DIY Backyard Garden Pond (step-by-step)

Today I'm going to build a new DIY

pond

or my goldfish, everything from the

pond

itself, DIY filtration, insulation, lining and planting all in this video, but first the pond it will be replacing needs to come out, now that it has been established this link. for almost three years and it has been a good pond. I've learned a lot from it, but now it's time to update it, so the fish have been netted and moved to my above ground mini pond, which will be their temporary home for the duration of this build. I also saved as many plants as they occurred so you can reuse as many as possible in the new setup.

Thanks, now that the oil pump is gone we are ready to start construction. and this is what I will use for the main pond: a 1000 liter or 265 gallon Laguna tub that almost doubles the volume of my previous pond and, unlike the old pond that sat on top of the deck, the new pond will sink. on the platform, so we will be partly above the ground and partly below the ground. What I'm doing here is simply measuring and determining where I'm going to need to cut the deck so that once that's figured out I can move the tub back.

I moved out of the way and started putting the platform away now. I made a small mistake doing this and ended up having to change where I had initially planned to cut due to where the frame was located under the deck, which meant I was left with a small gap that I would later have to fix, so once the platform was ready and I fixed my little mistake, I hope I can cover it up or at least disguise it a little. Later in the build I pulled up the old weed barrier, gave the ground underneath a good rake whilst trying to level it as much as possible and once that was done I was left with a nice clean canvas ready for construction and first thing.

What I'm going to do is lay down some building sand now, this will provide a good base to place the pond on and will also allow me to level things out and at the same time provide a bit of external insulation, so once that's done This, I moved the pond into position and spent a little time leveling it as much as possible. Next I want to add a layer of bricks around the base of the pond to place my insulation on, so I hit Wix to get the bricks. all loaded up and while I was there I also picked up the insulation which was too big to fit in the car so I put it in the parking lot and left once I got back home and started adding the bricks around the base. of the pond trying to keep them as level as possible, I added a little sand around the edges just to solidify them in place, so with the bricks now in their secure position, I grabbed my tape measure and started measuring the insulation that I would surround. the pond, then I cut the insulation to the required size and added it to the outside of the pond.

Now these little bits here at the top took a while, but I really want this one to be as insulated as possible, so I made sure I had it all done, so next it was time to clap the outside of the pond, which with luck should make it look a little better and for that I'm using decking boards so after another quick strip of Wick I was back. Home again and I'm starting by cutting the boards to a length that allows me to create a frame that once glued should slide over the top of the pond.

Then I just need to make three more to slide them all into position and The pond now has a practically checkered design on top, as you can see here. I added three notches that are cut with a jigsaw and these will allow any Pond posing Airlines or things like that to be carried into the pond later, so once. Once this was done, I used some spacers to get to the exact height I needed. I then screwed on some vertical deck pieces to hold everything in position and once that was done I was able to remove all the spacers and then again use some more deck to add some trim around the top just to finish it all off and at the same time Time to make sure everything is nice and level and then screw it down securely so now that the actual pond is in we can move on to the filtration.

Now I'm going to have two. The filters in this pond, one that will focus primarily on mechanical filtration, which is the physical removal of waste and debris from the water, and another that will focus on the biological side of things, which is the breakdown of ammonia nitride and , hopefully nitrate as well, starting with the filter which will take care of the mechanical side of things. I'm going to make this filter with this 240 liter wheelie bin or if you're in a 63 US gallon trash can, this filter will work next to water. pumped to the bottom where it will then rise through our chosen medium and overflow back into the pond, but I am starting to build this filter with the inlet, for which I will use a one inch tank connector. to take in through the top of the filter and I'm going in through the top instead of the bottom because first of all it's a flatter surface so I think that means a better connection and less chance of a leak and secondly, because the filter will be half buried next to the pond, if in the future I ever need to get to this entrance, it will be much easier to reach if it is on top, so now that the entrance is inside, we need to create a way for the water to go to the bottom of the filter and to do that I'm going to use a piece of pond hose cut at the height of the filter and now I'm going to add an elbow to one end and to the other and now what It's all sorted, I'm going to connect the end of the elbow to the tank connector on the inside of the filter and now, when the water enters the filter, it will go straight to the bottom and disperse through the So, with the inlet sorted, we can now move on to the outlet and for that I'm going to use a three inch tank connector, okay, so the outlet is done, now we have a way for the water to come out of the filter after it has risen. the filter gauge we will be adding shortly first, although we need to create some empty space at the bottom of the filter and we will do this by using a plastic filter grid cut to size and lifting it off the bottom.

