Pond Contruction
Site
I own one acre of land. I have a lot of flower beds--I am into perennial gardening. For more pics of the property click here.
The pond will be 10 feet from the east side of my house and will get sun from sunrise up until early afternoon. I live in northeastern Pennsylvania (winter temperatures rarely dip below 0º F). I will be in February in hard clay soil. My wife's cousin, Michael, has a backhoe and will be doing the excavation.
Design
I read a couple books, surfed the web, and read forums to learn pond design, and got lots of great suggestions from the people at the Koiphen forum . I actually did the drawings in Microsoft Excel so I would have a grid, then I used SnagIt screen capture software to get them here. Here's what I came up with.
Also see:
2. Top View
3. Side View
4. Waterfall
5. Settling Tank - DIY design
6. Biofilter - DIY design
Wiring
Rocks
Biofilter and Waterfall Footer
Digging with a shovel in northeastern PA in January and February is very unusual---weather is cooperating so far (second warmest January in 100 years).
For the Biofilter footer, I poured 6 of concrete (+rebar) over 5 inches of gravel (round circle below). I put a notch in it for the drain pipe (drain will be off center on the bottom of the biofilter) and dug a ditch going out from the notch.
I plan to build the base of the waterfall with concrete blocks, then dump dirt from the pond excavation over and around them and the bioflilter. For the waterfall, I poured 4" of concrete (+rebar) for the footer. I want a good base so rocks are not shifting in the future.
I pan to excavate the pond the week of Feb 20, so I need to have the biofilter built and in place, along with the mortared concrete blocks for the waterfall by then so I can dump the dirt around them. I plan to start building the biofilter today. I will need one night above freezing when I mortar the blocks, but it appears that may not happen for a while.
Biofilter
