My New Pond!!!! by Shaun Sykes

The pond 'before' but after the lightning strikeLightning!!! That’s why I decided to upgrade my pond. A bad electrical storm killed all my orfe, roach and gudgeon in my pond. Fortunately all the Koi and goldfish survived, though only just as they were gasping for air.
Electrical storms do something to ponds and the oxygen within, so I was informed by my local aquatics centre, proof is I lost 20 fish overnight from what seemed a healthy pond.

That’s when I decided to upgrade my 2 pond and stream system, that was present when I purchased the house.

The top pond and stream were immediately replaced and, and an intermediate pond was also introduced, which I will talk about later. The stream had to be replaced, because when I purchased a more suitable pump, Laguna 11000, the stream flooded out onto the garden as it couldn’t cope with the volume of water.

THE TOP POND

The top pond was pretty straight forward, a simple 2 foot deep kidney bean shaped affair, immediately outside my conservatory. Here I wanted a nice effect of running water, with a splash of colour.

Top pond 'before' the rebuild.On E-bay, a wonderful thing, I managed to pick up a 2 piece concrete waterfall, for a very small amount, and no more than 2 miles fromTop pond after and Norfolk reed pond in the background. my house.

The purpose off this top pond, other than providing a nice habitat for various aquatic plants, was to be my sediment pond, where anything shipped up from the main pond, some 30 yards away, would get deposited in this pond. Occasional scoops with my net, would prevent an excessive build up of sediment, and provide something to give my border plants a nice boost too!!

In this pond I have a small lily, and several type of reed. These almost act as a gate to the stream entrance, hoping to stop some fish droppings and any other rubbish going back down the stream.

This forms the first part of my filtration system.

THE STREAM

The gravelled stream runs some 30 feet in to my next pond. A simple 6 x 3 feet, and foot deep pond. Here I have filled it entirely with Norfolk Reed, the greatest reed of them all for water purification??? Oh, I did slip in a flowering rush too, to give a splash of colour, though in its first year it’s been far outgrown by the Norfolk reeds.

From this pond, I have another 30 foot gravelled run back into my main pond.

THE MAIN POND

Fish storage in a swimming pool in next door's garden.
Now this is where the fun began. I say fun in the loosest sense. Single-handedly, hand digging a 8m x 4m pond with depths to 4 feet wasDatum Pegs, a 'must' in getting a large pond level in a slopey garden!!! anything but fun. To be fair, the original pond was about 18 inches deep, and 6m x 4m, but I did manage to fill 2 x 8 tonne builders skips with my diggings !!!!!

Now the biggest worry I had about digging my new pond, was what would I do with the current inhabitants, a wide selection of Koi, goldfish, and various coarse fish I have acquired? Enter my mates 15 feet paddling/swimming pool. Now when I filled this up on my garden, the slope of the ground caused the pool to list over. Thanks to the Lord for my brilliant neighbours Ann & John, who kindly allowed me to put the pool up on there flat back garden. This was then filled with pond and tap water, and several lilies, and oxygenating plants introduced. I left it for a week to settle down, and then captured a few fish and ‘dropped’ them in. Three days later they were swimming around without a care in the world. I then set about capturing all their friends from the main pond. What a nightmare this was! How so many fish evaded capture till there was nothing but sludge and stones in the pond I have no idea. Anyway all fish safely were transferred into the swimming pool. Having no filter system, I purchased a 4 stone air pump, to help them along.

I was now working against the clock, not wanting the fish to be in the pool any longer than necessary. Removing the old liner, and surrounding rockery stones was theFully carpeted with my niece Danielle checking my work :0) easy part. The several hundred trips up and down the garden with the barrow full of soil and sand was a heart breaker.

To be honest I hadn’t calculated on how deep the main part was going to be. I was just working to an overall design for the bottom and sides of the pond..

What I wanted was at the deepest end, a pothole in the ground giving the fish some deep water winter sanctuary. Around the edge of this hole I wanted a ledge approx 1 feet under the surface to allow reed planting all round the edge of the pond, creating a sort of sheltered bay, albeit in my garden pond. The middle section of the pond is simply a V, coming up out of the deep pothole, with steep sides to the pond allowing anything in the water to slide to the bottom. This is where my pump sits!!!!

Liner in. I'd have been lost without Ann and John, my neighbours.
The top end of the pond is a gravely beach either side of the waterfall where the stream re-enters the pond. I created another deep hole under the point where the water falls into the pond. Being a fisherman, I know how much fish loving messing around in this type of water, and being a good few feet deep, plenty of them can get in there. And now several months on, the Koi in particular are always in there directly under the waterfall. Whether its waiting food to come down thru the waterfall, as that’s where I feed them occasionally, dropping pellets in the stream to create a natural introduction of food, or just messing about in the bubbles, I am not really sure.

Well that was my design, and now I was digging to it. Eventually, after days of digging, I felt I was deep enough, that and I was knackered.

