Waterfall




PLANTS

Pictures, information and descriptions of aquatic plants.
POND FISH

Find out what fish are right for your pond.
TIPS

Valuable tips for building your pond.

FILTRATION

This page is a must see. Alot of information on specific filter medias.

LINKS

Contains both personal and commercial pond sites.

FEEDING

Information about what you are feeding your fish.





~ Welcome to our pond page ~

    Living in the arid regions of West Texas, water gardening has become a very enjoyable hobby for our entire family. We created this page so that we could share with you what we have learned, as well as, some of our experiences, (both good and bad), and to give us an opportunity to learn from you and others such as yourself. We are not experts on the subject by any means, just hobbyists with a love for water gardening. On this site, you will find pictures and what we hope to be some helpful tips and information. We encourage you to send us your stories, pictures and any tips that you feel may be useful to fellow ponders. We will post them on this site so that everyone can enjoy and learn from them. It was sites similar to this one that inspired us to join the rewarding world of back yard ponding. You will find some of these sites in our favorite links section.

    Below are some pictures of our two ponds, which are home to numerous comet, koi, shubunkin, crawdads, tadpoles, snails, water dogs and other critters, which have mysteriously found their way into our ponds. This site is currently and will probably always be under construction, so please come back often.



    ~ OUR FIRST POND ~

    Our First Pond

    In the beginning, there was one. Before it was a pond, it was a flower bed with a round slab of cement in the center, which supported a small water fountain. The day we decided to transform it into a pond, I broke out my trustee busting bar to remove what I thought was going to be a 4" slab of concrete. WRONG! Turned out to be a 6' cylinder of solid reinforced concrete, 30" deep. For the next 6 hours, Mr. jackhammer and I became very familiar with one another.



    ~ WATERFALL ~

    Waterfall

    Falling water.....hence the name! Not your typical waterfall, We had no idea what we were going to do when we started. After piling up a ton of rocks, we ended up with what you see in the picture above, one main center stream, with two small streams on either side.

    We started off with a 300 gph pump, plumbed with 3/4" pvc, which we thought would be sufficient, again....WRONG! Now we have a 2800 gph pump, with 1 1/4" pvc, which we had to run around the waterfall. It all worked out in the end, we just built flower beds around the base of the waterfall to hide the plumbing....Live and learn.



    ~ LAVA ROCK FILTER ~

    Lava Rock Filter

    Like alot of people, we thought everyones pond was suppose to be green....WRONG AGAIN! (Are you starting to get the idea on this "wrong thing"?) Then we discovered filtration. We looked at several options that are available on the market today. That's when we learned about lava rock filters. We cannot stress enough, the importance of a good filtering system. Within a short period of time, our pond went from pea soup to crystal clear water. You will find more information and a detailed drawing, along with instructions on how to build our bio-filter, on page five.



    ~ IKE ~

    Ike

    Water clarity...They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This photograph was taken in the middle of July, in 32" of water. It just saved us 978 words.....grin.



    ~ GUARD DOG ~

    Guard Dog

    This is T-Rex, he is the master of his domain. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor hail can tear him away from his post. We have several like him, that have made our backyard their home. However, this one is actually made of cement, but don't tell the bugs.



    ~ OUR SECOND POND ~

    Our Second Pond

    And then there was two. This is our second pond. It's 7 ft. by 9 ft. and approximately 950 gallons. This pond presented problems of its own, in that we only had a 16 inch slab of concrete on which to build both the waterfall and the filter. After placing a rock here and a rock there, everything seemed to fall into place. Having learned from our first pond, we built the waterfall around the filter this time. Definitely the way to go.



    ~ SMALL WATERFALL ~

    Small Waterfall

    Once again we ended up with a main center waterfall with two side streams. (How about that,after building only two waterfalls, we have already developed our own style, or it could be that we have very limited imaginations. We'll go with the style thing....grin.)

    Notice the built in planters on either side of the filter. That was all Jacque's idea, pretty smart gal, I think I'll keep her.



    ~ TOPPING IT OFF ~

    Topping it off

    Evaporation is a major concern, especially if you have a waterfall. At first you might think that your liner has a leak. Constantly adding 2" or 3" of water every few days with the garden hose can be a pain, plus a danger to your fish because of the chlorine. You can treat the water you're adding with common de-chlorinators which is good news for the fish but bad news for the algae, it loves it. Instant pea soup!! We have found that the best way around this is to install an automatic float system.

    We started off by using a fluid master commonly found in toilets. That didn't work very long. It failed in the middle of the night, releasing hundreds of gallons of city water into the pond creating the "Great Fish Massacre of 98". Now we're using a 3/8" brass float, which is found in large evaporative coolers. It's dependable and adds such a small amount of water at a time that the chlorine is quickly disapated and it won't harm the fish.




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