TaDeGe Pond And Water Garden

  How's everyone, been a while since I sent an members email blast. It's about that time of the year to start thinking about the coming season and maybe you're planning for your first pond build. It's tempting to buy one of the many kits that are out there but you can do much better starting from scratch and building a quality pond that will last for a very long time.

  A great basic starting point is the concrete pond build section here at this site. I know your thinking concrete is to much for you but it's really not. I got into the concrete build with no previous experience with concrete. To begin with from this point on the pond I am referring to is this one, click here. This little pond is a great place to start if you are new to concrete ponds. You really can do a concrete pond for even your first build. I built the one listed here over10 years ago and by myself. Friend get scarce when they see a pond person with a shovel. I'm not going to get into a whole build plan here, you can read the full plan at the build page, I just want to add some things that I have discovered over the years.

  First of all give some real though for pipes you'll run your in and out lines to you ponds. Even if you don't use them right from the start there will come a time that you'll be glad you have them available. It's hardly no extra work to run 2 or 3 2” plastic pipes from the bottom of the pond to ground level on the outside of the pond. You can just cap these if you have no use for them at the start. More on this at the build page.

  Now on to something that always is a big question on concrete builds. How do I color and water proof the pond. In my opinion there is no other color to use but black in a pond. This is not a pool with massive amounts of chlorine to keep the algae under control. Actually a well balanced pond will have a coating of algae on all the surfaces. Concrete on its own is not water proof. You can do a final coating with thin spread mixed with sand mix and achieve a water tight concrete, but there is still the question of lime in the water. I think a pond coating is a must. You can buy all kinds of expensive coatings. Use colored concrete dye and coat it with polyester to seal it. But I discovered a really inexpensive way that has proven to last for years. This small pond is now well over 10 years old and is as water tight now as the day it was built.

  I didn't want to spend a small fortune on the coating for this little pond and I wanted it to be easy. After some thought I decided on using a rubber auto undercoating, and as incredible as it sound, I just used the spray can type to seal this pond. No prep work but this was new concrete. There will be some work in cleaning up an older pond that has previous coatings. The size of this pond was about 600 gallons, it took 12 cans of the spray, back then they were under $4 a can, $48 buck total to seal the pond, plus no clean up at all other than tossing the empty cans in the trash. After putting this on I let it dry for 3 days before filling with water and added fish after just 2 weeks with the filter running to season it in.

  I'm not telling you that it is better than catalyzed two part coatings, all I am saying is that it is very inexpensive tried and true method to seal your new small pond. I don't know why but no one ever lives close to a pond coating supply store and shipping is a killer. There are auto supply stores on every corner where the rubber under coating is available for pick up. It also come in qt cans but you will need to buy an undercoating spray gun, cheap but you'll also need a compressor. I was a car painter for over 40 years and had access to equipment but went this way for easy cheap final coating. This is all just something to think about, you of coarse may well choose another way to go. I have no doubts that I'll get a ton of feed back on using rubber coatings, but that is just what I did. Actually I knew it was used in agriculture before I though of using it for the pond. Sealing open wounds on trees have been sealed with this stuff for years.

  Here is another real slick trick. If your concrete pond does develop a small leak that's impossible to find, just get some clumping kitten litter, toss a cup full in and believe it or not within 2 days the leak will be sealed. This of coarse doesn't work if you have a huge leak, but they are easy to spot and fix, this plays hell with the filters so be prepared to clean them in a couple days. This method will even seal small leak in a water fall or water run.

 An easy way to find a flow leak is first turn off the pumps and any air you have going then pour milk around the edge and you can actually see the white cloud heading towards the leak and pin point the exact spot. These are old time pond builders secrets that have been used for years. Not used much any more with the high pressure gun-nite ponds that are being built now, but still work great for us home builders.

  This spring as you start your pond take a lot of pictures, send some to me as you work on it and the finished pond if they ever really do get finished. I would really like to see you ideas and progress. If you have any question, or comments be sure to send them, I know this article will bring some feedback on the coating. Take care and happy ponding, Tom at Tadege.

  Take a look at my #1 aquarium item selling on ebay, it may surprise you. I have 6 different ads for the same product. Click Here. Do something nice and necessary for your snails and shrimp. This is really a must have for shrimp and snails.

   I need some more input for the joke page, people really kept me rolling on the floor a couple years back. Lets get it going again, email me your best, keep in mind this is a family site. email to tadege@bellsouth.net Some days I need something to cheer me up. Share your best with everyone.