Thank you for your comments and to you Steve for posting these pics for me. The only thing difficult about constructing this
pond was lugging the landscaping blocks as they are quite heavy.
The good news is Lowes delivers and I got everything there when it came the the preformed
pond, the blocks and the flat rocks. I was also able to return the blocks I didn't use too.
Steve posted a preformed
pond site in this forum and if anyone wants to go there and see my
pond in the raw. It is the 145 gal. tahiti / tahoe @
www.maccourt.com. You'll see that the bulk of the
pond can sit above ground with part of it like an upper shelf. Under this shelf area I placed cement blocks to support of the weight of the water when it was filled and it worked.
The landscaping rocks were placed around the
pond kind of in a stairstep fashion to maintain a nice look. Realistically the blocks up against the house
aren't as orderly looking as the ones you see, but then again they are hidden.
There are roughly 90 blocks and maybe 2 or 3 boxes of the flat rocks.
This whole project was about $500 ten years ago and that didn't include the cost of my home made pump and the umbrella palm that was another $50.
As far as escaping goes, that's where the flat rocks come in. I placed them where they hung over the edges of the
pond at least 1 to 2". This also covers gaps where the edge of the
pond and the landscaping blocks meet
to give it a nice look. All the little rocks serve as weights and cover the cracks where the flat rocks meet.
Keeping the water level down is very significant to avoid escape too and at the suggestion of reptilegrrl, drilling some holes in the
pond to maintain a certain level in case of rain is a must. The higher the water level, the easier it is for our little escape artist to get out ... fric