Namaste!

After months of research we decided to take some action. Before I give you step by step explanation I would like to mention some useful resources in building a pond that helped us with our endeavor.
1. Pond Building for Hobbyists – Aquascape
2. Creating Japanese Gardens – ORTHO books
3. A Hobbyist guide to Pond Plants – Aquascape
4. How to design and build a water feature – DVD by smartflix.com
5. Pondkoi forum
6. Pond Forum (Graden Web)

First we drew the design of our pond on the ground. With the help of a hose we came up with the design that we liked and then we painted around it.

And we did the same thing for the second and third levels. The first level is about 8″ deep which would be for marginal plants that need 0-8″ of water, like Papyrus, Lizard Tail, …
The second level would be another 8″ deep (total 16″), which would be great for water Lilies.

We left some parts as deep as 30″ for the fish to swim easily and also the depth would protect them from Egrets and Raccoons. If you want to have Koi in your pond you need to have the pond as deep as 3 feet.
The skimmer we used was Savio Skimmerfilter. The skimmer should be placed opposite the waterfall. We first dug a hole for the skimmer. It was very important that the opening of the skimmer be 7″ above the water level in the pond. Usually the water level would be 3″ below the ground level. To find the ground and consequently water level we put some wooden stakes around the pond and marked them with a level.

Now the question is what kind of rock and how much of rock do I need for my pond? We decided to go with Napa, Sonoma and Cold Mountain rocks which are widely used by pond builders in this area. The practical point about Napa rocks is that they have lots of edges and this make them easy to stack. Sonoma is more round which is safer for the liner. Cold Mountain are great for the water fall and around the pond. To calculate the amount (#tons) of rock, we used following formula:

(Volume of first level in ft3): 27 (to convert it to yrd3) x 1.25 (to convert it to Ton)

17x5x8/12 : 27 x 1.25= 2.6 ton
So we ended up with about 4 tons of rock for inside the pond and some hardscaping around it. We bought 2 palettes of Napa rock (one double head and one baby head) and 1 palette of Sonoma rock (double head) and half a ton Cold Mountain rock and about 6 boulders.

There is a big debate whether you should cover the whole liner with small rocks or not. One school of thought believes that by adding river rocks and gravels on the bottom of the pond, you generate some dead pockets and a massive amount of muck will be building up in those pockets. it also becomes more difficult to scoop/vacuum the debris. So we decided to avoid gravel and just cover the liner on the bottom of the pond with Lin Creek Pebbles (3-8 inches). This make it easier to clean the pond and healthier ecosystem.

After digging we covered the base of the pond with some sand.

Then with carpet. We bought our carpet from home depot $0.45/sqft.

After the carpet went the underlayment. You need to make as much padding as you can to avoid any damage to the liner.

And finally the liner. We used 45mill EPDM liner.

Here are some pictures of the pond with rocks in it, and of course the beautiful stone statue we brought from Bali.

Building of the waterfall was not easy.The waterfall filter we bought was Savio Model F100. We built two levels with concrete blocks. Two pieces of Cold Water rocks went on each level to make a 5″ drop for the waterfall. We were very concern about the noise of water because of being too close to the neighbors. But it appeared that the noise level is fine. No complaints yet!

The next step was to power wash the rocks and decide on the place of the plants inside and outside of the pond. For the inside of the pond we decided to plant the plants in fabric pots made of felt. We bought our pots from The Water Garden. Some plant them directly in the pond but we decided to go with the pot since it will be easier to remove the plants from the pond and also would be cleaner for the pond. Here is the list of the plants we used for inside the pond:

1. Hardy Water Lilies: Black Princess (Red), Joey Tomocik (Yellow), Peach, White.
2. Marginals: Papyrus, Horsetail, Lizard tail, Rush, Pennywort, Watercress, Water Mint, Tulbaghia, Iris
3. Floaters: Water Hyacinths, Water Lettuce, Red Stem Parrot Feather
4. Oxygenators: Hornwort, Cabomba, Anacharis, Red Ludwigia, Vallsneria

And here is the result of two months of hard work on weekends and lots of research. It is so rewarding. I can’t say how much we enjoy our pond. When we add the lights I will post some more pictures of the pond at night. Now we need to be patient and let the pond to establish its Nitrogen cycle. We added some beneficial bacteria to help with the cycle. Also, we added some goldfish. They are so cute. We may consider Koi later on!

And here is the moment of Zen!

Within the first week the lily started blooming!