DIY concrete and cinder block pond

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Most popular comments
for DIY concrete and cinder block pond

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Tommy Paton - 6 years ago

Great job what did u use to seal it.wud be ok for koi but u will have to bring them in in winter

MPH MPH - 6 years ago

I used thoroseal to seal the pond. I did not adhere well to the concrete floor so I have since sealed the floor with pond armor and there are no leaks.

DEON SINGH - 7 years ago

Boring

Robyn Miller-Brooks - 7 years ago

Dang!!!! You shouldve just gone ahead and built yourself a jaccuzi!! Nice job!

Jacob Hydon - 7 years ago

cool

Tumbleweed - 7 years ago

Hi,

I think you did a great job with that pond considering you are not a builder! It looks very professional and I'd be very pleased to have that in my garden.

I also just wanted to point out something you may not be aware of with Goldfish - and that is that they need a lot more space and work than people think. I only know this from recent experience after my youngest daughter won a Goldfish at a fair and knowing nothing about them we struggled to keep it happy. For the first 6 months it was okay but then it started to get ill.

Long story short, I tried progressively bigger tanks, adding plants, snails and progressively bigger and more advanced biological filters and finally ended up at a 30L tank with external canister filter holding and circulating an additional 10 - 15L and still that wasn't good enough. Ultimately, it turns out a single Goldfish requires 20 Gallons of water to itself and then 10 more Gallons for each additional fish. Goldfish produce a heck of a lot of waste so I was just constantly fighting a water quality battle due to inadequate space / volume of water.

The only reason I mention this is so you don't end up with the same problem of fighting the water quality due to lack of space / volume of water. A pond will be much closer to a natural environment than a tank of course and being outdoors the eco system will be much better / naturally maintained with fresh rain water top off / water changes, a natural level of good bacteria building up, access to natural foods such as insects etc but ultimately it is still a closed system so you should plan the number of fish you are going to put in accordingly and base your calculations on a full size adult godlfish using the 20 Gallon for the first fish and 10Gallon per additional fish as a rule of thumb to be safe. Also remember goldfish will breed and numbers will grow meaning the volume of water per fish will decrease and mean that there is less volume of water per fish to act as a buffer to cope with the waste they produce.

If you get your pond in the "sweet spot" with the correct number of fish for the volume of water your pond contains, and once your biological eco system has established then that should all help to keep the toxin levels down naturally.
With the right balance, the good bacteria should be able to naturally filter out / break down the waste as quick as, if not quicker than the fish can produce it. You can also buy good bacteria to add to your pond - often known as pond sludge destroyer or stress zyme. These are bottles of live beneficial enzymes and bacteria needed to kick start your pond's eco system for destroying and breaking down all the waste the fish produce, anything that falls into the pond and rots etc and turns it into useful elements and by-products to feed the other life in the pond such as plants, algae etc - which give the fish shade, shelter, and natural food.

Sorry for the long post, I get carried away when I write and tend to write with the assumption that anyone that reads my comments might not know any of this so sorry if it's something you already knew, I just wanted to point out what many people might not realise about Goldfish. :)

Thanks for sharing the video and again, well done with the pond, it really does look good. I'm sure it will give you many relaxing hours watching it and listening to the sound of flowing water on those nice warm sunny days :)

Tumbleweed - 7 years ago

I bet the Turtles love that pond in summer. I completely understand what you mean about the cold weather, buddy. I'm from the UK and we get anything from mild dry winters to horrible endless months of wet and freezing weather. I'm not a winter person and to live on an island that spends much of it's time getting rained on and being dull and grey, it's not good lol I could happily live somewhere that stays a nice comfortable 16 - 18 Degrees all year round. It doesn't have to always be sunny, just warm will do lol.

MPH MPH - 7 years ago

Thanks for all the info. At this point we only keep a turtle in the pond in the summer. I shut it down in the winter and bring the turtle into a tank inside. It's too much work to keep the pond running in the Colorado winters.

Chris - 7 years ago

What's that white sealant called??

MPH MPH - 7 years ago

I used Thoroseal. It bonded well with the cinder block but not as well with the concrete.

B Math - 7 years ago

How did you make it so that it has a waterfall and where do you have the filter?

MPH MPH - 7 years ago

I bought a waterfall from Colorfalls. I ran the return from the floor of the pond under the concrete to the area behind the waterfall wall. The filter is behind the waterfall wall with the pump and the inlet for the waterfall. The water flows like this...pond...pump...filter...waterfall...back to pond.

Daniel Morris - 8 years ago

nice pool lol

HardhatRussian - 8 years ago

awesome little setup! can i ask how much it cost you to build?

Tumbleweed - 7 years ago

And a really nice job you have made of it too!

What I find helps me manage my costs / budget when I do projects like this is to break the entire project down into manageable and affordable stages and then work my way through each stage as I can afford it.

So for example in my case, I am totally landscaping my entire garden which is some 100ft long and about 25ft wide and it slopes downhill with horrible soil quality which is primarily clay which is rock hard in summer and soggy in winter and all the grass that covers it is this horrible field grass which grows in thick tough clumpy patches which dies back at winter time leaving the garden as a sludgy mass of clay.

To do the whole garden would cost me thousands of pounds in materials in one go which I just couldn't afford. So I worked out what I wanted to achieve with the garden then broke it down into logical progressive stages which I could afford and so I work through each stage as I can afford the materials. I will constantly seek out the best prices every time I buy materials to keep costs to a minimum and despite not being a builder, carpenter, gardener or landscaper, doing the work myself - even if it is slow has saved me even more. One thing I have a fair amount of in my budget to spend is time so I work at a slow steady pace, chipping away at the stages of my plan when I can.

I'm about 13 months in to my project and about half way done - but much of that time was slow hard work digging out all the footings and foundations for my paths, retaining walls etc by hand and then mixing and pouring the concrete by hand on my own. Now the hard prep work is coming to a close, I can start with the easier cool stuff like building my block walls, flower beds, laying my paths and getting really creative. Providing I've got all my footings and foundations dug and poured by Autumn then I should have the entire garden completed by next summer :)

Also by doing it in small stages, I'm not as conscious about my budget as I would be if I had a fixed lump amount to spend. As an example, let's say I'm at a stage in my project where I need to build another section of wall and I also need to lay my grass turf down. I can afford to buy both the turf and the blocks to build the wall IF I buy the cheapest quality turf I can find. In situations like this, I would rather get the best quality turf I can afford and then buy the blocks for my wall next month instead. Sure it means a delay in progress because I've got to wait until next month to afford the blocks but I'm in no rush so I use my time like currency. I get the quality I want just by adding another month on to project.

Whereas if I were tied to a fixed budget and rigid time schedule I'd have to make many sacrifices and compromises.

Just thought that bit of advice might help people.

HardhatRussian - 8 years ago

awesome job thank you very much for the quick response you have inspired me to make my own!

MPH MPH - 8 years ago

Thanks. Including the waterfall, pump, filter (about $1000.00 right there)...around $2500.00. Cinder blocks, mortar, etc...are inexpensive. The sealer, tile, and stone for the top of the wall weren't cheap but figured if I'm going to do this I might as well make it the way I want it.