How To Install A Pond Kit

All Well-nigh Ponds

There's something almost water in motion that soothes the soul. Watching light play off the ripples or listening to the splash of a fountain—these are universally calming pastimes. It's no surprise, and then, that one of the most popular landscaping projects for This Old House readers is installing a pond.

Happily, you lot don't need deep pockets or lots of land to enjoy your own h2o feature. You tin install a fully equipped, landscaped, fish-filled swimming for around $500, provided that yous exercise your own digging. Creating a lush habitat like the one at correct requires rubbery liners, powerful pumps, effective filters, and, without question, a commitment to intendance for them. Simply when yous're finished, whether information technology's tucked into a corner of the k or next to a deck or patio, your pond will provide an endless source of fascination for family and visitors akin.

Pictured: Built close to the firm, this swimming creates a refreshing, relaxing backdrop just out the back door. The rock waterfall makes a pleasing sound as information technology oxygenates the water. Plants soften the stone edges and provide cover for fish.

Anatomy of a Pond

A clean, healthy swimming requires a few central elements to go on water contained, fresh, and filtered.

Water agitator

Keeps water oxygenated. Fountains, waterfalls, and bubblers are all agitators.

Filter

Cleans the water coming from the pump.

Liner

Prevents water from leaking into the ground.

Underlayment

Protects the liner from punctures and stretching during installation.

Pump

Circulates water through the filter and up to the waterfall or fountain.

Covered GFCI outlet

Feeds ability to the pump. Trips automatically to foreclose lethal shocks.

Vitals

What's information technology cost?

Home-eye kits outset at $70 for a simple ix-square-foot, 84-gallon pond. A more typical 176-foursquare-footer installed by a pro starts at $v,000, while more grandiose versions can hands exceed $50,000.

DIY or hire a pro?

Ponds longer than 6 anxiety on a side and deeper than eighteen inches require so much excavation and other heavy work that they are best left to pros. Smaller ponds are skillful DIY projects, but let pros handle the plumbing and electrical work.

How long exercise they final?

It all depends on the liner. The best ones have a 20-yr warranty and 30- to 40-yr life span.

How much maintenance?

The electricity to run a pump for a typical 176-square-pes swimming costs about $260 a year. Filters need frequent cleaning. A pond-maintenance firm starts at about $one,000 a twelvemonth.

Type: Natural

Meant to blend in like an integral office of the landscape, this kind of swimming has complimentary-grade edges that don't

follow a direct or predictable course, and incorporates stones and plants native to the area.

Blazon: Seminatural

Taking cues from the existing hardscape around a home, this nigh popular pond type has free-class edges set next to a brick, concrete, or stone patio. The plants can exist native or not.

Type: Formal

Divers by geometric shapes, this style of pond is often edged in expensive mortared stone or poured physical. Perfect for a reflecting pool in a formal garden, it also makes a fine showcase for fish. Plantings are sparse or nonexistent.

Where to Put It?

The location of a pond determines its health and your ability to relish it.

How much lord's day?

Ideally, ponds should receive sunlight in the morning and shade in the afternoon. This keeps the water libation, discouraging algae blooms.

What about overhanging trees?

A tree'south afternoon shade is welcome, but a pond directly nether a tree's branches will chop-chop clog with leaves, seeds, or needles unless given constant maintenance. If a nearby tree is immature, cistron in its mature spread before settling on the pond's location.

How far from the business firm?

Ponds that are out of sight tend to go neglected. And if they're farther than 20 feet from your patio, you likely won't hear the gurgling of a waterfall or fountain.

What practice the codes say?

Inquire your local building department nigh how far a pond has to exist set dorsum from holding lines.

Where are the utility lines? Punch 811 to have their location marked. This is a gratuitous service.

Materials: Liner

Use these formulas to summate how much material yous'll need (all dimensions in feet):

Liner length=swimming length+(2 10 depth)+2.

Liner width=swimming width+(2 x depth) +2.

Multiply liner length by liner width to get total square footage.

