They have gone completelly rigid, if you bend them just a little they just snap!

Has anybody other than me had a problem with the newer style anti-kink hoses? mine are about 5 years old and the plastic has gone rigid and very fragile. Just lifting the hose a few inches caused it to collapse under it's own weight.

The older style thick wall hoses seem fine but the newer style which has a plastic coil strengthening the hose wall just don't seem fit for purpose. The hose couldn't be affected by UV and the whole length has failed, part under water, part underneath solid stone and part above ground hidden behind a wall.

I expected the hose to have a similar lifespan to the pond liner so had built it in under a waterfall. It took me many hours over the weekend breaking out the sides of the Waterfall to route a replacement host through!

Iain

Zoe,
A few things to think about :-
1) will the brickwork be seen when finished? if not then you can use concrete blocks rather than bricks which is cheaper and faster.
2) When you build a brick wall you normally build it in the middle of a concrete footing, but you need to think about how this will effect your design. If you want the pond to have fairly straight sides then you will need to draw this to show your builder/bricklayer so that he builds it right. The other alternative is to incorporate the concrete footing into a planting shelf.
3) plan carefully how your cables and pipes will pass through the brickwork.

Hope that helps.

Iain

Hi Zoe,
I'm afraid there is no simple answer to that question as it depends entirely on the ground conditions and the ground water table level.

I assume that you are intending to use a pvc or butyl Pond liner and want the sides of the new pond to be bare earth?

That may well be fine particularily as you are intending to slope the sides, but it does depend entirely on the type of ground and water table. My pond is approx 1200mm deep with 'earth' sides as I think you are intending.

A couple of things to be mindfull of:-
1) If your ground water table level is high then you may need a concrete base and brick sides to keep the ground water out (ground water can lift the liner).
2) If you are close to any trees or large shrubs you may need brick sides to stop the roots bursting through the liner.

Best thing to do is to dig a trial hole where the pond is going, and to the same depth or more, and leave it for a couple of days. If the sides of the hole don't fall in then the soil type should be OK and if the hole doesn't fill with water then you shouldn't have a problem with ground water.

One last point, remember that ponds can go up as well as down. Could you use some of the soil from the excavation to raise the ground level in the pond area so you don't need to dig as deep or take as much spoil away?

Regards

Iain

llVeXXll
The reason why you will have to reinforce the corners is because of the shape that you are planning. A right angle corner is no problem because the bricks are rectangular and the brick bond stays intact (as you get on the corner of a house). The other two corners of your triangular design are different though as they are not right angles and you loose all the strengh of the brick bond. Try this for yourself and you will see what I mean, childrens lego bricks would be ideal or any other similar blocks. You will find that you can build the right hand corner easily but not the other two corners of the triangle.

The other part of your thread is about the cost of the design. Whilst in the ideal world you would go for the best design and quality, most people have a budget that they need to work within. What you are proposing is a relatively small pond in which you intend to keep a smallish number of fish. You are not building densely populated Koi pond and don't need to build to that standard.

Incorporating a bottom drain into the pond does make it easier to clean out but is an expensive option which isn't essential. My pond is 3500 gallons and doesn't have a bottom drain. Without having the bottom drain you won't need a concrete bottom (unless you have a problem with very high ground water or very poor ground conditions) and will make substantial savings on pipes and fittings.

The location of the pond in your garden can also make a difference to cost. I'm guessing from your posts that you are not too hot on the DIY front so think about where the nearest electricity is (most pumps have a 10M cable so if the pond is within a few metre of a building with an electricity supply then there is no electrical work required. Also think about where the drainage is for overflows etc.

The key thing is to fully design the pond on paper, don't start digging a hole and then try to make it work.

Hope you haven't been put off the whole idea.

Regards

iain

Hi 11VeXX11,
Just a word of caution about your proposed pond shape that you should think about before commiting yourself.

How do you expect the corners of your raised triangular brickwork to look? Assuming that you want to achieve a nice sharp corner then that can only be achieved by cutting the brick and having a straight verticle joint right on the corner. This is a very weak joint which would be liable to cracking if not designed and built correctly.

In a standard brick wall most of the strength in the masonry is a result of the brick 'bond' used, i.e. there are no straight vertical joints. If you want a sharp corner then you would have no choice but to use a straight joint in your outer skin of brickwork and only achieve a limited bond (because of the angled corner) on your inner skin.

To overcome this problem you will need to insist that the corner joints are reinforced. On a small project like yours this isn't difficult or very expensive, but without it the joint will crack a few Months after it has been built. What you need is a product called 'bricktor', this is a stainless steel mesh which is laid across the open joint and bedded in the mortar at eack course of bricks and can be bought from any builders merchants.

