), my “pond” is only about 24” deep. The pond likely freezes solid. Any advise to help the lily pad survive the winter? Thank you!

My parents have this 1/3 acre size pond on their farm. In the last two years it’s been completely covered by this plant/algae when it never had this issue before. We don’t fertilize the fields so I don’t think it’s eutrophication but I’m not sure. Does anyone recognize this and how to get rid of it? Thanks.

Was quoted 2k to have a 15x4x3 ft hole dig. Soil haul away.

When we moved in I stocked this pond with rosy fathead minnows. Loved them - they reproduced prolifically, coexisted with all the invertebrates I like (damselflies, dragonflies, mayflies, etc.), seemed to eat the ones I didn’t (mosquito larvae).

This spring an auto-top off malfunction happened while I wasn’t home to deal with it. Some volume in the hundreds of gallons of chloramine treated tap water went into the pond and killed every last minnow. Sometime in the last 4 years they were listed as an invasive species where I live and it became illegal to sell them, so I couldn’t replace them.

My only other option was goldfish. I figured it was a big pond, even if the goldfish were going to eat things I liked, I was only buying 3, there’s no way they could eat everything. What I was not accounting for, however, is how rapidly 3 goldfish can turn into 30 goldfish when at least one of those three was the egg laying variety. This summer they proceeded to eat every last invertebrate. My population of damselfly nymphs collapsed to basically 0.

I like damselflies a lot more than I like goldfish, so today they all came out. But that meant fully draining the pond for the first time in almost 2 years. Holy bananas that was a lot of work. Now I have a bucket full of them to try and rehome.

I have maple trees dropping their dead leaves in the pond and wondering how bad this is???

Cut halfway every 1-2 inch. I know Perforated Pipe exist with holes, but there aren't enough holes and they're too big so the media will fall through.

I'm just don't want to make 50 cuts with a saw.

I’m in Victoria, BC. I’m doing maintenance on a large-ish pond and need to find a home for the goldfish and one koi that have been living in it. I tried posting on Facebook marketplace but probably the wrong audience.

Anyone in Canada/BC have a preferred place they post things like this? There’s tons of ponds in this city, I just don’t know where those pond owners digitally hang out.

this happened within a week I can see through the water very clearly and there’s all these weird clumps of what looks like grass or algae. This is a stormwater management pond in some sorts.