Synthetic safety

The best choice for nearly ponds, 45-mil-thick EPDM comes in sheets up to 50 past 200 feet. Durable, UV resistant, and flexible to -40 degrees F. Non to exist confused with covering EPDM, which has additives that kill fish.

Almost 67 cents per sq. ft.; GrayStone Creations

Plastic

Liners made of polyethylene (PE) and reinforced polypropylene (RPP) are thinner, lighter, and less expensive than EPDM but stiffer and harder to work with. Sizes up to 40,000 sq. ft. Like EPDM, they carry a 20-year warranty. Avoid PVC liners; they have a short life span when exposed to sunlight.

20-mil PE, nearly 30 cents per sq. ft., and 36-mil RPP, about 45 cents per sq. ft.; Pond Liner

Equipment: Pump

At minimum, the gallons per hour (GPH) rating should friction match the volume of your pond. A pump will need additional GPH to supply a waterfall or fountain, and enough "head" to push button water to the tiptop of that waterfall or fountain. Look for the unit with the lowest wattage; it will price the least to run.

Straight drive

These heavy-duty units, which were the beginning pond pumps, are able to motion lots of h2o. They also use the most ability, and if their seals neglect, they tin spill oil.

GPH: one,500–16,000.

Head: up to 52 anxiety.

Watts: 150–1,500.

Warranty: one to two years.

Cost: $200—$1,400. PondScapeOnline

Magnetic drive

Much cheaper to buy and operate than directly drives simply without about as much oomph.

GPH: 65–3,000.

Head: upwards to 15 feet.

Watts: 25–350.

Warranty: six months to three years.

Cost: $45—$300. Danner Manufacturing, Inc.

Hybrid drive

Combines the ability of a direct drive with the free energy efficiency of a magnetic drive. Won't spill oil.

GPH: 1,200—10,000.

Head: upwards to 25 feet.

Watts: 110—500.

Warranty: 2 years.

Cost: $185—$500. Atlantic Water Gardens

Equipment: Filter

One type keeps water free of debris so that the pump won't clog. The other removes chemicals that harm fish. To sustain fish, yous'll need both types or a production that puts both in one package.

Mechanical

Traps droppings before it reaches the pump. Make clean weekly in spring and autumn, every other calendar week in summer, monthly in wintertime. A filter in a waterfall or a surface skimmer will exist easier to accomplish than one on a pump at the bottom.

$60—$800. PondScapeOnline

Biological

A must for ponds with fish. Bacteria living on a porous medium digest toxic nitrites and ammonia. Look six to eight weeks for them to go established, or buy a starter colony. No cleaning needed.

$140—$500.

Equipment: Water Agitators

A pond will go a brackish, algae-filled eyesore if you lot don't keep its water moving and aerated. Here are 3 means to stir the pot:

Fountain

Water shooting up from the surface of the swimming or flowing from a man-made decoration is visually compelling and nice to listen to. Available in a diverseness of sizes and shapes, each linked to a particular pump capacity.

Waterfall

To create the show you want, measure its width in inches at the point h2o spills out. Multiply by 50 if you desire a trickle of h2o, by 100 for a sheet of water, and by 200 for Niagara Falls. The consequence is how many GPH your pump needs for the falls alone, non counting the pond.

Bubbler

An air pump, a split device from a swimming pump, produces bubbling that subtly ripple the pond'due south surface.

DIY Kits

Most online retailers bundle the swimming essentials. Or yous can buy a prepackaged kit from a habitation heart that includes a rigid plastic tub, flexible tubing, and a properly sized pump. These kits are small and manageable plenty to install in a weekend, merely they don't include the biological filter yous need for fish. Though you lot could add such a filter, they're really intended to exist low-maintenance water features for people who desire the pleasant sound of trickling water near a deck or patio, not a full-fledged ecosystem.

Shown: Beckett 65-Gallon swimming kit, Well-nigh $150; The Home Depot

Prep for Installation Twenty-four hour period

Do you lot desire fish? If and then, build your pond at least 24 inches deep. That depth keeps the pond from freezing in wintertime or overheating in summer. In extreme northern areas, the minimum depth should exist 3 feet.

