Outdoor ponds: what methods do you like?

[ange]

Pond season is upond us and I only have little container ponds (planters with no drainage holes) outdoors. At my old place I had one of the huge livestock water troughs and unfortunately it was one of the things that could not come with me on my relocation, so I'm starting from scratch. I'm considering digging my own since I'm a homeowner now but I'm cautious due to how shallow the soil is. For reference, garden beds are only a few feet deep before you hit limestone. I don't want to keep anything huge, I mostly gravitate toward livebearers (what I currently have) and rice fish (what I hope to learn more about this spring and summer).

How do y'all do your ponds? In ground? Container? A mix? I've kept mine pretty basic and this is something that I really want to learn more about. Any reading or listening suggestions (I know that Cory and the gang have spoken on it a great deal and there is a ton of information buried in streams that I've missed out on) are greatly appreciated.

[Scapexghost]

I want to try setting up a small inground pond using a solid plastic pond liner. There about 125 gallons and a $120. Once you get all the other stuff needed itll probably be a $300 project.Its more aesthetically pleasing than above ground totes so it'll be a lot easier to convice a spouse to let you do it and itll potentially increase the value of the home. Plenty big enough for ricefish and livebearer and should be shallow enough for your purposes.

[Odd Duck]

I’ve got a big ceramic bowl with a fountain on the back patio.  I’ve had some sort of pond there for a couple decades, but haven’t had any fish in there, yet, because I thought it would get too hot.  This year, I’ve got some golden white clouds in there.  I’ve had water lilies in there from the beginning and added some frogbit about a week ago.  I’m ordering some Mosaic plant (Ludwigia sedioides) which I think is gorgeous.  If it does well, I might have to try to overwinter some in my angelfish tank (it works since it’s from Brazil) so I won’t have to buy again in spring.

The water is always green this time of year since the algae wakes up before the water lily does.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Odd Duck
Add pics.

[Torrey]

On 4/1/2022 at 9:59 PM, ange said:

Pond season is upond us and I only have little container ponds (planters with no drainage holes) outdoors. At my old place I had one of the huge livestock water troughs and unfortunately it was one of the things that could not come with me on my relocation, so I'm starting from scratch. I'm considering digging my own since I'm a homeowner now but I'm cautious due to how shallow the soil is. For reference, garden beds are only a few feet deep before you hit limestone. I don't want to keep anything huge, I mostly gravitate toward livebearers (what I currently have) and rice fish (what I hope to learn more about this spring and summer).

How do y'all do your ponds? In ground? Container? A mix? I've kept mine pretty basic and this is something that I really want to learn more about. Any reading or listening suggestions (I know that Cory and the gang have spoken on it a great deal and there is a ton of information buried in streams that I've missed out on) are greatly appreciated.

In WA we had above and below ground pools. We were halfway between Bellingham and Mt Baker, on the curve of Silver Lake Rd that abuts against Canada. Since we had a 20 acre free range poultry farm, plus apple orchards, and ducks are smarter than chickens (turkeys and geese are smarter than both), we needed water available year round... despite not having electricity year round 😬

Above ground pond was great for keeping turtle and fish safe from the ducks for the summer, and came inside for the winter. Used stock tanks with a solar powered filter running during the day worked great, and a sunken stock tank generally stayed partially unfrozen through the winter. 

Now, we live in an apartment near the other border, and at a much higher altitude (high desert). I'll be setting up outside "tanks" and posting pictures as soon as my kid can come help me get things level.

Due to only having one outlet, I use a drink dispenser as the upper level, and a 30 gallon planter as the lower level. Only the upper level gets any sunlight, and a $10 pond pump from Harbor Freight pumps water from the planter to the drink dispenser. It sounds way more complicated than it actually is. 

My endlers develop much better colors outside, and now tolerate temps ranging from high 50's to high 80's... as long as they don't swing more than 6° to 8° from the warmest to the coolest section. 

Plus, they love eating the mosquito larvae!

My daughter is 4 hours south, and her "pond" is a giant tarp spread over hay bales. So ~2.5' deep by 8' by almost 8'.

