Thinking of making a pond...

[ansjo]

Hello members of Ovas
I have considered making a pond in our back yard, which is fairly big, but I have many questions, and would appreciate tips, so here I go with the questions;
1.What's the average cost of a pond(one with a waterfall)?
2.How would the fish survive in the winter?
3.Where will I be able to purchase the majority of things?
4.What kind of problems may occur when I have a pond?
5.I heard mosquitoes like water; will they infest our backyard?
6.We occasionally babysit dogs(labs, golden retrievers, etc), is there anything we can do to protect the pond?
7.Is there any books or sites that can help us build a pond?
8.How much maintenance is required once a pond has been established?
9.What do we do when we go on vacation?
10. Will any frogs, leeches, pondskaters, etc. ever come to our pond(we live in the suburbs, and the closest pond I know of is about 30-40 minute walk away from us)?
11. Will birds eat our fish?

Thanks for reading, and I am a curious person, so any answers to my questions will be very much appreciated

[Brent Shaver]

I helped someone make a waterfall into a pond that over flowed into a riverbed into another pond.

We spent the first year looking for rock from river beds and any construction site that was digging.  Didnt start building until following summer.

Fish will survive winter as long as it is deep enough, this could depend on type of fish.

As far as mosquitoes as long as you have water movement it wont be an issue.

You can lose fish and my friend did, he ended up putting water lillies so they had a hiding place.

Golden Retrievers love the water so good luck with that one.

Thats all I can help but its a start.

[Fishnut]

Hello members of Ovas
I have considered making a pond in our back yard, which is fairly big, but I have many questions, and would appreciate tips, so here I go with the questions;
1.What's the average cost of a pond(one with a waterfall)?
2.How would the fish survive in the winter?
3.Where will I be able to purchase the majority of things?
4.What kind of problems may occur when I have a pond?
5.I heard mosquitoes like water; will they infest our backyard?
6.We occasionally babysit dogs(labs, golden retrievers, etc), is there anything we can do to protect the pond?
7.Is there any books or sites that can help us build a pond?
8.How much maintenance is required once a pond has been established?
9.What do we do when we go on vacation?
10. Will any frogs, leeches, pondskaters, etc. ever come to our pond(we live in the suburbs, and the closest pond I know of is about 30-40 minute walk away from us)?
11. Will birds eat our fish?

Thanks for reading, and I am a curious person, so any answers to my questions will be very much appreciated

I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1. The cost of the pond is going to be determined entirely by you.  The size, materials, equipment, etc that you choose for the pond can vary the price of a pond so dramatically that it's impossible to answer this question.

2. If the pond is greater than 18" deep in-ground, the water will be below the frost line and the fish will be able to survive.  You need to make sure that there is always an opening at the surface of water for gas exchange and the fish can not be fed once the water gets to below 15 degrees.

3. Most Garden centres have a decent pond supplies centre, although I find that most pond places in Ottawa are limited in the stock they sell and/or the prices are outrageous.  Here's a website for a place in Toronto: http://www.clarkekoi.com/HomePage.html  Compare prices with their on-line catalog.

4. This is a subject that entire books are written on.  Problems can include: fish illnesses, predation, insufficient filtration, insufficient shade, single cell algae, poor construction, low quality equipment, etc.  I suggest heading to your local Chapters to look for some pond books.

5. Fish eat mosquito larvae, so you won't be breeding mosquito, but yes, they do require water to lay their eggs.  I'm not entirely sure if the population that visits your yard will increase if a pond is added though.

6. Put a fence around the pond.  Water is like a magnet for dogs like that.

7. As I said...Chapters has some great pond building books and that place in Toronto is THE BEST place to get information.  Stay clear of people/places that try to steer you to buying into their "system" of pond keeping.  There is never a single way to do anything in this hobby and I know of one particular system that sounds good but if you want to have a pond for fish, it won't work.  If you want a water feature comprised of mostly aquatic plants and a cute water fall with a few accent fish, it'll work just fine.

8. Very little...or quite a lot!   No, I'm not messing with you.  It all depends on what kind of pond you want to have.  I you plan on having a fish pond, you'll need to access your filter every few weeks to hose all the gunk out of part of the filter, however if you have a pond that is mostly plants with the odd fish for decoration, you might go all season without touching the filtration.  Water changes in a pond are a must.  Again that depends on what you're putting in the pond and how much filtration you have for it.

9. That depends on how long you're going on vacation for .  The fish will be fine for a week but if you're going away for longer, you might want to find someone who can throw some food in for the fish every few days and make sure everything's running smoothly.

10. Yes, you might get a frog and you might get leeches if you add plants or rocks that have eggs on them...even a single leech can make many many leeches.  I'm not too sure what pondskaters are though.

11. YES!! Herons, King Fishers...I think I'm missing one...are the birds that are designed for catching fish.  Herons visit suburbia too   I'm sure a crow, falcon or hawk wouldn't hesitate to nab a fish if it were close to the surface of the water.

The best thing for you to do is start reading everything you can about building and maintaining a pond.  As a bit of advice that wasn't included as an answer to your questions, don't get koi.  Goldfish are a great, colourful addition to any pond and they can grow to be 12".  Koi need a pond the size of an in-ground swimming pool, otherwise they don't do well.  There are A LOT of people who say that you can keep koi in any large pond, but if you talk to the true experts, you'll quickly realize that keeping koi is something not many hobbyists have the capability to get into.

Cheers

[JetJumper]

I have built several ponds from $1000 to $100,000 projects.  I used to work for a local company and we had some fun projects that we did.

Cost factor is a huge topic in most ponds and really it depends on the location / size you wish to do.  Here are a few examples of jobs that I have worked on.