I'm going to use four drain pipe holders and I'm using them only because they are about the right height I needed and they tie easily to the filter grate, so once that was done I cut some Noggin. the filter grate that only allows the hose that goes down to the bottom of the filter to pass through, so now the water enters through the bottom of the filter into the small empty space, this allows the water to disperse more evenly before come up through our media which because the filter will be focused on mechanical filtration will be primarily sponge and I have several sponge processes that I will use including coarse and fine medium, once they are the right size I can add them to the initial filter. with the layer on the bottom and work them until they are thin on the top.

Now if I find these sponges clog up too quickly I can always change the medium and find sponges with a little thicker or maybe some type of Metallo mat that I have won. It doesn't clog as quickly, but as with any DIY project, sometimes you need to tweak a few things once it's been up and running for a while, obviously the rate at which these sponges will clog and need to be cleaned will depend entirely on That said, now that all the sponges are in, I'm going to cover them with another plastic grid and a good sized bag of alpha drug biomedia which should keep everything nice and in place while also adding a little extra biological filtration. in the mix, so that is the first filter that will take care of the almost finished mechanical filtration;

However, I need to add a couple more things to the hose or connect the pump to the inlet, firstly, a non-return valve that will prevent water from leaving the filter and returning to the pond if there was a power outage and a flow control that will allow me to control the flow now that our filter will take care of the mechanical side Everything is complete, it's time to prepare the area where it will be located next to the pond and due to the height I want the filter outlet to be outside. I actually have to dig a little lower than the base of the pond.

So once I reached the required depth, I leveled the area as best I could, added some building sand and finally some slabs to finish off, so that our base is ready before we can move the filter into position. , although I want to add some reinforcing wood around the filter. In itself this will stop any possible bowing and I think it will really ensure that the filter lasts for many years, so once the reinforcing wood was added I was able to go ahead and move the filter into position and then fill it with water because a Once full it can move down slightly and I wanted to make sure it was in its final location before continuing with construction, so once full it was time to add the insulation and I basically went ahead and stuck it in wherever it was.

In my opinion you can't possibly have too much insulation and I'm pretty sure the fish will appreciate it when the winter months come, so with the insulation it's time to add a layer of bricks around the base of the filter similar to how you do it. we did with the pond and this will be for our liner to settle. I also added gravel around the bricks to really lock everything into position once it was all done, it definitely wasn't going anywhere, it doesn't look very good though, so we do it. I need to line it and I will do it similar to how I did the pond using a pad.

However, it was a little more complicated with a couple more

step

s, including adding gravel in and around the bottom layer to bring everything up to ground height, cutting several notches for the pipes, and adding a hole for the filter. The external outlet started to look pretty good, so now that we're sorted on the mechanical filtration front we can move on to the biological side of things and for that I'm going to build a swamp filter, so instead of using a sponge as a filter medium , I am going to use various sizes of rock and gravel that, in addition to providing a surface for beneficial bacteria, will also be the growing medium for various plants and I will do it with this 330 liter or 90 gallon plastic tub and in the same way For the first filter, I will use a one inch tank connection as the inlet that will go in through the top of the filter and then using a couple of pond hoses, a couple of elbows and an outside tee, the water will be directed to the bottom, where it will disperse evenly and be ready to travel up through the filter and back. into the pond, so now that the inlet is sorted, I'm going to move on to the outlet, which again, like the first photo we built, I'm going to use a three inch tank connector, so now that the three inch tank connector has installed, I'm going to add a three inch PVC pipe, so this is where things start to differ from the previous filter construction and I'm going to cut this three inch pipe to the width of the log filter. to put a cap on a weird end and now I'm just going to drill a bunch of holes that stick mainly to one side.

