Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:58 pm
Hi kgielda,
I'm flattered that you asked about our pond. As for the design, it was home made, though someone (jokingly, I think) suggested it looks like the well in The Ring (movie) and we should watch out if anything comes crawling out! We didn't think a naturalistic style pond would work in our back yard since it's flat as a pancake and we have a lawn, so opted for a fountain look.
It was built for us by a local guy that builds koi ponds for a living. I think the total cost was around $3,500. Here's a description (it's a repeat from an earlier post but since it was rather long, it might be hard to find):
"The pond holds about 500 gallons of water. It's six feet in diameter not counting the walls, and the water is 2 1/2 feet deep. About half the water is below ground level. It's made with a flexible liner and walls of Windsor block topped with Ozark flagstone. The flagstones weren't quite set right so Spot was able to climb right out. We've temporarily fixed it with concrete blocks until we figure out what to do permanently. There's a UV sterilizer connected to a 500 gph pondmaster pump that runs a biofilter and the little fountain. There are a bunch of rosie red minnows in there and some mosquito fish and some sort of weedy plant stuff that I got at a pond shop. There was a pretty pink water lily too but Spot found it amusing to snip off the lily pads below the water line so it's gone now. Obviously no grass at all has survived around the pond or where we sit under the trees and we'll have to do something about that too (I'm pretty tired of scraping mud off my sandles.) The basking rock gets direct sun from around 11:30 in the morning until around 2:00 and the rest of the time it's partially shaded."
After that post I changed out the flagstone basking rock for cork bark since the stone was damaging Spot's shell. I think it's important to have a significant part of the water below ground level (ie, you have to dig down) to stabilize the water temperature. It's also important that the rim of the pond overhang the water to keep roving turtles from climbing out.
SpotsMama
