Pond Advice

[balapickerel]

soo, i'm planning on building a pond in my back yard, i live in ontario, canada so it only get to about -20 in the winter, but i will still need to build it deep enough for it not to freeze over, but how big should i make it?, keep in mind i will be doing it by myself with hand tools, so thats very limiting

 

[saph.st24]

hi
i think you would need a minimum 6ft deep to survive those temps brrrrr chilly, you will need surface water movement this makes it harder for ponds to freeze over totally,
you will have to protect your filters and pipes if they freeze they can split, you will have to keep a hole in the ice to vent off gases so you may want to consider a smaller heater to keep the hole open

 

[balapickerel]

oooo, that sound like too much work, i might have to sell my goldfish instead

 

[saph.st24]

oooo, that sound like too much work, i might have to sell my goldfish instead

no it only has to be 6 feet at its deepest part, it can slope or step down to this depth so not that much to dig out compared to 6 foot all round

 

[balapickerel]

no, sadly i can't go any deeper than three feet, the soil turn to clay at that point, and it's too hard to word

 

[flyhawk]

in the winters we keep our waterfall running , cover the waterfall and one part ofthe pond with blankets and we put in a heater to keep it unfrozen.yeah.

 

[3ndl3r]

no, sadly i can't go any deeper than three feet, the soil turn to clay at that point, and it's too hard to word

Clay really isn't that hard to dig through.

o build my pond, i had to dig throught about a foot of clay, then about 2 of solid limestone


It's not that hard.

 

[saph.st24]

when i lifted the patio to build the pond
i dug out 6inches then i hit bricks used for an old patio, then hit clay i dug about 2.5ft out then got soil for the last foot.
yeah its not that hard just use the spade to slice through it from the surface rather then trying to dig down into it
the hard part is stopping your wellies coming off when you try to move lol

 

[balapickerel]

well, you guys were a lot more determined than i am i'll give it a try, but if anything my parents won't be happy about a six foot hole in the ground

 

[saph.st24]

they will be when you get the fish in

 

[flyhawk]

alright lets see if i can get close to you guys
our soil is all clay
when the house was built the stripped off any topsoil
we have a 4 foot section. thats alot of clay.

 

[Sarah5098]

To leave a hole in the pond (instead of a heater) if you put a tennis ball on the water overnight and then just take it out in the morning it leaves a nice hole Its just an idea, im not to sure if there will always need to be a hole or if your ice is too thick, but its what my mum always used to do
Sarah

 

[balapickerel]

thanks guys i'm gonna go ahead with it, but because i will be going away a lot and have a busy schedule this summer i won't be able to put fish in it till next spring, so it'll be a long wait before picture arrive

 

[saph.st24]

pics of the hole will do fine and any progress pics to follow would be great

 

[balapickerel]

will do