I just need these holes to be big enough to allow good water flow, but not as big as gravel. could get into the holes and block it and adding this to the outlet will not only allow us to slightly adjust the water level inside the filter with a simple twist of the pipe but will also prevent any grip from entering the outlet and being washed in the pond, so that done, we can move on to creating the empty space at the bottom of the filter and for that I will use a couple of filter grates cut to size and zip tied to fit the base.

From the filter I am now also going to add a small hole in the grate and the reason for this will be explained shortly but below instead of using drain pipe supports like I did on the first filter to create the actual space. Under the grill I'm going to use some of these vent terminals that I found at Wicks plumbing. They are much stronger than the drain pipe supports and should hopefully be able to support the weight of all the rock and gravel. So now we can go back to explaining why I added the hole in the plastic grate and the reason is so I can add a vertical piece of PVC pipe that I cut to the height of the filter and We also just cut a couple of notches and this just It will be placed over the hole we cut previously.

Now these notches just provide a way to temporarily keep it in place while we wait to add The Rock in gravel because once that is what will hold it in position and prevent it from moving anywhere, butWhat is the purpose of this piece of PVC pipe? Well, its purpose is to provide a way to reach the waist that will sit at the bottom. of the filter, basically, every now and then I use my pond, I put it in the PVC pipe and suck the waist, thus providing an easy way to maintain and clean this swamp filter, so now that everything is done, everything I have to do again is add a check valve and the flow control to the quantization that will connect to the inlet and now before we add the rock and gravel we need to get this into position before we can do that although we need to Prepare the area where it will be sitting and I will do this in a very similar way to how I prepared the base for the first filter, although this time instead of digging for this filter I need to lift it up a bit and again this is just because of the height at which it will be sitting.

I want the outlet pipe to be there, what I'm adding here is a type 1 subbase which once packed should create a nice solid base for our building sand. And then to our foreign slabs, I also added a piece of base of foam I found in the garage just as a little insulation once it was done, although I was ready to accept the swamp filter, but before bringing it in the same way. In the same way I did with the first filter, I want to add a reinforcing wooden frame around it to prevent any curvature, so now that that's done, we can move the filter into position and add the insulation.

That's it, it's time to cladding Claddington and we're looking good and Since all the cladding is done, I'm going to stain it all and the stain that I've decided to use is this P2 super steel material and the reason I chose this is because it's not toxic at all to the Point I've heard you can literally put a drop of this in your pond and it won't harm your fish. I mean, I wouldn't recommend pouring it into your pond, but it's good to know if you accidentally get some in there. It won't be a problem that the outside is on and now we are protected from the elements.

I also added a couple extra lengths of deck around the pond and filters just because I thought it would finish things a little better and I also added some River Pebbles around the mechanical filter again just to finish things off and things are looking good, we won't stop here, although next on the agenda is to fill the swamp filter with rock and gravel now, since I'm adding this first. layer of the largest drop, you may have noticed this and thought it wasn't there before and you would be right - it's just a big piece of slate that I just added and it's just to hold the hose down because Before, when I added a little water to do a little test I noticed it floated a little so I did that just to keep it in place, it would probably be fine without it but I thought I'd mention it anyway, let's start with the rest. rock and gravel, thank you, the foreign gravel is in large blobs at the bottom and we work our way up to the smaller 10 millimeter gravel at the top.

I put this slightly larger 20 millimeters around the outlet tube just because I was a little worried. Smaller gravel could get stuck in the holes, so once that's done, the next thing we're going to do is add some PVC pipe to the outlets of both filters just to extend them a little bit because if I don't do that, I don't think they'll the water coming back into the pond and I just glued them together using a bit of solvent cement glue and once that's done I think it's time to finally start on the inside of the pond by adding and connecting the pump. that will feed both the filters and the pump that I am actually using is the oase aquamax Eco classic 5500 and as you can see, I am lifting it off the bottom of the pond and this is just as a safety measure that will prevent the pond from draining complete, was there ever a leak in any of the filters and the little bucket I'm using here to do this was made of PVC pipe, thanks with a small piece of filter grate zip-tied on top and Yes, that it will just keep the pump off the bottom, so with the pump in position and the cable out of the way just before adding the water, I want to add a fish cave that will also develop as a marginal shelf for planting and again.

