absolutely beautiful. I'm not gonna lie; I'm a little envious. I want a nice pond like that soo bad. one of these days.....

Chris - not too shabby! I didn't see any liner under there but i didn't look too closely at the pix. Because i have done my pond with stone set in concrete i wanted to see how others used it. I have not gone through a winter yet so i do have some concerns - i probably did not make the concrete thick enough but i do have a liner under mine so i don't really care if it cracks.

Looks like quite the project! Congrats on getting up and running.

Poppa

Today the 500 gallon concrete water storage cistern was set in the hole at the lower side of the yard:

cistern pics

In picture 0755, you can just see the pond off in the background. The cistern will hold rainwater, and will refill the pond and keep it level as evaporation takes its toll. I still have to work out the details on that.

- Chris

Got the tank mostly backfilled and the french drain trenches closed up today!

today's progress

- Chris

Hi all,

Today I ordered a custom low-water pump switch from these kind folks:

STAK Enterprises

They are custom-making me a switch of the opposite polarity as usual. It's a high-low switch where the circuit turns on when the water goes below sensor #1, and turns off when the water goes back above sensor #2. I'll then run this circuit down to the pump in the storage cistern.

They're including a weatherproof receptacle box with the switch electronics inside it. Basically, the box has two sensor leads connected to it, the box plugs into my existing outlet box, and the pump plugs into the new box. It makes for a very clean installation inside the pumphouse.

I'll follow up with pictures when I get it!

- Chris

The control switch arrived in the mail. Here's what it looks like:

low water switch

Normally it comes as a piggyback plug, where you plug the switch into an outlet, and plug the pump into the switch. For an additional charge, they take the guts of the switch and put it in a weather-rated enclosure - including placing the "in-operation" LED on the panel.

So basically, I mount this box on the pumphouse wall, plug it into an always-on outlet, plug the cistern pump line into this outlet, and place the high/low water sensors as needed in the pond. That's it! The pond will then maintain its level - I hope. :) I'm looking to put a pump in the cistern that has a float, so if the cistern runs out, having the line energized will not burn out the pump.

- Chris

Hi all,

Following up on the cistern pictures above, I got the sump pump installed in the cistern and wired up today. I also took this opportunity to drain the pond, clean all the muck out, and hack the 2" PVC off so I could attach the bottom drain strainer. (I didn't want to drain the pond to do this until I had a better way to fill it back up than using a garden hose and abusing my well pump.)

I bought the sump pump at a yard sale for $50. It's rated at a 3A draw. I pulled 12/2 through the 3/4" conduit from the pump house to the cistern, and ended up probably using a good 80' of wire. When energized, the sump pump pumps water back up into the pond through a 1" line run through a 4" ADS pipe. I couldn't find a plastic work box with a rear entry, so I made one by drilling out a box and using 3/4" male and female thread/slip couplers.

The cistern/sump pump has already proven itself a success! We got about an hour of rain this afternoon, and thanks to the collection surface area of the roof and the yard's french drain, this was enough to fill the cistern to overflowing. Based on how much water I pumped from the full cistern into the pond, I'd say that a few hours of rain would be enough to fill the pond.

Please click on the link to see the pictures of the sump pump installation.

- Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: sump pump installation in cistern

WOW!!! I can't even barely comment on how awesome this all is!!! Congrats on getting hitched too by the way! I've looked at ALL the pics and had to mop up the floor so I wouldn't slip in the drool!!!ha! I'm a pond wannabe, and have realized just how much planning, work, and doing it right the first time, is involved with all this. Thank you for sharing everything with us, it sure helps to hear and See all this info!!! Way to Go!!! Jane

Great work and beautiful setting!!! Where are you located in PA? I am about 80 miles south of Scranton, small town called Elysburg. Nice to meet other PA ponders.

RMPOND

Hi RMPOND,

I am in Brodheadsville, zip code 18322. I've seen signs for Elysburg! You are always welcomed to stop by if you'd like to have a look at my setup.

Do you have any pictures of yours? Believe it or not, I am still learning this hobby...

- Chris

Chris.....I will see if I can add a pix...hope it works.

{{gwi:220388}}

That's a great picture! I really like the way the water comes over your falls. I hope I can figure out something as pretty for mine. Thanks for sharing your hard work.

What do you do in the winter?

