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Larry_Van_Horn
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Photo Diary of 1/2 acre pond construction
- Thread starter Larry_Van_Horn
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jinman
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Re: Pond picture update
Larry, the pond looks really nice. I'm amazed a how much water it already has in it. How many inches of rain have you had since the pond was finished? If it were here in Texas, I'd suggest sowing winter rye grass on the bank, but there you are probably going to have a solid cover of snow soon.
Larry, the pond looks really nice. I'm amazed a how much water it already has in it. How many inches of rain have you had since the pond was finished? If it were here in Texas, I'd suggest sowing winter rye grass on the bank, but there you are probably going to have a solid cover of snow soon.
Re: Pond picture update
Larry,
I will be building a 1.5 acre pond soon. What is the purpose for the rocks. I know you said you were going to have a waterfall. How will you operate that? How high above water will the rocks be?
Thanks
Mike
Larry,
I will be building a 1.5 acre pond soon. What is the purpose for the rocks. I know you said you were going to have a waterfall. How will you operate that? How high above water will the rocks be?
Thanks
Mike
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Larry_Van_Horn
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Re: Pond picture update
Mike,
The rock wall you see in the picture is about 12' high (62 tons of stone). The water level will be about 5' up the wall. I purchased an 11,000 GPH pump which will draw water from the bottom of the pond up over the wall and make a waterfall. I will also have lights installed in the wall to illuminate at night. The wall is stepped so that you can use it as a means to enter the water and swim under the falls. To the right in the picture you can see a finger of the pond that extends out. This will be the beach area with a very shallow grade for all my little ones to swim in. Between the rock wall and the beach I will cantalever a deck out over the water as well.
Good luck with you project.
Larry
Mike,
The rock wall you see in the picture is about 12' high (62 tons of stone). The water level will be about 5' up the wall. I purchased an 11,000 GPH pump which will draw water from the bottom of the pond up over the wall and make a waterfall. I will also have lights installed in the wall to illuminate at night. The wall is stepped so that you can use it as a means to enter the water and swim under the falls. To the right in the picture you can see a finger of the pond that extends out. This will be the beach area with a very shallow grade for all my little ones to swim in. Between the rock wall and the beach I will cantalever a deck out over the water as well.
Good luck with you project.
Larry
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Larry_Van_Horn
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Larry_Van_Horn
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PineRidge
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Larry that a right nice looking pond that you have there. Any plans for fish? We stocked ours in 1997 and now have 10 pound catfish 2-1/2 pound bass and hand sized bluegill. You would be surprised at how fast they grow.
And the kids, we'll lets just say they love to catch them as well. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
And the kids, we'll lets just say they love to catch them as well. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
jinman
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Larry, your pond filled up really fast. In the time you received 9" of rain, we had only about 1-1/2". That means I've lost as much water out of my ponds as you've gained. In the springtime when the grass turns green, you are gonna have a really pretty spot.
I am curious where your safety overflow is? Is it to the right in your pictures? The reason I ask is it looks like your dam doesn't have much freeboard left, and you sure don't want water overflowing and eroding the dam. I had that problem with one of my ponds when I first bought my property. The dam had a washout the size of a truck in it. I repaired the dam and put a large culvert pipe in for overflow and so far I haven't had another washout. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I am curious where your safety overflow is? Is it to the right in your pictures? The reason I ask is it looks like your dam doesn't have much freeboard left, and you sure don't want water overflowing and eroding the dam. I had that problem with one of my ponds when I first bought my property. The dam had a washout the size of a truck in it. I repaired the dam and put a large culvert pipe in for overflow and so far I haven't had another washout. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
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Larry_Van_Horn
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Jim,
Good eyes. The emergency spillway is over to the right in the picture. What we did when building the pond is to build in an outlet valve from Sched 40 PVC that goes through the core trench and out the back. If you look at the second to last picture you can see the white vertical pipe. In addition we put unscrewable outlet valves every two feet such that if I wanted to take the water level down in 2 feet increments for maintenance I could do so. The benefit of this is it keeps the emergency spillway there for emergencies but it won't be continually wet. I can tell you that there is a good amount of volume running through my PVC pipe outlet from the pond. I wouldn't want it running over the spillway.
Thanks Jim,
Lar
Good eyes. The emergency spillway is over to the right in the picture. What we did when building the pond is to build in an outlet valve from Sched 40 PVC that goes through the core trench and out the back. If you look at the second to last picture you can see the white vertical pipe. In addition we put unscrewable outlet valves every two feet such that if I wanted to take the water level down in 2 feet increments for maintenance I could do so. The benefit of this is it keeps the emergency spillway there for emergencies but it won't be continually wet. I can tell you that there is a good amount of volume running through my PVC pipe outlet from the pond. I wouldn't want it running over the spillway.
Thanks Jim,
Lar
I spotted your PVC overflow pipe right away. I want to do something similar. Our land is totally flat, but there is a highway drainage swale about 40' away that is lower than the pond. I don't have to worry about a spillway (if the pond overflows, it will just flood the land, but if there's that much water, the land will already be flooded /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif).
I plan to keep the pond topped up to a more or less constant level by pumping water from the well, activated by a float switch. I want to put the outlet pipe a couple of inches higher than that level in case we get a gullywasher storm.
What size pipe did you use? Did you screen it in any fashion to keep floating leaves, etc. from clogging it?
I plan to keep the pond topped up to a more or less constant level by pumping water from the well, activated by a float switch. I want to put the outlet pipe a couple of inches higher than that level in case we get a gullywasher storm.
What size pipe did you use? Did you screen it in any fashion to keep floating leaves, etc. from clogging it?