Using PVC pipe and some three-way elbows, this time I make another bucket a little larger and once I've drilled a few holes in it to make sure it sinks, I'll place it in this front left corner of the pond. and then place this big piece of slate rock on top to create a lovely little fish cave trace marginal planting shelf and now it's finally time to add water while filling the pond. I just want to mention that I have decided not to put any substrate i.e. gravel on the bottom of the pond and this is just for maintenance purposes, actually because not having gravel on the bottom means that from time to time I can put my pond there and do a good clean, but let me know in the comments should I add gravel or some type of substrate to the bottom of the pond or should I leave it there for easy maintenance?

Anyway, now that the pond is full, oh, let's start the pump and voila, the pump will feed both filters. and I would say that the flow rate is practically perfect and without a single leak, which I am not going to lie. I was quite surprised that it was time to plant and I am starting with a selection of plants for marginal planting. shelf and what I have here is marshmallow golden pepper herb parrot feather and a small cutting of watercress and after placing a pot basket full of gravel on the marginal shelf I rinsed all the soil from the roots of the plants and then I planted them in the Gravel By doing this the plants will be forced to draw all their nutrients from the water column which will help keep the water cleaner, healthier and hopefully algae free.

Now that our marginal shelf is finished, I took another plastic pot which again I've filled with gravel and in this one I'm going to add my oxygenating pond herb and I'm going to put this right at the bottom of the pond in this far left corner which should grow well and provide the fish with not only a little cover but also a healthy snack and with the algae inside I have one last plant again inside the pond and that is our water lily, this is the one from the old pond, but what I am What What I'm going to do is transplant it to a larger pot because water lilies are plants that feed a lot on the roots.

I'm going to use aquatic compost for this one and some fertilizer tablets to try to really boost that growth, but as you can see I'm limiting that I removed it with a little bit of fine gravel, then a little bit of gravel to retain the nutrients and once I finally The lily pad was planted on top, I added some 20 millimeter gravel which should hopefully stop the goldfish from digging it up. Now that it's done, let's do it. Okay, so that's the lily pad and it looks good, so next I'm going to add a couple of air stones and the air pump that I'm using to power these air stones is the Bermuda Breeze 10 air pump and it has two Departures.

Hence the reason I'm adding an air stone. I am adding an air stone to the pond itself and another to the wheelie bin trash can filter and placing it under our biological medium, which should help promote some healthy, beneficial bacteria. growth and I think it should also help reoxygenate the water before it goes back into the pond. Yes, the air stones will not only ensure that there is adequate oxygen inside the pond, but also because of where I placed the air stone inside the pond. It should also help push the waste or fish waste into the pump to send it to the filters and with our air stones in we can now move on to planting our swamp filter and I have picked up some new plants and I have also some left over from the old pond and again all the roots of the plants were rinsed to remove any aquatic soil and starting with some Dutch Rush, this is originally from the UK, it is Evergreen and is one of my favorite mist filter plants.

It has always grown well for me within the swamp filter setup without becoming too invasive. Next I have a couple of Thai for plants. Now taifa is excellent for water purification, however it will grow, spread and has a great root structure. It will have to be maintained or it can become a problem, but I think it is worth it because of how well it keeps the water clean. The next plants I have are water iris and water iris is quite similar to thaifa. It is great for keeping the water clean by removing excess nutrients, but it also has the added bonus of having good flour, these are not currently in flour and because we are quite late in the season we probably won't see any of this. year now, but next year we should see some pretty yellow flowers from this plant.

Next year I have some pike. I've never actually kept this plant before, but I'm just going to put it in and hope for the best. However, it does well because it produces a pretty purple flower that is apparently very good for bees, so those are our big plants next. I have a couple varieties of Marsh Marigold and I have the standard yellow version and the white version and the nice thing about Marsh Marigold is that they bloom in early spring so you get a nice pop of color early in the season and eventually , I had some pepper grass left over from the marginal planting husk and I'm just going to put it in the front here, I don't really know how well it will work but it's native so I hope it works well, that's how the bulk filter gasped completely and now everything looks really lovely, so everything.

What we have left to do now is add some lighting, do some landscaping around the pond, add a lightweight and easy to remove hair net, and obviously we need to add the fish that will be in the next video, so Press Subscribe. button and see you then