I doubt your homeowner's association would approve, her horses, dogs and my twin grandboos think it's awesome, lol

[ange]

On 4/1/2022 at 11:22 PM, Scapexghost said:

I want to try setting up a small inground pond using a solid plastic pond liner. There about 125 gallons and a $120. Once you get all the other stuff needed itll probably be a $300 project.Its more aesthetically pleasing than above ground totes so it'll be a lot easier to convice a spouse to let you do it and itll potentially increase the value of the home. Plenty big enough for ricefish and livebearer and should be shallow enough for your purposes.

This is pretty close to my old setup, although yours is far prettier than my giant water trough! Did you buy yours at a pond supply store or at a more generalized hardware store? I don't have any spouse to contend with and I'm physically able to so I've considered digging out a shape and using a pond liner, I'm just not sure largely due to the limestone issue that I mentioned previously.

On 4/1/2022 at 11:27 PM, Odd Duck said:

I’ve got a big ceramic bowl with a fountain on the back patio.  I’ve had some sort of pond there for a couple decades, but haven’t had any fish in there, yet, because I thought it would get too hot.  This year, I’ve got some golden white clouds in there.  I’ve had water lilies in there from the beginning and added some frogbit about a week ago.  I’m ordering some Mosaic plant (Ludwigia sedioides) which I think is gorgeous.  If it does well, I might have to try to overwinter some in my angelfish tank (it works since it’s from Brazil) so I won’t have to buy again in spring.

The water is always green this time of year since the algae wakes up before the water lily does.

This is such a pretty setup. Have you considered feeding the green water to any of your animals?

 

On 4/2/2022 at 12:05 AM, Torrey said:

In WA we had above and below ground pools. We were halfway between Bellingham and Mt Baker, on the curve of Silver Lake Rd that abuts against Canada. Since we had a 20 acre free range poultry farm, plus apple orchards, and ducks are smarter than chickens (turkeys and geese are smarter than both), we needed water available year round... despite not having electricity year round 😬

Above ground pond was great for keeping turtle and fish safe from the ducks for the summer, and came inside for the winter. Used stock tanks with a solar powered filter running during the day worked great, and a sunken stock tank generally stayed partially unfrozen through the winter. 

Now, we live in an apartment near the other border, and at a much higher altitude (high desert). I'll be setting up outside "tanks" and posting pictures as soon as my kid can come help me get things level.

Due to only having one outlet, I use a drink dispenser as the upper level, and a 30 gallon planter as the lower level. Only the upper level gets any sunlight, and a $10 pond pump from Harbor Freight pumps water from the planter to the drink dispenser. It sounds way more complicated than it actually is. 

My endlers develop much better colors outside, and now tolerate temps ranging from high 50's to high 80's... as long as they don't swing more than 6° to 8° from the warmest to the coolest section. 

Plus, they love eating the mosquito larvae!

My daughter is 4 hours south, and her "pond" is a giant tarp spread over hay bales. So ~2.5' deep by 8' by almost 8'.

I doubt your homeowner's association would approve, her horses, dogs and my twin grandboos think it's awesome, lol

I live in a neighborhood without an HOA! One of the few benefits of being in Texas, lol. Your daughter's setup sounds awesome. I generally don't lose power for extended periods of time so it's fascinating to me when I get to hear about what people come up with to work around that.

[Odd Duck]

On 4/2/2022 at 12:15 AM, ange said:

This is such a pretty setup. Have you considered feeding the green water to any of your animals?

I did use green water to start Daphnia cultures but I don’t seem to be able to keep them going.  I think I need bigger containers to get more stability.  My best effort at Daphnia was a half filled 10 gallon.  When I split that into 2 half filled 5 gallons, the cultures kept fading away.  I’m probably going to get more (there’s a local guy that has good cultures) and put part in this pond and see what happens.  It may not be self sustaining since I plopped the golden white clouds in there, but it’s worth trying.  I’m afraid they will decimate the Daphnia, but I’ll still try.  If I sell all the golden white clouds, I may just run this as my Daphnia culture.  🤷🏻‍♀️ 

[ange]

