Planning On Making A Pond In Front Of My Dorm

[petitelupin]

Alright so I've been placed on my dorm's RCC (Residential college something) and im in charge of beautifying the from of the dorm. I've asked around and everyone seems to want a pond and flowers...
I was thinking of getting maybe a 50 gallon?
anyone know how much something like this would cost? and what kind of pump would need to go in it?
I was just going to stock it with goldfish or koi, but im in murray kentucky so the cold would definatly not be a problem..and they will be rehoused temporarily over summer when its too hot.
anyone who can help me i would greatly appreciate it

 

[rdd1952]

You will get more repsonses on pond costs in the Coldwater section (I'll move the thread there) but I will say that 50 gallon (maybe that was a typo and should have been 500 gallon) won't really be worth the effort. Just a hole of 4' wide but 4' long and 2' deep would be about 240 gallon and even that's small for a pond. You could easily build a 10x10 and have a decent sized one. The two highest tick items in a post are the liner and the pump.

 

[kizno1]

this is what truckasauras123 told me when i asked are the filters expensive to run

find a filter, found out how many watts it consumes.

say it consumes 10 watts it consumes 10 watts an hour after one hundred hours it will have consumed 1000 watts = 1Kw

electricity is charged by Kw an hour

so for every hundred hours running a 10 watt filter would cost approx 14p to run or 0.14p and hour.

but a pond filter will consume more watts so work it out using this method

 

[rdd1952]

I'm sure others that have ponds will repsond but I failed to mention or respond to the issue of the goldfish in the summer. I live in NC where we are normally in the upper 80s to 90s in the summer. In 2007 we had a stretch of 33 days in a row over 90 with 7 of them being over 100. My goldfish and also my dad's had no problems at all. No losses. They are extremely hardy fish. I did do add fresh water on a daily basis which kept the water cooler and added oxygen but nothing else. My dad has had his pond for almost 50 years. Through winter and summer, I can hardly ever remember him losing any fish (I know he has simply to age) other than the the barn owl and blue heron that found our ponds to be nice feeding places but that's a totally different story.

The key in the summer is to make sure there is plenty of aeration to keep the water oxidized. As long as you have a good filter and pump and serface disturbance, you will probably be fine. If you see them at the top gasping for air, that is when you know you have a problem.

 

[chr15_8]

the pond wont be suitable for any koi.

agree with what rdd said.

 

[petitelupin]

well actually i went to lowes yesterday and found a liner suitable for a 7 x 10 foot pond that i figured would be good enough. we dont exactly have a huge budget or anything and the liner was like 40 bucks..i think the pump is around that price too. Dont get me wrong, i would love to have a huge pond..but 7x10 is big enough for the front of the dorm...thats gotta be a couple hundred gallons atleast.

so besides a liner and a pump, what else do i need? does the pond need to be dug a certain way?

 

[chr15_8]

well actually i went to lowes yesterday and found a liner suitable for a 7 x 10 foot pond that i figured would be good enough. we dont exactly have a huge budget or anything and the liner was like 40 bucks..i think the pump is around that price too. Dont get me wrong, i would love to have a huge pond..but 7x10 is big enough for the front of the dorm...thats gotta be a couple hundred gallons atleast.

so besides a liner and a pump, what else do i need? does the pond need to be dug a certain way?

filter and air pump.

how deep is the pond going to be? deeper the better as it will help with the heat. (should stay abit cooler.) also plants would be a good idea for shade/shelter.

 

[petitelupin]

I had planned on making it about 2.5 feet at the deepest since im not totally sure how big im allowed to make it. i kinda wanted it to be tiered though with different levels so that the fish would be visible, but also could hide in the middle since there are alot of stray cats around. i figured if it had a wide enough circumfrence, then the cats couldnt reach them. I was thinking of just getting goldfish though because i wont be able to do anything bigger than a 5X5 probably.

 

[rdd1952]

If you can get a pump for $40, that's extremely cheap. A 7x10x2.5 pond would be about 1300 gallons. I'm not up on the output needed for ponds but would think you would need a pump rated at least 700gph as I think the goal is to turn the water at least once every 2 hours. I think something along those lines would probably run at least $70 to $100 even online and higher in the store.

Your best bet may be to look online for a compete kit that includes the liner, underliner and pump.

 

[petitelupin]

well i mean when i found the 7x10 liner it said it was for a 210 gallon pond..i dunno how deep they were advertising, but it seemed appropriate. it reccomended the 40$ pump that i stated was 40$ also, so im assuming it has enough power turn turn over the water..but ill do some sleuthing online

Im not too concerned with keeping a ton of fish in there, but plants and decorative rocks would be nice. I'll look for a kit thanks!
any other advice is welcome!!

 

[rdd1952]

For 210 gallons, that pump would probably work. I'm not certain about their measurements though. A 7x10 pond 1' deep would be about 525 gallons. Maybe the liner is 7x10 but the pond wouldn't be that large. There's 7.48 gallon to 1 cubic foot so for 210 gallon, that would only be about 28 cubic feet or roughly a 4x7 pond a foot deep.

 

[petitelupin]

I'm not really sure either but reguardless i cant have a huge pond :\ if it were my own house, sure..but my funds are very limited for this project. 210 gallons would be perfect..so i guess im gonna go back and look at that liner. or look online. thank you for your help..any stocking suggestions for my pond if it is 200 gal?

 

[rdd1952]

Another possibility is one of the pre-formed heavy plastic liners. Lowes and Home Depot sell them. Not certain how large they go up but I know they have some that should push 200 gallon. Not certain that they are any easier to install though.

 

[petitelupin]

i saw a few of them..the largest one was a 91 gal and was $75
then there was a 50 gal cyclinder...which was boring and small