Cheap pier for my small pond

[midlf]

Eddie - I second, third, whatever, get a GFCI and use it. They make portable units you plug in to the outlet and then plug your cord into the portable GFCI. ****** DO IT! Steph does not need to be a widow. This technology is too cheap and too reliable for there to be any excuse for not using it. Ranting lecture mode now off.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you for all your concern about killing myself. Guess I didn't put enough thought into the cord being near the water. OOPS.

The next time I have a project that puts me around water, I'll be sure to get a GFCI and use it.

Again, thanks.

Eddie

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Very nice dock. Appropriate for the pond. The dock makes you want to walk out on it, which is what docks should do.

On rotting posts, just my opinion of course, but I wouldn't paint them except on the exposed end. I'd paint the end facing up with what ever you have in the way of exterior oil base paint, then cover the end with flashing or perhaps roofing tar. Mostly, wood rots from exposed end grain. Water will shen from the sides. If you paint the sides, then it doesn't dry out as easily. Just my view.

Just to show my lack of knowledge about Texas, does the water ever clear up? It seems all the photos on TBN of ponds in Texas have that yellow/orange mud color throughout the water. Is it just the way it photographs or what?

Cliff

 

[schmism]

so does the slit eventually settle out or is your pond always mud brown?

 

[Nat]

Eddie what is the white thing behind you on pic 020? It's on the bank looking up toward the container barn. You havn't started another project have you? Later, Nat

 

[MossRoad]

Thank you for all your concern about killing myself. ....
Eddie

Really, Eddie, it just shows that you are a great guy that most folks here would hate to see anything happen to.

Now if it was me doing something like that, I think the advice might be something like, "Hey, MossRoad, why don't you use a larger drill, bare wires and go naked in the water?"

 

[MossRoad]

Forgot to ask...

Did your pallets stay down when the water came up? Another good fish cover is old christmas trees anchored down.

 

[EddieWalker]

Cliff & schmism,

The brown water is caused by either a positive or negative charge to my water. From what I understand, when the water washes over my soil on it's way to the pond, it picks up this electrical charge. This in turns, suspends clay particles in the water. It will never settle on it's own.

The cure is to nutralize the electrical charge with gypsum. There are other things that will do this too, but gypsum is the cheapest and easiest for me to get. It's also called sheetrock at the store, but the powdered version is more effective.

When the pond was down last year, I threw all my sheetrock scraps from my house into the water. The results were noticable the next day. A few days later, and I had clear water.

Clear water looks nice, but there is a huge problem with alge. I'm undecided which is worse, alge or brown water????

So far, I'm not doing anything else until I finish digging my well and have an ability to keep water in the pond next summer.

Nat,

The white thing behind me in that picture is actually the silver galvalume room of the container barn. I'm sure you remember that thread way back when? hahahaha I sold it and the land at the top of that hill behind me is the property line.

MossRoad,

I had a terrible time gettting the pallets to stay under water. They are four to a stack and each stack took 8 blocks to hold in place. I was kind of comical as Steph and the kids were in the boat with the bocks as I tried to place them and hold the stack down at the same time. Now that they have been in the water about 5 months, they seem to be pretty well anchored.

I was told they would help with the fish spawning. I don't know if I needed them as I couldn't tell one way or another if they helped or not. They were taking up space without any good use, so I figured it couldn't hurt.

Eddie

 

[dooleysm]

Eddie,

I put pallets in my pond as well, on advice from pondboss.com. I put 1000 fathead minnows in this spring and now have what appears to be billions of them. I can easily distinguish 3 and maybe 4 different sizes of minnows, so I think there's been at least that many spawns. I don't know if the pallets helped or not, but they sure didn't hurt.

I've been building a floating dock in our pond, as the water is down about 2 feet (it didn't quite fill all the way over the winter) I've been spending some time in the water positioning barrels, connecting the dock, etc. My little bluegill are MEAN. They bite, and it is very suprising and stings a little. They leave a mark and have drawn blood on my wife. Did you have any problems like that? The bluegill are all under 6". I put them in at 1-3" this past spring.

As for algae versus dirty water, I think (maybe) that I'd rather have dirty water. I've got algae right now and it just piles up in the corners of the pond when the wing blows and generally looks uninviting for swimming.

Nice pier, keep up the good projects!

And congrats on the recent wedding!

 

[Cliff_Johns]

The brown water is caused by either a positive or negative charge to my water. From what I understand, when the water washes over my soil on it's way to the pond, it picks up this electrical charge. This in turns, suspends clay particles in the water. It will never settle on it's own.

Thanks for the explaination, Eddie. I'd never heard of that before.

Cliff