DIY Backyard Garden Pond

what's going on everyone Tanner here and we're finally ready to get into the pond build I started this boat in October of 2018 after my wife and I bought our new home I knew that one of the first things I wanted to do outside was build a pond I've wanted one for years but never felt like putting in the work or spending the money to make one until I got my own place much like any other project that came with its own set of challenges and issues that I had to overcome secondly I know many of you will ask why I didn't go with the natural pond build obviously that's what I want but I had to start somewhere I know that at a hobbyist level or for beginners most of us will at least start with the build like this chances are I'll swap this one out for a naturalistic build eventually but something like this can still be really beautiful and give the same ambiance that a natural pond would enough on that though let's get into the build to start I unfolded an EPDM pond liner and made measurements to determine how big of a hole I needed to dig based on that I had to decide where in the yard I would put the pond initially I wanted it in the right side of the yard because of the slope which could be utilized for the waterfall however I figured that it would be easier to enjoy and have seating arrangements at on the left side of the yard it was really important for me to build this in a location where it could be fully enjoyed this spot is great not only because we can sit at it outside but we can also see it from the deck or from our kitchen window with the location decided I made a guide on the ground using nails and a string using this guide I chased an outline onto the ground with some spray paint initially the pond was going to be eight feet long five feet wide and two feet deep but the size is greatly increased later on with the guide in place I keep get to digging if you decide to build a pond I'd recommend including some friends to help you dig it's really labor-intensive especially if you do it in hot weather I dug the whole thing by myself and it took way longer than it should have I also say that the top eight inches or so wasn't bad but just under that it's mostly rocks and clay the rock made it hard to dig and the clay was pretty heavy so I could only remove so much at a time nevertheless i chunked through and dug the hole once dug I used to tamper to flatten things out put down a bottom layer lined the perimeter with bricks place the underlayment lined the pond topped everything off with rocks and filled it up with some water I know that was really rushed wasn't it well that's still straight how much of a rush this build was up into this point I'm not going to lie it was a sloppy job because I was rushing through it for various reasons I won't get into those but like I've told you with other projects things never go well if you rush a build what I'm saying is don't rush and do a right or as close to right as you can the first time around this is how the pond sat for about five months until spring what I could resume the build when it was time to go to work thankfully I was greeted by this mess I say thankfully be excited to take everything apart that means I could build it bigger and better than before basically what happened here is everything fell into the pond for reasons I couldn't determine at that time we'll discuss more about that near the end of the video though for the secular edition I decided to build a portion of the frame with four by fours instead of just bricks these were cut to the desired size using a miter saw the cup boards were placed around the existing hole so I could get an idea of how much more needed dug after that I went around and leveled the ground to the best of my ability honestly I found this to be the most challenging part of the build once I got it all leveled I stacked another board on top of the initial foundation from there it was time to anchor these boards into the ground with some rebar using a long 1/2 inch drill bit I drove some holes straight through the wood and into the ground once the holes were drilled rebar was pounded through with the splitting maul using 1/2 inch thick rebar that's 2 feet long I didn't need something super long just enough to keep the board's firmly in place I later decided that I wanted to go three boards high so I added another layer on top of these they were of course secured just like the others using some rebar now that I had this structure dressed I could resume digging I dug and dug and dug some more until I ended up with the hole that was around three feet deep this brought the final dimensions to 10 feet long by 8 feet wide by 3 feet deep which is just shy of 1,800 gallons or 6,000 liters obviously I'd like it if it was bigger than this but I think it's a great size for a starter pond it's deep enough for the fish to overwinter and have a good temperature gradient as well as enough volume to not have to chase water parameters like before once the hole is completely dug I went around with the tamper to even everything out the hole is dug in the wooden frame is in place which means we can get this thing lined first off I rolled out some underlayment to help protect the liner from punctures to keep the underlayment secured attached it to the wood using some stainless steel staples [Music] with the underlayment down I could move on to the liner this thing is huge so I had to get it unfolded and cut it to size before I could get it into the pond much like the underlayment I carefully pulled the liner into the hole and worked it into place unfortunately I didn't record much of this part because it was getting dark outside I can explain that much better though with some origami here's a piece of paper that I pre folded to make the demonstration easier as you can see there's a bottom and four sides I've also traced the lines where the liner will be folded what happens is two sides will meet in the corner like so then the excess can be folded to the side and what I guess would be considered an inside reverse fold in theory once you've folded them all you should end up with a clean box like this depending on the type of seam tape you have you can either put the tape in between the gap or cover it completely I put up some footage from the first time I built this to better illustrate what I'm talking about after the liner was folded I stapled the excess onto the word like I did with the underlayment once I got the pond lined I filled it up with some water and let the pump run so wouldn't become stagnant from there I love without the ground around the perimeter of the pond so that I could include the bricks to do so I put down some dirt and went around with the tamper probably not the best way to go about doing it but it did the job once everything was live walled I placed the bricks accordingly now we'll move on to the waterfall spillway since this is a DIY build we have to go with the DIY spillway what I have here is a 32 inch wide stacking bin in its current state it wouldn't make an ideal spillway to convert it I first cut the side so they could be folded inward like so I used a combination of clamps a piece of wood and a heat gun to gradually reshape the container the trick here is to do a little bit at a time so you don't melt or damage the plastic you basically just want it soft enough to become pliable then you clamp it in place