THE LEVELS

Enter the Datum pegs, what a ingenious method of lining up the pond level. The major issue I had here was, my garden is on a slope, so knowing where the water levelFilled up!!! was going to be helped immensely, as I wanted little to none of the pond liner showing once the pond was complete. The water level is at lawn level for the most part. Also down each side of the pond, I was having a ‘V’ trench for marginal planting. So water level was particularly important here, as having the level too deep would grant the Koi free and easy access to my marginals. Although as it turned out, it did not seem to matter, as they just went straight over the crest of this V side on, to get into the trough of the V, seemingly to get at the plants. Filling this trough with gravel soon stopped them doing that tho :o)

Having sorted out all my levels, I then spent almost 2 days sieving the bottom of the pond for stones. Several thousand stones were recovered, and 5 or 6 inches of quality sand remained. These stones would be used later for my beach effect. As for liner, several recently removed deep pile carpets were to be used, I did a double layer all over. Having a mate as carpet fitter certainly helped.

LAYING THE LINER

The bit I then dreaded was upon me, laying the liner. Now let me tell you the bit I had though looking quite small on delivery, weighed the same as a small elephant, and rolling it out in the pond was not the job for one person. Enter my neighbours Ann & John again, Ann being brilliant at gathering up the liner to make nice neat folds. In the end we ended up with just 2 large folds around the end of the pond, and a few smaller ones leading up the pond as it got shallower. I’m not sure If I followed the correct path here, but I started filling the pond up at this point, also placing my 3 large lily baskets in position , as I felt moving these in 3 feet of water would be a lot harder.

WATER QUALITY

Beach created
Well, it filled up a treat. At certain stages made sure the liner remained in place. With the pump dropped in and working, I left the pond with liner pegged out on the lawn, cycling the water round. By now the fish had been in the swimming pool a wee., Although there had been casualties, I was concerned for their well being. After running the pump for 5 days, and introducing about 30 bunches of oxygenating weed, I purchased 10 mini orfe for a £5 note, and in they went. Like a canary down a mine, these would tell me how my pond was doing, being somewhat sensitive (I have read) in regards to water quality and oxygen levels. Well 3 days on, and looking completely lost in my new super sized pond, all 10 were feeding well, and doing fine. So from the paddling pool I captured about 20 goldfish, and a few Koi and in they went, again left for 3 fays, all doing just fine, so in the rest went. Amazingly or not, and 4 months after their introduction, only one casualty from over 90 fish, I class that the major success of this whole project.

Whilst I was waiting to see how the fish were fairing, all the liner was trimmed down, the gravel beach was laid in place at the waterfall end, and both marginal V’s planted up.

KOI AND PLANTS

I was warned, but still I had Koi and plants. I intended my bay to be created using mini bulrushes, iris’s, and flowering rush. Koi love mini bulrushes, because every lastFish in and doing well. Note the clarity of the water. one of them were either dug out of there baskets or eaten. Every day I would see Koi going over the edge of the baskets, some times 2/3rds out of the water to get at them!!!! Well all these rushes are now in my top pond, and I am letting them become established before reintroducing them. The flowering rush, the irises never got touched !!!!!!

That was pretty much how my pond went from start to finish, no major disasters to report, and all went pretty much to plan. I actually did it all in April when the weather topped 30c, and it never rained once during the digging.

POND PROBLEMS?

Seated view from the new decking.
I have had one problem, and that was I was losing water, this was found to be a join from stream to small pond, my join had perished for some reason, and water was backing up, now rectified and levels remain constant.

To this day I have never removed the net over my pond, once having 2 herons on my lawn circling the pond, I have become used to it, and it detracts nothing from the overall view of the pond.

DECKING

Since the completion of the pond , I have now erected a decked area over my stream/waterfall and beach area, giving a raised viewing area.

Brilliant, I have used Millboards replica flooring. I originally wanted to use some reclaimed wood to create an old pier type effect but cost and supply ended that idea.Decking and waterfall When Peter May recommend this stuff, I drove to Coventry to see the stuff in the flesh. Amazing, it really is none slip, and looks and feels amazing, simple to install and almost maintenance free !!!! I cannot recommend this stuff enough.

Well I hope you enjoy looking at my pond before, during and after. In the few months since its completion, I have spent hours just watching the world go by, and stickle backs chasing pond skaters about. Not to mention all my fish, settling into there new supersized, plant filled, well oxygenated and heron free home !!!!!!!!!

Note: In the last week (beginning of October)my pond has gone from a normal green with visibility down to a foot, to absolute gin clear. This is with nothing other than natural filter systems eg gravel. Norfolk reeeds and a sediment pond.

View from the top of the stream.If anyone else would like to share their experiences of creating their own water garden, please feel at liberty to send in your pictures and a bit of a blurb to readersgardens@watergardenermagazine.com . We learn a lot more from other people experiences and how they cope with the problems than we do the sterile step-by-steps of an 'expert' and everybody does it in a slightly different way.A final view of it at the end of the season