Anyone do aquascapes?

I friggin love moving water.  I always had dreams of living in an old Bass Pro Shops just for the big tank and waterfall.  Bass and Trout optional.

I want to do a much smaller version in my back yard.  I'm thinking a little Koi pond (minus the Koi) and a pump that trickles some water down over some rocks.  I did a quick picture.  I'll be doing a wood deck (just on the ground on some leveled pavers)  That's the yellow.  The blue is the idea for the water feature.  It likely won't be that deep, but I'm lazy and not editing it.  I will probably be limited by existing pond liner shapes.

Then mud some rocks on to the old stucco chimney that conceal a pipe up from a pump to make a little waterfall.

Am I nuts?  I did one for mom years ago, but it was freestanding in her yard.  I just stacked landscape "retaining" wall blocks and set the liner in.  If it leaked or fell over, it was just going to get the yard wet.  Is this do-able?  What do I need to do to the house to prepare for something like this?

I did one for a client about 6 years ago, and it is still going strong.  I must say... do your homework.  For it to be successful it needs to be a total environment that basically cleans itself and produces its own oxygen for the fish.

A waterfall is a big part of the system putting oxygen into the water, but you also need plants that to live off the bad stuff.   Lots of good books out there, and some good youtube stuff.  The pump has to be sized to the volume of water in the system to get enough refreshes.

In our environment we had to make part of the pond 4 feet deep so the fish could scurry out of the reach of raccoons.  Eagles and hawks still get a few.  Our waterfall dropped into a pond at one level that just had plants, then a stream ran down to a lower pond with the fish.  

Go for it.  Be forewarned that there is routine maintenance involved, cleaning filters, skimming out fallen leaves, etc.

I'm actually NOT doing fish for that reason.  I tend to kill things.  I can't keep a goldfish alive in an aquarium.

The one I did for mom kinda populated itself with frogs, toads, and other things that chose to be there on their own.

A question and another picture.

What do I fill these voids with?   Do I use rubber or a coat of tar sealer on the foundation to prevent moisture and then fill the voids with dirt/flowers?  The void under the green (rock waterfall) won't have plants, but needs something to support the rocks and the back of the pond.

For an idea, this drawing is about 12' x 12', so the pond part is only about 5' radius.

Please don't interpret these remarks as negative....

I don't like water next to houses.  If nothing else, it will encourage mold and green stuff to grow on your house because of the high humidity within that microclimate.

Be concerned with making a mosquito breeder.  A good flow rate and keeping the water moving would probably keep this from being a problem, but I don't know for sure. 

For that reason, I wouldn't rule out keeping some particularly hardy fish, as they would work to keep the little ecosystem in balance.

I love the idea of a water garden, and I've long considered putting in a fair-sized little pond with an arched wooden bridge crossing it, and glorious planting all about.  Fortunately, I have retained enough of my mental faculties to know that I totally ain't got time for that E36 M3.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Maybe he does need some fish.... Stock with species that like to eat mosquito larvae

JoeyM said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Maybe he does need some fish.... Stock with species that like to eat mosquito larvae

Ed Zachary.

1988RedT2 said:

Please don't interpret these remarks as negative....

I don't like water next to houses.  If nothing else, it will encourage mold and green stuff to grow on your house because of the high humidity within that microclimate.

Be concerned with making a mosquito breeder.  A good flow rate and keeping the water moving would probably keep this from being a problem, but I don't know for sure. 

For that reason, I wouldn't rule out keeping some particularly hardy fish, as they would work to keep the little ecosystem in balance.

I love the idea of a water garden, and I've long considered putting in a fair-sized little pond with an arched wooden bridge crossing it, and glorious planting all about.  Fortunately, I have retained enough of my mental faculties to know that I totally ain't got time for that E36 M3.

I need truth, positive or negative, so thank you.

I'm a little concerned about water near the house as well, but I don't think it will be a huge deal.  The wall to the left of the chimney in the picture leads to a slab in the mudroom about 2" higher than the patio.  The wall to the right of the chimney is the basement/foundation wall.  The basement isn't finished and it frequently gets wet when we have lots of rain.  It is basically shelf storage for things like paint supplies, camping gear, and a huge dehumidifier.

