log home and pond

[laurencen]

Hi all, we re building a log home on 80 acres, I also dug a pond 200 feet by 120 feet in places 20 feet deep, looking for advice, first the home, it is ready to take apart and assemble on our acreage, what is the best stain both color and quality, thinking light redish but does color stand up better in uv outdoors, they say re apply every 5 years, secondly the pond is doing well but lots of mosquito, is there a species of fish that will eat them, if not what is best without killing fish, I put goldfish and trout in 2 years ago and they seem to survive.

Thanks in advance, when I get ready to assemble the home will take a few pictures, the Kioti CK20 has done lots of work and backhoe is busy digging a stream across the front of the yard a bridge driveway and drain into the pond.

Laurence

[patrick_g]

Sounds like a neat arrangement. You might (not a sure thing) run into trouble if too much of your pond is as deep as 20 feet. The consideration is that a small pond (small surface area) that is deep or has considerable deep fraction of the total may have too much water volume for the surface area. The surface area is where the water gets its oxygen. Larger ponds and lakes can be proportionally deeper without problems. You can end up with water that is inadequately oxygenated which is a problem for the fish's respiratory needs.

If you have a way to aerate the pond then extra depth is not a negative but becomes a positive.

Pat

[patrick_g]

Sounds like a neat arrangement. You might (not a sure thing) run into trouble if too much of your pond is as deep as 20 feet. The consideration is that a small pond (small surface area) that is deep or has considerable deep fraction of the total may have too much water volume for the surface area. The surface area is where the water gets its oxygen. Larger ponds and lakes can be deeper without problems. You can end up with water that is inadequately oxygenated which is a problem for the fish's respiratory needs.

If you have a way to aerate the pond then extra depth is not a negative but becomes a positive.

The key is adequate aeration. Adequate surface area to volume ratio will help ensure adequate aeration or you can resort to mechanical systems. If there is a creek constantly flowing into your pond and it constantly overflows then aeration is not much of an issue.

Pat

[laurencen]

hi Pat, the pond is 20 feet deep at the center and slopes to 4 feet on the sides, aeration is not set up other than a wind pump, the plan is the small stream we are adding, it is water pumped from the pond about 400 feet, it will flow to the bond, due to the drop of about 15 feet plan on a series od wiers, this will keep the water level up and have tumbeling effect to aerate, at least this is the plan

[patrick_g]

Sounds like a good plan. Is the air pump one of those medium small windmill things like I have seen at some of the ag supply stores or are you going electric or what. I have been toying with the idea of a Savonius rotor spinning an Archimedes screw. The Savonius rotor is not directional and is always ready to go (vertical axis of rotation.) The Archimedes screw has stood the test of time. Together they should pump water whenever there is enough wind to supply the energy to lift the water. With a slip joint on the bottom of the screw (an update to Archimedes' design) it should pull water off the bottom of the pond and drop it on the surface to stir and aerate it.

I still like the looks of a traditional windmill and may put one of the air pumping kind on the dam in the back yard for decorative purposes as well as aeration.

Pat

[caddelma]

Out of curiosity, did you dig the pond with your CK20? If so how long did it take? I keep thinking it would be "fun" to do it with my Kubota 7510, but that is a lot of dirt to move, especially going down 20 feet!

[charlz]

Muscovy ducks are supposed to be 'mosquito eaters'. Bats eat a lot as well, you could try putting up some bat boxes.

[laurencen]

Hi, I dug out the pond using a john deer 644, took the better part of a week, finished it using the CK20, smmothed the sides and landscaped around it, I found clay at 10 feet which was also used to layer 6 to 8 inches around, over 2 years with all the rain its now full, as for the pumping, I plan on a wind generator to run a pump for the stream system, will also be building a piston pump for aeration, played with a piece of surgical tube some 1 inch diameter, with a triangular shaped rotor managed to pump air by squeezing the tube as it rotated like a tooth paste tube but the volume was not there, I had a semi pervious stone and it would make lots of small bubbles but required 5 to 6 rotors to work efficently.

[3RRL]

When are you planning to assemble the log home? Like to see photos of it and your pond.

[RedRocker]

Pictures!! There's a Man law about posts like this without pix.