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Any one ever build a pond. I think I’m going to try.


NoBodyImportant
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Bought a Mini backhoe today and really don’t have a real use for it.  So I’m thinking of digging a pond to attract wild life.  Anyone ever play with mini backhoes.  The bucket is only 12in so it’s not going to be a fast process.  But I have always liked digging equipment since I was a kid.  

6B40734A-3156-4E56-8800-E14A517C5887.jpeg

Edited by NoBodyImportant
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Kubota kit is excellent stuff. I had one of their tractors and it was faultless.

I am planning a pond here. We have a clay soil sub base and I was hoping to use the clay as a water barrier but on the trial pits that I dug, it would not hold water. My ground level is about 1m above the water level in our front ditch so I would need to dig two meters to have a 1m deep pond. That's too deep when I bring sheep in. I want to try puddling the clay next and see if that will hold or failing that a liner but it's not so natural and limits the area to about 100m2 unless I get one fabricated.

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37 minutes ago, oowee said:

Kubota kit is excellent stuff. I had one of their tractors and it was faultless.

I am planning a pond here. We have a clay soil sub base and I was hoping to use the clay as a water barrier but on the trial pits that I dug, it would not hold water. My ground level is about 1m above the water level in our front ditch so I would need to dig two meters to have a 1m deep pond. That's too deep when I bring sheep in. I want to try puddling the clay next and see if that will hold or failing that a liner but it's not so natural and limits the area to about 100m2 unless I get one fabricated.

Could you not slope the sides down?  

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I have only ever built one, for koi, 10 cubic metres approx with a 2 ft shallow half which shelved down to a 7ft deep end. I lined it with sand and then old carpet to protect the liner (flints in the soil) and surrounded with paving slabs and floating anti heron grids, these need regular cleaning to keep them floating. In the bottom of the deep end I put in a 4 inch drain as a u tube which terminated in a decent valve a foot below the normal water level to the side of the pond. I used paving slabs as the walls of the chamber for the valve and a standard manhole cover . Underneath the valve was a gravel filled soakaway. Once a month in the summer when the fish were feeding well the valve was opened and the water allowed to run to clear, this pulled all the fish waste out of the bottom of the pond and prevented silt and leaf build up. We were able to get a waste water rebate from our local water supplier in compensation for the water we used for the pond that they did not have to process. The koi would disappear down to the 6 foot depth for most of the winter. The shallow end had about 6 inches of pea shingle with a double brick high 'wall' to stop it mostly falling down the slope. Beware of plants like iris which grow roots very quickly, just lift them once a month or your gravel filter will soon be clogged. The main pump from the pond provided a spray to aerate the water and also lifted the water to a header pond at the top of a 2 foot high mound through an ultraviolet filter which then returned to the pond down the short 'brook'.

Life would have been a lot simpler if the pond had not been for koi.

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6 hours ago, NoBodyImportant said:

Bought a Mini backhoe today and really don’t have a real use for it.  So I’m thinking of digging a pond to attract wild life.  Anyone ever play with mini backhoes.  The bucket is only 12in so it’s not going to be a fast process.  But I have always liked digging equipment since I was a kid.  

6B40734A-3156-4E56-8800-E14A517C5887.jpeg

My wife’s uncle has a pet JCB (full sized). He is in his 90s and loves pootling about in it, like a bionic body. He can barely walk but any task that requires/excuses heavy plant he’s on it. 

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Nice bit of kit. I have a Kubota 7001 (circa 1977) with front end bucket and fork and it runs like a Swiss watch and saves me a lot of humping and hauling manually

Only bit of advice is that if you construct the pond and the water is fed from a ditch or small steam then have the inlet at the down stream end. If you let the water in at the top of the pond it will quickly fill with silt.

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8 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

 

Only bit of advice is that if you construct the pond and the water is fed from a ditch or small steam then have the inlet at the down stream end. If you let the water in at the top of the pond it will quickly fill with silt.

We did this on the estate up in Scotland and created a lovely wildlife pond. Two years later someone complained to the Environment Agency about diverting the water and we had to dam up the inlet. 

