Habitat - Outdoor :: planning on building an outdoor pond, need some suggestions

[zenalisa]

hey everybody! i know its been a long while since i've been here at all, sorry about that. but now that the weather's getting warmer and its so nice out, i've been thinking about making an outdoor pond for Shelly. heare's a rough sketch of the plan so far
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn54 ... epond1.png
im basically thinking of just digging a bighole in the yard, making it a pond, adding ramp, decorations and other fun turtle stuff, and fencing it off to keep him from wandering too far. sound good?
im a little worried about the other hungry wildlife, but im thinking about bringing him inside at night. its getting nice and warm here, so no worries about that. any other things i need to worry about building a pond? cool suggestions to make it awesome?
thanks!!

[bluedragoon85]

Hello zenalisa,

I am as well planning on setting up a pond, but probably not as nice as what you have in mind. I'm planning on setting up a 125 Gallon preformed pond outside. I was wondering, about how big do you want your pond to be approximately? (over 500 gallons?) Have you thought about what filtration system you will be using (if any)? Sorry I really don't have any suggestions, but I thought it would be cool to bounce of some ideas of of each other

[zenalisa]

honestly, ive never tried anything like this before and have no idea lol. probably not 500 gallons though, not sure about size. as big as i can i guess. not sure about filtraion either. do you know anything about the filter stuff? what it does, how important, what kind is best?
ive never done a pond b4 so im kinda clueless

[zenalisa]

i measured and from what im thinking it'll be about 5 ft diameter, with 2 feet of shore space at the farthest from the little fence. not sure about how deep, but its not going to be too shallow.

[bluedragoon85]

honestly, ive never tried anything like this before and have no idea lol. probably not 500 gallons though, not sure about size. as big as i can i guess. not sure about filtraion either. do you know anything about the filter stuff? what it does, how important, what kind is best?

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you are This is my first time putting together a pond or something of this sort. However, I do know filtration is very important, especially when you have RES as they tend to be very messy. From what I have read it is best to have a filter that does both mechanical, and biological filtration. I have been reading about the "skippy" filter, and you can look it up yourself on google if you like. It's practically a DIY filter. However I think I will just purchase this one I saw at home depot. It comes with a water pump (rated at 325 gallons p/hour) and the in pond filter. I'm pretty sure someone that really knows of this stuff will chime in and help as I really don't know much or anything about a turtle pond

[zenalisa]

mine is a little less messy (not a res, western painted turtle) but im still gonna look into the filter stuff asap,thanks we have a spot picked out for the pond, im probably going to get digging tomorrow. the sooner the better, his light bulb just blew out and we can't get another for a while. i want to get it done pretty fast. any second now a veteran res keeper is going to show up and tell us all about how to do it, i can feel it

[crabgrass]

I am in the suburbs about an hour north of NYC and we have a lot of hungry hawks, raccoons, etc. around here. I'm thinking that, when the time comes to build a pond, I am going to have to put mesh over the top to keep out those creatures who would want to eat Chomp!

Having the top completely covered with mesh would also address another concern I have, about him possibly climbing over the fence. But how do we ensure that they won't get out of the enclosure by going UNDER the fence?

[zenalisa]

ive heard of making the fence go under too, like have half of it buried so they cant dig out. not sure how well i described that, here
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn54 ... efence.png
yes, i do just like messing around with Paint lol
the anti-hungry critter thing sound like a good idea.
Edit: just started digging the big hole. grass has to be the most ucooperative, obtanant, annoying plant on the planet when you have to remove it with a shovel *headdesk*

[zenalisa]

slowly digging the hole through the nasty rocks and roots... getting there...

[bluedragoon85]

[url]slowly digging the hole through the nasty rocks and roots... getting there...[/url]

Nice Keep us updated, and post some pics if you can ^^ I myself finally got the pond leveled and in place. All I need now is to work on the aesthetics.