The Sound of Running Water! (Garden Ponds & Water Features in general)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Garden Ponds & Water Features in general
Date:	28/05/03 (1465 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Soothing sounds, Great look

Disadvantages: Pond weed!

Has the tank sprung a leak? Water running down the walls? Soggy carpets? No, this time the sound is actually welcome, especially sitting in the garden on a bright sunny summer afternoon. No, we don't have a stream at the bottom of the garden, just a pond.

We moved to Camberley seven years ago. The house was about the fourth one we saw. You know that feeling, immediately you walk through the door and you just know this is The One. And we hadn't even seen the garden.

We had moved from Southport. It had been a painful move for me. I chose to live in Southport. My wife was born there. I loved the town, still do and would have happily stayed there for the rest of my life. However, there were many reasons why we needed to move, so move we did.

Our old house had been a big Edwardian semi with masses of character, close to Hesketh Park. The garden had been quite small, without any significant features. Mostly it was a playground for the kids' rabbits. Entirely walled, they couldn't escape. They owned the garden and terrorised the local cats.

The new garden was a whole different proposition. Larger with developed flowerbeds, loads of trees, both in the garden and on the surrounding properties... and a pond.

Now, as ponds go, this one wasn't the most impressive I had seen. It just sort of... sat there. We left it a couple of years whilst we tuned our attention to other more pressing things. But, eventually we could ignore it no longer. Something had to be done.

Now. As ponds go, this isn't likely to put The Serpentine to shame. Little more than four feet in diameter and three foot deep, it was really nothing more than adequate for a few plants and about a dozen goldfish, definitely not Koi Carp territory. We also have an annual visitor in the form of a frog. I'm sure it's not the same one each year but never has a year gone by without one!

What it really nee
ded was some movement. The choice really was between a fountain or a waterfall. Whatever the choice, what was needed was some oxygen into the water, both for the plants but more especially for the fish. Also, the water could do with some cleaning; definitely a touch murky.

The pond is set in the corner of the garden, a large bay laurel sits behind it, right in the corner, and provides some shade and protection from the potential attentions of passing herons.

I pondered for some time (sorry, couldn't resist that). Eventually I decided on a waterfall, even though a fountain would have been simpler. The picture of a waterfall tumbling out from under the laurel felt just right for the location. In fact, a double basin waterfall could be accommodated and that's what I decided to do.

The design required a fair bit of work. The two basins weren't too difficult to construct. There were some suitable large rocks more or less in place already. I dug out a couple of holes on the bank. The basins were to be lined with concrete. I set a large rock into concrete between the two basins in order to provide a mini-waterfall between the basins and to allow the water to run over it and collect oxygen on the way.

I formed some chicken-wire into the basic shape of the basins and set them in place in order to provide reinforcement and strength so as to resist any cracking and leakage. The concrete was deposited onto the wire. And, as it was arranged about an inch above the soil, the concrete dropped through and so embedded the wire within its structure.

I now had about a two foot drop into the pool, one foot from the top pool to the bottom and one foot back into the pond itself. Now all I needed was a pump to raise the water from the pool to the top of the waterfall and a filter to clarify the water as it passed back via the waterfall into the pond.

Looking for value for money I chose the Hozelock Titan 2000 pu
mp. This is totally submersed pump. The pump itself is encased within a round outer container, which is totally perforated with small slots to allow the water to pass through. The slots are large enough to allow silt to pass through but small enough to prevent baby fish being sucked into the pump. The pump is rated at 2000 litres per hour with a,lift of 24 inches, just enough for my design.

The pump cost about £80.

For the filter I chose also a Hozelock product, the Bioforce 2200 UVC. This is rated also to handle 2000 litres an hour and so is the correct match for the pump. It is a drum-shaped filter, with pumped water entering the body at the top and the cleaned water returning also from the top. This enabled me to part bury the filter in the soil under the laurel, out of sight.

The filter has a sponge through which the water passes to remove the silt and pond-weed which would otherwise leave the water cloudy and unhealthy for fish. The water passes through the sponge from the outside. In the middle is an ultra-violet light, which causes the bacteria and algae to coagulate and so get filtered out on the next pass or sink to the bottom of the pond.

The filter was about £35.

The pump and filter are connected by 25mm black plastic hose, which gives adequate capacity to produce a generous flow of water. The hose is concealed as best as possible by the rocks and plants around the pond.

You can find more information about these products here: http://www.hozelock.com/UK/aquatics/home.htm

The improvement on the quality of the water in the pond is evident. Certainly the fish (goldfish, about 10 of them) seem happy. However, it isn't the solution to all pond problems. There is one that even this equipment cannot solve.

We suffer from a rampant pond weed that is the bane of my life. It is a fine, green, hair-like weed that grows prolifically and does its best to swamp everything else
in the pond. I have tried various preparations but to no avail. I simply have to, once a week, dip into the pond and scoop it out. There appears to be no other solution.

This weed attaches itself to everything that doesn't move, so at least the fish are safe. However, the water plants that sit on the ledge around the pond get covered in it. The weed seems to thrive in high nutrient water so topping up the pond with tap water is not a good idea. I am thinking of buying a water butt and collecting the rainwater off of the roof for this purpose instead.

There is a new product that has just come onto the market that is claimed to solve this problem. It's called the Oasis i-tronic. It works by dosing the water with ionised copper as it passes back to the pond. I have no more information about it nor any indication of its effectiveness.

One thing is clear is that it is very expensive at around £160. I don't think I'll be buying one just yet! If you want to find out more then visit this website: http://www.oasis-water-gardens.com/frame15new.html

After running the waterfall for a year it was clear that I had a leak. When the waterfall was running I was losing water from the pond. There was no evident cause for this. I could only assume that the concrete or some of the rocks were porous and water was seeping through when the water was running. No water was lost when the water wasn't running.

I needed to clean out the waterfall basins of the debris that had gathered over the season to I allowed the basins to dry out completely and then brushed on Thompson's Water Seal Ultra.

Now, this product does say ?Don't use on ponds?! However, I reckoned that as I wouldn't be using it on the pond itself it probably wouldn't hurt. I did make sure that the preparation had a couple of weeks to dry thoroughly before using the waterfall again.

It has made a difference. I don
't lose more than a fraction of what was disappearing before so I guess my diagnosis must have been correct. Neither the plants nor the fish seem to have been affected by the treatment.

A pond does make a big difference to a garden. A pond with running water is even better. I am very pleased with the effect it has in ours.

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