New Oscar Pond Diary!

Well my Dad and I are finally building a new pond outside our new house in sunny Florida. I will post daily on how far we are getting with it. In this pond I will be putting Oscars, and other South American Cichlids. Yesterday we went and marked out the area of where we are going to start digging as you can see in the pic below.

Oh wow - a cichlid pond! Being from the UK with our less-than-desirable weather I find the concept really cool! *Gets all excited*
I look forward to seeing some more pictures as it progresses...

Certainly a change from koi and goldfish, i too will be watching this with interest.

what kind of oscars are you going to get? I love red tiger oscars. Im not an albino fan

As you can see from the picture, we have dug the pond out now, which took about a day to do. I think it is gonna be about 600-800 gallons total. Tommorow the liner should be in so I will post another picture.

VENOM said:

what kind of oscars are you going to get? I love red tiger oscars. Im not an albino fan

Click to expand...

Well im not to sure what I will put in their oscar wise. I have a 12-15 inch red tiger oscar, and a 10-12 inch albino oscar in my dads friends pond at the moment, but not sure if I will put them in their or start out with smaller everything, and grow them all up.

Just a word of warning with the liner.....Oscars as you probable know it have spikes along there dorsal so if they get into a fight and jab the liner, you may end up with a few less hundred gallons!

Goodluck all the same. What are you planning to filter it with?

Paul_MTS said:

Just a word of warning with the liner.....Oscars as you probable know it have spikes along there dorsal so if they get into a fight and jab the liner, you may end up with a few less hundred gallons!

Goodluck all the same. What are you planning to filter it with?

Click to expand...

The liner is a heavy duty 45mm EPDM fish safe liner. It is extremely flexible which comes in handy when working with irregular twists and turns, and shelfs found in ponds and streams. It is extremely durable and puncture resistant (the oscars dorsal fin spikes, have no chance, particularly as every section of the liner will be covered with rock, and gravel!)

The filtration system is a natural biological system that works through filtration pads (2 in the waterfalls, and one in the skimmer) In addition, 2 net sacks filled with volcanic lava rock which is introduced into the biofalls to harbour the good bacteria. When we commision the pond, we add bacteria to the system, and let it get to work with the aquatic plants, and natural dirt from the rock to stabilize the PH, nitrates, and oxygen which in turn naturally keeps the water crystal clear.

Do you have this system in the United Kingdom, as my dad is a certified pond contractor in the United States, and installs this system exclusively? It woks fantastically well as we are considering moving back to the United Kingdom in 2007. Is there any competition for this type of system?

I'm guessing you meant 4.5mm in which case thats some bloody thick liner, .75mm is considered thick over here which is the Firestone liner, most butlys are .5mm

Sounds like a good system, I'm sure people with large ponds/lakes do DIY filtration with the same kind of idea as your dads, but most people will go out and buy a box filter.

On my recent koi pond I'ved paid out alot for 1 of the best filters you can get your hands on!

Hope you have a nice powerful pump to power it all.

Paul_MTS said:

I'm guessing you meant 4.5mm.

Click to expand...

No i meant 45mm

Your using an almost 2" thick liner......for that size pond it must weigh a ton then. I realllllly do think you mean 4.5mm.

Paul_MTS said:

Your using an almost 2" thick liner......for that size pond it must weigh a ton then. I realllllly do think you mean 4.5mm.

Click to expand...

Sorry bout that, you are right 4.5 mm thick

nice, too bad it aint warm in san francisco, or i would have one. i was thinking the same thing you were paul, i was like, 45 mm? what kind of liner is that thick? not even the liners on trucks are that thick

Well another picture as you can see of the felt underlinement, and the liner in the bottom of the pond.




After about an hour we got to this stage. It doesnt seem like much but those rocks are heavy, as hell, and they need to be the right shape, and size to be placed in.

We have a barrel pond in my garden which we dug a hole and placed it in and it gets really warm in the summer. I feel bad for the comets in there but they seem fine they act normal. There in a tank now that its winter and its snowing out here in jersey.

looking good, i would advise to remove the rocks, fill the pond let it settle for a few days allowing the liner to shift around then put the rocks in.