- Chris

Hi Chris....winter shutdown.....DH drains the filter box and the skippy, all plants are winter hardy. He made a de-icer from a rubbermaid clear storage box, put the swimming noodles around the opening,now it will float, turned it upside down and cut a hole in the bottom, put in a light bulb socket and we burn 40 watt bulbs all winter. Keeps holes in the ice....we have 3 of them.

Also on forming some of the falls and edges of pond we used sand bags under the liner, it saved a lot of digging and has held up well, pond is about 5 years old.
Good luck with yours!

rmpond

Hi all,

I took some more pictures.

I received a set of four Matala pads in different grades. In picture 2234, you can see where I cut them using a cardboard template I made. In picture 2238, you can see the four Matala pads next to the stock green Pondsweep filter pad. Even with Matala half sheets, I have enough to cut a second set of backup filter pads. I might do this since cleaning would just consist of swapping a clean set in and pulling the dirty set out, then cleaning them in my leisure.

I trimmed the pads to an exact fit out by the pond, which you can see in picture 2242. The skimmer box had some mounting ridges and whatnot along the sidewalls for other filter pad configurations, filter brushes, and so on.

I stacked them up in order, coarsest to finest. The stack of filter pads simply takes up the space that would otherwise be used up by the optional filter brushes. Since I am using the external pump configuration and not the submersible pump configuration, the pad stack rests against the back of the skimmer to maximize filter area and leaf collection volume.

Next I drilled two holes through the side of the skimmer box (gulp!!). You can see them in picture 2243. The hole towards the front of the skimmer is where the sump pump will add water to the pond when the water level falls, and it's upstream of the leaf net. (The feed water from the cistern should be clear, but you never know...) The feed hole is up high, because it cannot be under water. If it were under water, it would form a siphon which would allow the water in the pond to drain back down to the storage cistern.

The lower hole behind the leaf mesh is a high water drain. There will be a tube which sticks up from this, and the height of the tube opening will dictate the high water mark. I am using 3/4" PVC threaded conduit fittings to make the bulkhead connections through the skimmer sidewall. I'll follow up with more information about this soon.

The goal of keeping all the feed and drain connections within the skimmer area is to help keep it tolerable to cold weather during winter. The pumphouse will have a deck over it and will eventually have sand filling the entire pumphouse. The reason I chose sand over dirt is that if I ever need to work on the skimmer, I can simply use a shop vacuum to suck out all the sand with a minimum of disturbance to the skimmer plumbing.

- Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: more pond pictures

Hi all,

I got the overflow and the fill hooked up. See the link for pictures. Picture 2244 shows how the 3/4" PVC conduit fittings are used to form the bulkhead connector for the high water drain. Since this fitting will be under water, it needs to be watertight. I put a light coating of black RTV on the outside of the skimmer box opening, and another light coating on the outside mating surface of the fitting (see picture 2245). The male fitting is tightened from the inside, so the RTV-coated parts will not need to rotate against each other; they are simply drawn tightly together. Picture 2246 shows the high water drain tube sticking up; I'll need to trim it to proper length. Once trimmed, it can be rotated to fine tune the exact height.

- Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: pond pictures

Hi everyone,

Well, the cold snap is upon us. The last two nights have hit 0F here in northeast PA. Combined with the frigid temperatures for the last two weeks, my pond's surface is now completely frozen over. The entire water path, from the feedline in the upper pond, down the waterfall, to the lower pond and the skimmer box, is entirely under ice. I don't run any heaters or bubblers in the pond since I don't have fish yet.

I learned a lesson from last year when my pond froze up completely. The water level dropped due to ice buildup, which caused the pump to suck air. Once that happened, the water stopped moving in the 20 foot long 2" flexible PVC tube and the entire pond froze up - skimmer and all. The only place where it didn't freeze was the pond pump, where the impeller was just spinning inside a pocket of stuck water.

This year since I have the water storage cistern with the sump pump, I am able to top off the water level periodically as ice builds up. So far everything is looking good despite the cold temperatures. I see wildlife tracks on the pond's surface, and my two 70lb dogs have apparently taken to exploring the pond. Let's hope they don't find take any unintentional swims...

Here are some pond pictures:

picture from a ways back showing lower pond, upper pond
closer look at lower pond surface
looking down at skimmer entrance
from upper pond looking down

There was an eddy in the upper pond which tried to hold off as long as it could, but it finally skinned over with ice two nights ago.

- Chris