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if you havnt a clay soil ..........when you dig your pond.dig it as large as you can.....(..they are like sheds...you always wish you could have built it a bit bigger)

research Bentonite Mat...........it is a natural non permeble barrier..its like a thin carpet when dry and can be easily cut and laid to the rough contours of the hole.....have the edges of the pond shallow to allow waterside plants to grow and waterfowl to dabble......

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Yes my Great Uncle (through some sort of family connection) did. For coarse fishing in the 1950s. By hand. Dug out with spades. Size was maybe 80 yards x 40 yards with an island left in the middle and two feeder or "stock" ponds immediately before it. Depth about eight feet. Here's a satellite image of the thing and the house he built from Google.

The mistake was that the sides of the island didn't have a gentle slope so that waterfowl other than Canada geese could get up on to the island to nest. And that meant that although it did get an evening flight of duck none actually took up residence. 

If constructing a pond for flighting some say that making the island in an X shape means that one bay will always be to leeward so that duck can land always regardless of wind direction have shelter from the wind.

 

PT.jpg

Edited by enfieldspares
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4 hours ago, WalkedUp said:

We did this on the estate up in Scotland and created a lovely wildlife pond. Two years later someone complained to the Environment Agency about diverting the water and we had to dam up the inlet. 

Put in prperly then no diversion takes place. The downstream end of the pond is dug so that the level full will be the same height as the stream/ditch and the narrow channel/even piped is put facing back up stream so no actual flow occurs but the water from the stream/ditch just naturally levels itself with the pond.

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I have two ponds my father put in - and it was wet and difficult digging - so he got a sort of 'Blaster Bates' chap from the quarry to 'blow' the holes out.  Moderately successful (and far cheaper than a drag line), but he had to pay compensation to a local chicken keeper to make up for his chickens stopping laying from fright!

On a serious note, two issues;

  1. Can the ground be made watertight and how?  Natural clay, added clay, liner, other.
  2. Is there adequate water supply to stop it drying out in summer?
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17 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

I have two ponds my father put in - and it was wet and difficult digging - so he got a sort of 'Blaster Bates' chap from the quarry to 'blow' the holes out.  Moderately successful (and far cheaper than a drag line), but he had to pay compensation to a local chicken keeper to make up for his chickens stopping laying from fright!

On a serious note, two issues;

  1. Can the ground be made watertight and how?  Natural clay, added clay, liner, other.
  2. Is there adequate water supply to stop it drying out in summer?

My plan is 1. Divert the creek so the ground will dry.  2. Clear brush and start digging a hole.  3.divert spring back to hole.  4. Add fish.  The spring is 365day spring with at least 1-2gpm even in severe drought.  About what your kitchen faucet runs on high.  But that’s 24hours a day, 365 days a year. The creek will be damned and a 3in pipe will carry the water past the construction sight leaving me a dry steam bed to dig in.  

ssMWVMs.jpg

Only  2000gals a day but it straight out of rock face a crystal clear.  But there is lots a run off so I sought the pond will still clear. 

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9 hours ago, Walker570 said:

 

Only bit of advice is that if you construct the pond and the water is fed from a ditch or small steam then have the inlet at the down stream end. If you let the water in at the top of the pond it will quickly fill with silt.

I never thought of that when I dug my flight pond 20 years ago. It drew loads of duck, 60/70 a night, but it silted up in ten years.

Edited by London Best
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I dug a pond partly for duck flighting and partly because I had a weekend spare and was bored! It fills up with rain water and when the ground water comes up. Built on heavy clay and made sure we grubbed the land drains out. It attracted ducks from the first winter it was dug and after a year was full of plant and animal life, amazing how they find it.

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On 21/10/2020 at 17:12, London Best said:

I never thought of that when I dug my flight pond 20 years ago. It drew loads of duck, 60/70 a night, but it silted up in ten years.

Yes. That's what the two "stock" ponds were on my great uncle's pond. For allowing the silt to settle. The stream went into the first then overflowed a narrow sluice into the second stock pond that itself in turn overflowed three sluices into the main pond. Nevertheless the main pond did still require weedcutting but it was the first of the two "stock" ponds that caught most of the silt. The sluices were simply slightly lower sections left clear in the tops of the cast concrete dams 

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