Regards

Iain

Hi Cruchie,
I haven't used any of the products that you have picked but they should be fine:-

UV clarrifier - I see that you have picked a more powerfull unit and I think that is a good decision. It's better to have a more powerfull unit and just use it when required than to have an under-powered unit and green water.

Pump - the one you have picked looks surprisingly similar to my Oase unit! At the price it retails at it is not likely to last that long, but you know that so it isn't a problem.

Filter box - This is a very basic unit and it will come down to trial and error as to whether it works for you, however if it doesn't work it should be fixable. What you are buying is a plastic box, a few bits of hoses and some filter media, so the options to uprate the filter if required are to either change the filter media to a better type or install another plastic box with some filter media in (connected to the outlet of the first box)so the water goes through two boxes. Either way it isn't difficult to adapt and improve a box filter.

A couple of other points:-
Have you considered second hand equipment? There is nothing to wear out on a filter so that is fine to buy second hand (just make sure that it is well cleaned). A second hand UV is fine also though you would need to buy a new UV tube.

Your filter will need cleaning out regularily, has it got a drain outlet at the bottom? if not then I would recommend that you put one in when you are installing it as it will make life so much easier later on.

On the quote for your pump I noticed that you had also selected the fittings to use it externally, is that what you plan to do? it's much easier and simpler to drop it into the pond.

Hope that helps

Iain

Hi Crunchie,
Just a few points which may help your decision making:-

Pond Pump - Idealy should be sized to pump half of the ponds volume per hour.
Remember that if you raise the outfall above ground level (e.g. to flow into the top of a waterfall) then the volume of water that the pump circulates will drop. If you look at the technical details of a pump they will usually include a table that details volume pumped against the height of the outlet.
When selecting your pump you will obviously take account of the initial cost, but you should also consider the guarantee period (which is a reflection of the quality) and the power consumption. Some pumps use considerably more electricity than others to move the same volume of Water. You may well find that a pump that is cheap to buy actually costs you more because of the extra electricity that it uses and will also not last very long.
My persomal preference is the Oase eco range, whilst the initial purchase cost is high they are guaranteed for 5 years (they come with a 3 year guarantee which you can extend to 5 years free of charge) and are very low on power consumption.

UV - I would recommend that your UV filter is a separate unit that you can switch independantly from your pump and main filter. I find in practice on my pond that I need the UV switched on full time in the early part of Summer, on part of the day for the rest of Summer and then turned off during Autumn, Winter and early spring. I would guess that my UV is only required for about 20% of the total number of hours in a year, so no point wasting electricity for the other 80% of hours when it isn't achieving anything. There are a number of factors which affect the requirements for a UV filter, and you will need a bit of trial and error to get the balance right for your Pond, but as long as it is switchable separately then you can adjust the timing accordingly.

Aeration - You will need to incorporate some aeration into your design. My personal choice is to incorporate a waterfall which looks good, sounds good (the sound of the water running down it) and is also functional in maintaining Oxygen levels in the water. There are of course other methods of aerating the water but bear in mind that this could affect the flow rates of your pump.

Filter - Whilst the processes that take place in a filter are quite complicated the principles that you need to take account of are quite straight forward, you want something to catch the solids (the mechanical part of the filter) and a place for the friendly bacteria to live (the biological part of the filter).
If you are looking at a basic box filter system then (within reason) bigger is better, the expensive filter units generally incorporate technology to get a lot of filtration out of a filter with a small physical size, but if you aren't realy restricted on size then you don't need this. Many Pond keepers (including myself) have made our own filters, the main parameters for most people are that the filter needs to be near the pond and you need to be able to hide it as they aren't generally very good looking!

Hope that gives you a few ideas

Iain

Ely,
Assuming that you are talking about Goldfish in an unheated pond (I say this because some breeds of fish feed throughout the year) then you should not feed them during Winter.
I know what you mean re fluctuating temperatures, my fish have also been coming to the top of the water and being more active.
The problem with feeding is that when the temperature drops again the Fish metabolism slows right down, and any food that has not passed through the fish will just rot inside them. Sometimes it seems that you have to be cruel (by not feeding them) to be kind!

Hope that's helpfull

Iain

I reduced my feeding to just once a day two weeks ago and then stopped feeding altogether last Sunday. The water temperature was still at 9 degrees, and the fish were interested in food, but the forecast was for it to get a lot colder this week so I wanted to allow time for that last feed to pass through the fish before their systems shut down for the Winter.