Closed season project.

[Richard Isaacs]

Every year prior to this one I’ve been chomping at the bit by now itching to get out and dealing with the longest 3 months of a river anglers life.

Not so much this year…….
I’ve been busy ……. A couple hours here and afew hours there between my real job and family stuff I’ve built myself a raised sleeper pond.
3m x 1.5m with a shallow area at 0.7m and a deep area of 1m
Not massive but at 4000L it’s a decent size.

So I’m not a joiner, I’m not a pond expert, and while I started out with a plan and a vision, things just changed and went in the directions that made sense at the time.

One thing that didn’t change was what I wanted my pond to be. I don’t want a koi pond it’s not something that interests me. This is a uk native species pond that is packed with features and very lightly stocked with fish you really have to look hard for to find. That’s what I want.
Any way I’ve selected some of hundreds of pics which show the main build stages going through.

Continued on next post

 

[Richard Isaacs]

More pics showing the rest of the stages to the final finished pond

 

[Jim Gregory]

That looks great Richard, good luck in your stocking programme.

 

[Richard Isaacs]

And of course…. My fish.

I have 6 perch ranging from 3-6 inch

I have 2 tench around 8 inch long

I have 2 beautiful crucian carp about 6-7 inch long

finally I have 4 chub 5 inches long.

Huge shout out to MF Aquatics if you want quality course fish I highly recommend them. Very reasonable prices and excellent in both health and quality

 

[Alan Palmer]

Looks great, it’ll eat into your time with the maintenance but it’s a labour of love. Watching your fish grow is very satisfying

 

[Ian Woods]

Nice one Richard, crackin' job you done there.

 

[Steve Kenchington]

That’s very cool !

 

[Lewis Baldwin]

That looks great Richard, for someone who's not a joiner the finish looks superb!

As you've started, I'll add to it. I've done something very similar, had a vision and decided I wanted a pond. The kids don't use the garden so much anymore, much prefering to be on their bikes or at the park etc so the garden was a bit of a dead space........

 

[Lewis Baldwin]

Almost done

 

[Lewis Baldwin]

The addition of a few plants and it's (almost) finished. Need a few ticks along the back to hide the liner, some more greenery and the beds either side planting.

This time next year I'm hoping it will have flourished and be looking as I want it.

 

[Dave Brooksbank]

The Pond projects look great but just be aware of fish scavenging birds especially Red kites.

 

[Mike Thompson]

Nice one Richard, you too Lewis.
To improve filtration buy a bunch of watercress from the supermarket. Take off the elastic band and push the stems into the gravel. It will root in a few days and cover all the gravel in a few weeks. Great water purifier, tastes good and when it gets too big, cut it back and throw on the garden as fertiliser.

 

[Cliff Turner]

Ive given up on my pond after 25 years, impossible to stop the herons unless you cover it completely which is unsightly.

 

[Lewis Baldwin]

Ive given up on my pond after 25 years, impossible to stop the herons unless you cover it completely which is unsightly.

This is something that does concern me Cliff as we have herons regularly within 100 yards of the garden due to a stream and 2 settling ponds that are very mature within a stones throw.

I've currently got fine fishing line across the pond and have dug it so the herons can't walk into or land in the pond with any ease. I plan to put more plants in and some Lillie's in the deepest part to provide cover aswell.

I don't want to go down the net route as it's quite ugly.

 

[Terry Simner]

Nices ones Rich/Lewis! Re. predators .... yeah, my next door neighbour had his entire large stock of fish (thousands of pounds worth of Koi) wiped out in just one night by otters. They must have travelled about 3-4 miles up a brook (that flows alongside my house) from the Teme.
N.b... serves him right though for suggesting I go "barbel bashing"

 

[Richard Isaacs]

The addition of a few plants and it's (almost) finished. Need a few ticks along the back to hide the liner, some more greenery and the beds either side planting.

This time next year I'm hoping it will have flourished and be looking as I want it.

That’s a really fantastic job I love the shape. Very professional. What filtration did you go for

 

[Richard Isaacs]

Nice one Richard, you too Lewis.
To improve filtration buy a bunch of watercress from the supermarket. Take off the elastic band and push the stems into the gravel. It will root in a few days and cover all the gravel in a few weeks. Great water purifier, tastes good and when it gets too big, cut it back and throw on the garden as fertiliser.

Yes I intend on having water cress in the top wetland filter

 

[Lewis Baldwin]

That’s a really fantastic job I love the shape. Very professional. What filtration did you go for

Thanks Richard, not bad for a chef who has zero DIY skills

I've got 2 pumps/filters in the pond and an external canister filter.

One of the pumps filters water and passes 50% down the waterfall and 50% into the canister filter. The other pumps straight into the canister filter. This then circulates all the water back into the pond. All 3 are interlinked.

Once they need cleaning I can just rinse the sponge from the pumps and put it back and if the canister needs doing open a valve and flush it out with pond water then top up the pond with what I've flushed out.

All have UV lights in to help with algae.

I think the full set filters 2000 litres an hour.

I've got 3 fish tanks in the house and this is similar to what's in my big tank, just on a much bigger scale.

 

[Lee White]

3000 gallon koi pond they are a money pit

 

[Richard Isaacs]

Thanks Richard, not bad for a chef who has zero DIY skills

I've got 2 pumps/filters in the pond and an external canister filter.

One of the pumps filters water and passes 50% down the waterfall and 50% into the canister filter. The other pumps straight into the canister filter. This then circulates all the water back into the pond. All 3 are interlinked.

Once they need cleaning I can just rinse the sponge from the pumps and put it back and if the canister needs doing open a valve and flush it out with pond water then top up the pond with what I've flushed out.

All have UV lights in to help with algae.

I think the full set filters 2000 litres an hour.

I've got 3 fish tanks in the house and this is similar to what's in my big tank, just on a much bigger scale.

I’ve got one of those pressure filters on mine too but it’s really got an easy life as the 450L wetland filter is doing most of the water clarity. I was told the pressure filters are fine but spec them at least 4x your pond volume if you are keeping fish or they just don’t cope.

So I have on my 4000L pond a 30,000L pressure filter takes in the water from both the top and bottom and does the mechanical filtering. Mine is practically useless for biological filtering
It then goes through a non return valve and pushed at 4 points into the bottom void space of the wetland filter.

The void space will collect any crap that’s escaped the pressure filter and then the water rises through 100kg of granite rock 100kg of pebbles and stones then 300kg of 10-12mm gravel before it’s up and over through the pea shooters and over the spill.

We are only afew weeks in, string algae is obviously having the time of its life but water clarity is gin clear

Have you had any issues with new pond syndrome? I had spikes on my ammonia and nitrite. Which I’ve pulled back now to zero.