Hey Greg!

[Busy B]

You should post some pics of your pond...They are sooooo cool!!wow!

[Merlin]

You should post some pics of your pond...They are sooooo cool!!wow!

NO DON'T :mad: !! you will only make me mad with envy again .:-)

[Jackie Ramo]

But Merlin, you are so cute when you're mad :smile:

[Merlin]

Now dont you go bringing up THAT photo again :lol:

[GregBickal]

Pond ? What pond ? I dont have a pond !dude Ok, ok, I confess, I might have a little pond around here somewhere %(

[Busy B]

Your look is kinda like my dream pond...thanks for the inspiration! Love the paths, plants, streams...the whole works!

[GregBickal]

Im glad you like it. I'll be tearing it out and remodeling it soon :-? Bigger and better :roll:

[Terri]

Isn't that always the way, get to a certain point and then Wham, let's do it over and make it bigger! :lol:

[Nancy N]

Hey Greg! I dont think I've seen those pics and they are really cool.. !dude
Nice to see you, been a while, hope all is good with you and yours. :-)

Nancy

[Jackie Ramo]

Greg, when you tear it down, just ship it up to me, better yet, come and put it back together again :wave:

[GregBickal]

I'll be turning the old liner (30'x50') into a shallow fry pool. The new liner is gonna be 50x70. Pond is going to be 10' wider and very deep. Bridge will be kaput (its old and rickity anyway). Here's the plans

[Ron C]

Greg,
you say that it is going to be six foot deep. Are you going to use concrete blocks or anything like that, or are you going to put the liner on dirt?

[Busy B]

To have your energy and your back!:wink: The new design looks great. How many extra gallons are you going to have with the redo?

[GregBickal]

Pond is already 6' deep, however its only 6' deep in the very middle. See construction photo and drawing. My yard is like sugar sand, so I sloped the sides at a very shallow angle so as not to have any ground collapse. The shape of my pond has a high surface area to volume, which really looses alot of heat in the winter, and cool in the summer. Also the shallow sides really allow gunk to settle without making it to the bottom. I also did not know about bottom drains when I build my pond, so I have suffered with retro-fit ones for 6 years. Also, my lily shelves were too deep, so I could never use them. I had to hang the lily pots from ropes anchored to the sides.

The current pond liner was 30x50, so obviously you cant make a bigger hole without using a bigger liner (go big or go home is my motto). As you can see from the drawing, the new pond will be much larger and deeper and wider. I'll be digging this baby with a machine.

Volume will probably double. Currently this pool is 15,000 gallons, and im sure I will have over 30,000 after i'm all said and done. Not going with the peanut shape anymore either. That really wasted volume. I'll have three 4" bottom drains for this new pool, connected to my new filter which I constructed in 2004.

[Busy B]

!wow! That is going to be sooooo cool! That's a huge difference! Yes your going to need heavy equipment for that!

We have the same sand...does make it hard to hold any kind of shape..we mixed in some clay to try and firm things up..What are you going to do?

[GregBickal]

Im going to sprinkle portland cement into the sand. I did this on my lower pond and it worked great to stabilize. Also, since I have a lily shelf, that will help step down the inward ground forces. The only foot traffic will be going up to the gazebo or the deck over the filter, so that should help eliminate shifting from constant walking around the pond.

People use to walk up on the bridge first thing when they got to my pond, which made the koi run and hide. Removing the bridge will make the pond appear larger (not cut in half), and force people to view the koi from a little dock off the gazebo.

[Busy B]

Do you wet the cement? I've never worked with it..

That's a good idea...I want to add on to mine but with the sand don't know how to get it to hold it's shape...

[GregBickal]

You dont wet the cement. It will draw moisture from the sand overnight. Im sure you could spray it lightly with a hose if you wanted. I raked it in a little also. The result was a 2" think cement like backing.

[Busy B]

Will it hold up to earthquakes :lol:

[GregBickal]

It will hold up to an Iowa Earthquake ;)

[Busy B]

There's this really big chute type thing that came out of an old fish processing plant. Think it's about 15 by 15, tapers down to at least 6 feet deep. It's for sale and I thought of buying it and burying it in the ground and then I wouldn't have to worry about walls collapsing..It's either made of steel or aluminum..I have a huge chunk of herculite that I could use for a liner..Just would have to cut off the top of it..

[GregBickal]

Hog feeding bins would make awsome settling chambers. They are about 5' diameter, nice vortex cone bottom. Mabye if you gator guard the inside of them... !wow!
http://www.siouxsteel.com/Images/LvstkHogFdr.jpg

[Busy B]

Can't say I've seen one of those here, but that doesn't mean they aren't..

The piece I was talking about would be the addition to my pond...15 by 15 wouldn't be that big but...