Volition you need a fence? In some areas, local codes mandate that yards with ponds deeper than 18 inches be surrounded past a argue with a locking gate to go along out unsupervised children.

How will information technology be refilled? Ponds must be topped off periodically to supplant water lost through evaporation or splashing. You lot tin do the job manually with a garden hose or take an machine-fill valve continued to a buried water line. When using city water, protect your fish by adding a dechlorinator straight to the swimming.

What about the leftover clay? Digging fifty-fifty a small pond will create a big pile of soil. A hired installer should become rid of it for yous, only if you dig your ain pigsty, use the soil to enhance the grade effectually the pond or to build a waterfall.

Where'southward the power? A weatherproof GFCI outlet to power the pump should be located at to the lowest degree ten feet from the pond. The electric cable leading to that outlet needs to be buried at to the lowest degree 18 inches deep.

Pro advice

Rather than slope the sides of a pond right down to the lesser, brand a shelf about 18 inches wide and eighteen inches below the h2o'due south surface all effectually the swimming's border. This shelf serves as a platform for plants and a convenient stride for anyone who falls in.

—Demi Fortuna, Baronial Moon Designs, Stony Beck, N.Y.

Swimming Plants: Cattail

(Typha latifolia)

Zones 3—10

Grows along pond edges, in moist soil or shallow water. Hollow stems conduct oxygen to the root zone, and to fish, year-round. Perennial; spear-like foliage grows upward to 10 anxiety alpine.

Pond Plants: Lotus

(Nelumbo sp.)

Zones 4—10

Planted in containers up to 2 feet deep, it blooms on a stalk loftier to a higher place the water's surface. Perennial; leaves up to twenty inches in bore sway on stems that abound up to half dozen feet alpine.

Pond Plants: Iris

(Iris versicolor)

Zones 3—9

Plant in pots in 3 inches of water. Bears 5-inch-wide flowers in shades of blue or imperial on 24-inch stems. Tolerates partial shade. Perennial; arching leaves grow up to 30 inches tall.

Pond Plants: Water Hyacinth

(Eichhornia crassipes)

Zones 9—11

A free-floating plant, it sends a 9-inch spike of lavender flowers up from a rosette of leathery, sleeky green leaves. Perennial in Zones nine–11; often grown in colder climates as an annual.

Pond Fish: Goldfish

(Carassius auratus)

The ultimate in low-maintenance, goldfish tin go past eating the plants, algae, and larvae they find. They'll alive about ten years and often abound upwards to 12 inches long.

Swimming Fish: Koi

(Cyprinus carpio)

Koi oft live for xl years or more and grow up to three feet long, depending on the pond's size. They must be fed regularly; yous can even train them to eat from your mitt. They'll survive winters as far north as Maine.

Solutions to Common Swimming Problems

Algae:

You tin impale this light-green slime with chemicals or UV lights, but information technology volition still come up back. Y'all'll go improve results past adding plants, barley harbinger, or biomat filters, and not overfeeding the fish.

Mosquitoes:

Keep the biters at bay past stocking larvae-eating fish, such as goldfish, mosquito fish, or bitterlings. Tossing in mosquito dunks with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) also kills the larvae without harming plants or animals.

Pests:

Deter raccoons with a straight drib of at to the lowest degree 18 inches from the swimming's border. Nylon netting stretched over

the surface discourages fish-eating birds. Motion-activated sprinklers may scare off other interlopers.

Leaves:

In the summertime, sift out droppings before it reaches the pump with a skimmer (virtually $116; Aquatic Ponds). Come up autumn, scoop out the bigger batches of leaves and needles with a pond net (about $22; Amazon).

Ice:

Identify an air bubbler (about $40; Pond Biz Pond Supplies) or a floating pond heater (about $47; Golden Crest Distributing) into the corner of the pond to proceed a portion water ice-free and maintain a proper balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Source: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/yards/21017991/everything-you-need-to-know-to-build-the-perfect-backyard-pond

Posted by: larkinnareptund1978.blogspot.com