I'm thinking as far as internal house things I don't anticipate any potential damage if the thing explodes and dumps all of its water.

Here is my thought.  If I line the foundation walls with that black tar foundation sealer stuff and maybe line it some thin Hardi Backer, then I can backfill the voids with dirt and plant some non-terrible-root plants; rosebushes, bulbs, etc.  I would love to have a whole wall of bougainvillea but that is just asking for trouble on a sided house.  Heck, that's asking for trouble on brick.

Regarding mosquitoes... they're easy.  First, they don't bother me.  As someone who has spent nearly 50 years going to Ontario cottage country, they are a non-issue.  I honestly grew up believing that mosquitoes didn't exist in PA.  I remember seeing a mosquito in PA when I was about 12 and thinking "what apocalypse is coming?  A mosquito?  In PA?"

However, they are pretty simple to control.  A teaspoon of Cupric Sulfate not only controls algae growth, it breaks surface tension which drowns mosquito larvae.

I'm not opposed to fish, but I would have to do it right which kind of negates the relaxing part of owning aquascapes.  I do have a minnow seine. I could hit up a stream and get some Dace, stone cats, and Redfins just to have something in there.  Just something fundamentally not cool (to me) about putting sacrificial animals in a pond where they can't really migrate, reproduce, or live normal lives... or worse, become sitting ducks for raccoons or snakes.

Hey, you could make it a little larger and raise some Tilapia.  Then you'd have a ready food source for the post-Coronavirus apocalypse.  I hear they're pretty hard to kill.  Just a thought.

Now I'm hungry for Tilapia.

I think the management you're thinking makes it so fish won't be required, if you do go that route, bluegill/sunfish are the route to go. They're tolerance of warm water is better than most of the stream fish options and the water, even moving water in the shade, will get hot in the summer. Bass consume too much biomass, you'd be purchasing 2-3 dozen goldfish a week in order to keep a pair of bass viable. 

Raccoons are incredibly smart though. They'll realize that there's water and quickly make use of the resource. If there's anything in the water, that'll become a combo meal. 

Is cubric sulfate frog and toad friendly? (Not to mention safe for the birds, mammals and snakes that'll use the water sourr to drink from.) I'm asking out of ignorance as I'm not familiar with it at all. 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

I think the management you're thinking makes it so fish won't be required, if you do go that route, bluegill/sunfish are the route to go. They're tolerance of warm water is better than most of the stream fish options and the water, even moving water in the shade, will get hot in the summer. Bass consume too much biomass, you'd be purchasing 2-3 dozen goldfish a week in order to keep a pair of bass viable. 

Raccoons are incredibly smart though. They'll realize that there's water and quickly make use of the resource. If there's anything in the water, that'll become a combo meal. 

Is cubric sulfate frog and toad friendly? (Not to mention safe for the birds, mammals and snakes that'll use the water sourr to drink from.) I'm asking out of ignorance as I'm not familiar with it at all. 

Copper (cupric) sulfate is pretty much everything friendly... in the right concentration.  There are probably other, more modern, less-chemical-y solutions these days, but that was the old farmer trick of keeping the algae from taking over a pond while not hurting the rest of the biomass.  It was good on algae and mostly ignored animal life.  I never noticed any reduction in grasses, lilies, or weeds, and it was always teeming with bass, sunfish, crappie, tadpoles, frogs, toads, salamanders and newts... that pond was crazy full of critters.

I'm also not sure if it reduces surface tension, or just concentrates near surface tension, but something about it helped with mosquito larvae causing them to drown.

I fondly remember rowing grandpa around his farm pond in a little row boat while he dragged a burlap sack with a few lbs of blue crystals.  I always remember him saying when we went down for Easter every year, "gotta remember to get some copper-2-sulfate."  He was a biology teacher for 34 years.

Any fish I would get would likely need to be minnows.  In that space (about 4' x 6' x 18"H) I can't imagine fitting more than about 50-75 gallons, judging from the selection of preformed ponds and stock tanks I'm seeing.  I don't think anything much more than minnows would be appropriate.

So how do I prep the foundation before I backfill with anything?

You're not using any part of the foundation as an actual containment for the pond, right?  I would think any sort of waterproofer would be fine.  I assume all the pond water will be contained within a pond liner or rolling down some rocks on its way to said liner.

