"Courageous" wrote in message
...

How many gallons (cubic feet * 7.3) do you estimate for your pond?

The pond is going to be raised around 2-3 foot above ground level.

Are you going to create a 2-3 foot embankment? If not, what will you
do to make the walls of the pond hold all that weight? Concrete walls?
Something else?

I was wondering if we need to dig below the surface at all as well?

No, not at all.

But given the above, you might do better with a compromise of some sort.

Stand up. Look at your hip. That's probably about 3'. Do you want a burm
or wall /that/ big? If so, whatcha planning?

While no one thing is "essential" in pond building, your life will
be a lot easier with a sumped bottom drain feeding to some kind of
settling tank (designed to be periodically purged), especially if
your pond is large. The function here is to make the settling tank
the main thing you clean, and not your pond.

As a lurker, I will assume you know about "veggie filters", "bog
filters" (of both the up well and down well variety). Try "bog
filter" on google and "veggie filter" on google groups (rec.ponds)
to read various statements about each of these.

When you dig, you might consider laying down a bit of extra plumbing
at some locations if you think you miight want to add something later.

A little preplanning will allow you to change your mind less painfully
later.



C//


Thanks...

I've been out measuring this week in the planned location and visualising
again. It's going to be between 1000-1500 galls. The deck that it will butt
up against is raised around 6 inches above ground level. There definitely
needs to be some digging to get the required depth as otherwise it would
most certainly be too high....

The plan is to build a breeze block structure and then clad it in
wood.....I'm not sure that I can get pre-formed to fit the planned shape but
I will be looking into this....of course liner would be a lot cheaper.

I'm very much interested in the Veggie filter as an addition to more
conventional filtration....plus I do like eating watercress :-)

This pond is still very much in the planning stages and subject to change so
any input is very gratefully appreciated.

Gill