On 4/2/2022 at 9:09 AM, Odd Duck said:

I did use green water to start Daphnia cultures but I don’t seem to be able to keep them going.  I think I need bigger containers to get more stability.  My best effort at Daphnia was a half filled 10 gallon.  When I split that into 2 half filled 5 gallons, the cultures kept fading away.  I’m probably going to get more (there’s a local guy that has good cultures) and put part in this pond and see what happens.  It may not be self sustaining since I plopped the golden white clouds in there, but it’s worth trying.  I’m afraid they will decimate the Daphnia, but I’ll still try.  If I sell all the golden white clouds, I may just run this as my Daphnia culture.  🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Good luck man. I've never successfully cultured daphnia and am envious of the people who do! I'll stick to the freeze dried stuff until some wizard gives me the keys to the kingdom.

[PineSong]

This will be my first year with a summer tub pond. I bought a 110g stock tank, but won’t be filling it for a couple of weeks. I have koi swordtails in QT and plan to include a lot of my male guppies as well. I am using info from Ted Coletti’s Tub Pond Handbook for guidance; I heard him on the Aquarist podcast and looked his book up after that.

[Odd Duck]

On 4/2/2022 at 3:59 PM, ange said:

Good luck man. I've never successfully cultured daphnia and am envious of the people who do! I'll stick to the freeze dried stuff until some wizard gives me the keys to the kingdom.

I need a magic Daphnia wand, too, because I can't seem to find the happy place for Daphnia.  I can grow whiteworms, Grindal worms, microworms, and vinegar eels with no problems.  Daphnia do fine for a while, then just disappear.  I can grow scuds in tanks where I don’t really want them, but so far, my purposeful scud culture jars are a bit disappointing.  I think I’m using the wrong leaves.  Once my mulberry tree starts producing leaves again I’ll see if I can’t get them growing better.  Scuds really like mulberry leaves.

[Ken Burke]

I would burry my tub but my dogs would spend most of the day swimming. Or at least swimming when it is least convenient.  

[ange]

On 4/2/2022 at 11:13 PM, Odd Duck said:

I need a magic Daphnia wand, too, because I can't seem to find the happy place for Daphnia.  I can grow whiteworms, Grindal worms, microworms, and vinegar eels with no problems.  Daphnia do fine for a while, then just disappear.  I can grow scuds in tanks where I don’t really want them, but so far, my purposeful scud culture jars are a bit disappointing.  I think I’m using the wrong leaves.  Once my mulberry tree starts producing leaves again I’ll see if I can’t get them growing better.  Scuds really like mulberry leaves.

I don't have mulberry trees but mulberry tea is a possible alternative. I've fed the leaves to my shrimp. It's more expensive compared to what you can get from your garden but maybe worth a try.

[Tanked]

I prefer inground and fishless because I don't need the extra work, and you can't see the fish unless you are standing close to the pond.

If you can't go down, go up.  If you can scavenge or purchase soil and rocks, you can build up.  If you are hitting bedrock, I would call that a gift.  I am using rubber roofing as a liner for my pond, stream, and waterfall.  You can shape it anyway you want, make it any depth you want, and it can be cut and sealed.  The pictures below show my setup after yesterday's accidental grass fire🙄 and last season.  Various types of Sedum are zero maintenance, return every year, and will grow over and around anything. A single solar powered spotlight illuminates the water fall at night. The liner extends just under the red capstones to prevent accidental over flows.   Mine remains fishless because I neglected to make the pond big enough to accommodate fish, filters, and pumps.

 

[Odd Duck]

On 4/3/2022 at 11:51 AM, ange said:

I don't have mulberry trees but mulberry tea is a possible alternative. I've fed the leaves to my shrimp. It's more expensive compared to what you can get from your garden but maybe worth a try.

The scuds will eventually eat anything.  I just think the oak leaves are tougher than they like.  They get a small piece if an algae wafer about once or twice a week, too.  When I have given them mulberry leaves, I’ve seen them swarm it and strip it down to veins within 12 hours in one of my 10 G tanks, not yet in the culture jars since they haven’t been set up that long.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Odd Duck