Correct.  The foundation would be retaining dirt, then the dirt would be retaining the pond.

I got ambitious.

3D stuff.

How it is now:

The beginnings of sketching up what I would want.  More to be done, but Sketchup keeps crashing.

I had a little man made pond in my yard in CT but even in a city environment I had way too many racoon, skunk, opossum, cats, stray dogs, rabbit, squirrels, moles, and other animals after a while. They'd eat plants, crap all over the area, burrow for homes, and just became too much of a nuisance. One unexpected meeting with a skunk will put an end to the pond by the back door idea really quick. Test the water so to speak and put a plastic little kids pool out there for a month of so and see what wildlife you attract.

That last picture above represents a 110 gallon livestock tank.  From there I would pump up the side of the chimney and have it trickle down some rocks back into the pond.  That's a whole different learning curve.  I have to figure out how to make some kind of form to hold the rocks, make it waterproof, and have some way of attaching the rocks that it channels all the water back to the pond.

NOT A TA said:

I had a little man made pond in my yard in CT but even in a city environment I had way too many racoon, skunk, opossum, cats, stray dogs, rabbit, squirrels, moles, and other animals after a while. They'd eat plants, crap all over the area, burrow for homes, and just became too much of a nuisance. One unexpected meeting with a skunk will put an end to the pond by the back door idea really quick. Test the water so to speak and put a plastic little kids pool out there for a month of so and see what wildlife you attract.

Not a bad idea.  I do have a family of incredibly friendly skunks.  I was sitting on my patio and last summer one walked right over to me, put his front paw on my foot, and looked up at me.  Neat connection with nature... sorta.  Would have been neater if it were a squirrel or a turtle and not a skunk.

Critters visiting is one of the reasons I WANT a pond.  Critters tearing up my E36 M3... not so much.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

If they're comfortable and friendly with you, skunks are cool, it's just the smell when they're threatened that makes them uncool. 

Racoons though, they're the kings of cool with regards to small woodland creatures. 

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

That last picture above represents a 110 gallon livestock tank.  From there I would pump up the side of the chimney and have it trickle down some rocks back into the pond.  That's a whole different learning curve.  I have to figure out how to make some kind of form to hold the rocks, make it waterproof, and have some way of attaching the rocks that it channels all the water back to the pond.

Do you have a welder?  You could make an armature out of bar stock or rebar.  If you were working with a fairly soft sedimentary rock, you could even drill holes in the rocks and locate them on metal pins.

Just thinking out loud.  It does sound like something of a challenge.

I'm tempted to dump some two-part urethane foam in a trash bag to make a lump that I could carve into a "stream" and then stab some rocks into it, epoxy them on, or do that rebar trick.

I have all kinds of dumb ideas, just wondered if there was a "right" way to do it.

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

If they're comfortable and friendly with you, skunks are cool, it's just the smell when they're threatened that makes them uncool. 

Racoons though, they're the kings of cool with regards to small woodland creatures. 

True story:

I sent an employee out to weed some planter beds in front of a retail store I owned.. About 5 minutes later I look out the window to see him twirling as fast as he can with a raccoon attached to him by biting his pant leg and was swinging out at a right angle. Knowing he's going to get dizzy instantly I grab a big wrench and run out to beat the raccoon off. By the time I got to him he was on the ground and the raccoon was scampering across the parking lot. Then the raccoon ran into a 6' drainage pipe. Employee wasn't injured so called the police who came and tried unsuccessfully to shoot it.(long dark pipe).

Guys who ran the shop next door had a have-a-heart trap and decided they wanted to catch the raccoon. So they set up the trap near the end of the drainage pipe. Next morning they checked the trap..... Skunk!

Employee was a teenager who's mother was a nurse and freaked out.  The doctor (of course I sent him) said skin wasn't broken so no worries of rabies. His mother forced him to go through the series of shots week after week. Raccoons like many animals are best kept at a distance IMO.

I had a huge waterfall with lots of plants and bonsai trees etc. in my apartment when I was like 22, one day I walked in on my trusted roommate pissing in it with a beer in his hand. We were done after that. Chicks dug it though and it was relaxing a/f. 

In reply to NOT A TA :

I think doing that to racoons is illegal in most states.