$100,000 Pond Build (Beach Wood Cemetery)

















Small Pond $2500ish



Waterless feature



Pond with small stream/waterfall



Pond with large waterfall



Now cost factor on these you have to remember there is equipment we came in with and can cost a bit to rent.  So if you are doing a lot of the work yourself its really just the cost of parts.  Liner is roughly I think $0.50-0.60/sq ft.  Cloth for under the liner is $0.20-0.30/sqft.  Pumps are couple hundred.  Lights? Rock is $30/ton I think it was.  Riverstone is a little cheaper.  So it can add up quickly depending on the size you wish to do.


1.What's the average cost of a pond(one with a waterfall)?
See above for examples

2.How would the fish survive in the winter?
All of the ponds we built were 24" deep and customers overwintered fish with out issues.  Just be sure to leave a hole in the ice for gas' to escape.

3.Where will I be able to purchase the majority of things?
I am not advertising for the company I worked for so I just won't answer publicly.  You can PM me if you like.

4.What kind of problems may occur when I have a pond?
Algae is most people's concern.  It can be controlled but bacteria levels have to be established first so you will most likely get an algae bloom at some point in time.  You can buy bacteria to speed up the process to help prevent it.  Liner becoming low was another huge issue.  When building the sides of your pond keep this in mind.  make sure its level all the way around.  Some jobs people wanted low water lines on the edges which are hard to do with out running into later issues.

5.I heard mosquitoes like water; will they infest our backyard?
They like stagnent water, not moving water.  Setup your pond so the stream is on the opposite side as the pump feed so that you have a constant flow across the pond.

6.We occasionally babysit dogs(labs, golden retrievers, etc), is there anything we can do to protect the pond?
Ponds have never been an issue in any we built.  The liner was never showing and is completely covered by rocks.  Dogs have gone in and out of them all the time.  now if they tend to dig, then you are screwed.

7.Is there any books or sites that can help us build a pond?
Not sure on this one, I learned it all by just doing it.

8.How much maintenance is required once a pond has been established?
Not much.  Weekly top ups on water lose or install an auto top-off system (Problem with this is if you develop a low edge and pay for water your bill can get high and fast!  Spring clean out and Fall shutdown.  Keeping the filters clean is mostly it.

9.What do we do when we go on vacation?
Depends on how long for  1-2 weeks isn't much of an issue.  Gotta feed the fish somehow but the rest of it is pretty self sustaining.

10. Will any frogs, leeches, pondskaters, etc. ever come to our pond(we live in the suburbs, and the closest pond I know of is about 30-40 minute walk away from us)?
You will get frogs, snakes, any types of critters that like water.  Leeches are not too much of a worry.  If you keep the pond maintained, you should be fine.  

11. Will birds eat our fish?
Birds / raccoon / anything like that will eat the fish.  Best thing to do is when designing the pond, make sure there is a place for the fish to hide.  If you go checkout beechwood cemetery's pond in the front of the building when designing that we used a piece of culvert under the walk way and in the middle of the pond.  Anything comes along and the fish will hide in either of the two.

Hope this helps!

[asmackay]

I built 2 ponds last year and kept a record of what I spent.

This small pond using Home depot 800Gallong pond kit + I bought several filters until I found one that worked best so I spent more than I needed to.  I added water fall and bog with pre-formed from home depot or rona they both carry the same stuff, Rona is a bit cheaper.

This pond was hand dug

and

and

All this cost me about $2000 (including fire pit, plants, fish, patio stones)

I over wintered both Koi and shubukins pond is 32" deep and used aquarium powerhead pointed at the surface to keep a hole open.  all fish surived just fine.



This pond was also hand dug (very hard work) and cost me $4000 so far, still lot's to do on this one.


water fall work still in proress




both ponds are understocked and all I do is feed them twice a day, clean filters if needed once a month.  fertilize water lillies once a month.  other than that it's low maintenance.

[ansjo]

Thank you for your comments. I will surley be looking into this to maybe make this summer

[White Lightning]

The biggest problem you will encounter is algae. ponds are very relaxing and I would encourage anyone to venture down this road. I built mine two summers ago and have had the same comets survive wo winters. The deepest spot is roghly 30 inches. I hand dug teh hole, bought some liner, a pump, lights and stones. i was able to build this for less than a grand.

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[Fishnut]

Nice pond pics everyone!

I think I recognize the handy-work of JetJumper's ex employer.  They're nice ponds but that's the kind of pond/system of building ponds I would call a water feature with fish.  It'll be great for aquatic plants and be very appealing aesthetically but not too good for fish.

I go to that cemetery regularly...how on earth did that pond cost $100,000??!!   I'm not surprised though.  That company wanted to charge me $14,000 to build a 12x12 above ground pond ...and that was after a lengthy conversation of him disregarding what I wanted and trying to convince me that his system for pond building is the best and only way to go.  I almost fell off my chair.  I'm doing it on my own for a fraction of the price and it's going to be much better for my koi.

I had a good look at it when it was finished but haven't had time since because I wasn't too impressed with it.  For starters, they initially stocked it with koi...which is really bad in a pond that shallow.  Second of all, due to the design of the pond, it's going to be a fish buffet for herons and raccoons.  That's something to think about when building a pond...research how the local predators hunt.

Sorry...I don't mean to pick at you JetJumper, if that's how I'm coming across .  I just don't think too highly of your ex employer's "system" .

[JetJumper]

I'm not surprised though.  That company wanted to charge me $14,000 to build a 12x12 above ground pond
Sorry...I don't mean to pick at you JetJumper, if that's how I'm coming across .  I just don't think too highly of your ex employer's "system" .

No comment. haha.  As I no longer work there with good reasons.