until it cools down and it should retain the new shape will circle back to this in just a moment in line with the spillway is the overflow skimmer I clamped a wooden guide onto the back of the pond and drilled through the four by fours using a hole saw I'm using this guide so that everything's consistent ants as I don't tear the liner this seriously took forever it must have taken a good two hours to draw the way through and that was spread out by two to three day time period because my drills kept overheating or running out of battery needless the same keeping this block of wood as a souvenir with the hole drilled I laid out a square of scrap liner then I got a three-inch ABS pipe and marked for it on the liner I used an exacto knife to cut out a hole where I marked the ABS pipe will be connected to length of PVC using an inside connector the order that I did this had to be specific because these pipes will also be attached to a flange first I attach the ABS pipe to the inside connector using some OD Fusion cement then I cemented the ABS and connector into the flange finally the PVC was attached to the other end of the connector after allowing everything the cure could then be attached to the pond this was kind of tough because the fit was so snug but to do the job I use the board and the splitting maul once through I lined it up with a container on the outside and marked for the pipe using a hole saw I made a hole on the side of this container and fitted the hole with the Uni seal afterward I slipped the PVC pipe through the Uni seal and into the container once everything was connected together I filled the space around it with some dirt from there I pre drilled some holes so that the flange could be connected to the wood using some stainless steel screws before moving on I cleaned the liner on the pipe with some rubbing alcohol I did this to remove any dirt and debris so that the piece of liner I cut earlier could be attached properly to do so I slipped the liner over the pipe leaving a little slack then I attached a hose clamp around the liner to keep it firmly around the pipe I also put some double-sided seam tape under the liner to keep it in place while doing so I did my best to get the liner to lay flat once all of these components were together I cleaned this section of the liner with rubbing alcohol like before then a few strips of single sided seam tape were cut and attached around the edges of the liner to finalize the connection this process is of course repeated around the pipe and clamp back to some more lumber obviously the pond doesn't look complete as is so he picked up some two by twelves to cap it off I cut these at a 45 degree angle and set them around the top of the pond to be attached later on from there it was time to get the biological filter compartment taken care of for this I have a 55 gallon container I dug a shallow ditch for behind the spillway and used to tamper delightful out the ground to get the container in the proper position I set down some two by fours as a guide when the placement was good I filled in the ditch with some dirt then I stacked up a series of landscape timbers which were pre-cut to the desired size I went about half way up and then attached a few boards on the outside to keep the Timbers in place while I work after doing so I drilled a few holes through the top of the Timbers to secure them with rebar like before now these boards aren't going anywhere so I stacked the remainder of the Timbers on top of the current structure and attached everything together from the inside with a few boards now we can get everything connected together to start I stacked up a few bricks and set the spillway on top of them I put the pumps hose through the side so I could check the flow from there I used a piece of wood as a guide to drill three holes into the 55 gallon container a PVC pipe will go through each of these holes and into the spillway to account for them I stuck the pipe through and trace them onto the back of the spillway using a China marker then I used a step bit to draw in the center of each of these circles I did this because of how drastically it's shaped I used these holes as a guide to make it easier to cut with my hole saw as you may have expected each of these holes will be lined with the Uni seal like so to attach the PVC pipes I started out with a biological container then I sewed the spillway onto these pipes to connect the containers together unfortunately the Uni seals weren't enough to keep the spillway watertight so I went around each union seal on the inside of the container with some seam tape not really a big deal as this work just fine now it's circle back and finish off the biological compartment what I'm doing here is drilling a bunch of holes through two five-gallon buckets that are attached together after drawing all of the holes I made some marks on them with a sharpie so they can easily tell in the buckets are aligned I put the exterior bucket into the bin and then filled it up completely with over rocks they will of course provide a ton of surface area for biological bacteria in addition to all of the surfaces on the pond the interior bucket was lined with some coarse filter media which fits snugly into place then it was lined again with some polyfill for additional mechanical filtration this bucket could then be placed into the other bucket what I've made is a pre-filter of sorts which will keep access debris out of the biological chamber it can easily be maintained and serviced because of the double bucket system as you can see once the biological container is full of water it overflows from the PVC pipes and into the spillway and then into the pond all of this of course is sealed up by the containers lid now the filters roughed out I'll do some landscaping the first order of business was to dig a little trench and install some landscape edging this will allow me to easily separate the landscape and mulch from the rest of the yard then I cut out a few pieces of weed control fabric and situated them accordingly I'm putting this down to reduce the amount of weeds I'll have to deal with but in retrospect I wish I wouldn't have used it from there I started placing stones and situating plants I'm really go into detail on what plants I'm using in this video as it will just get too long Godley covering a different one though if you want me to little by little I started planting everything and bringing the landscape to life as I planted each section I gradually added the mulch working in segments if you will I guess at some point during this process I also filled the pond up with people's and River stones but I have no idea where that footage went after I did most of the landscaping I sealed the two by twelves with some non-toxic sealant once it was dry I attached off the boards to the top of the pond with some decking screws [Music] after that I could finalize this spillway the first thing I did was fill up the container with gravel I did this to add additional surface area for beneficial bacteria and to even out the flow then I finalized the filter box by attaching some boards to the front now I can finalize the skimmer box to start I drilled a hole in the back for a uni seal then a one-inch PVC pipe was put in place after that I attached hose adapters to either end of the pipe from there I added some uni seals two holes that I drilled on the biological compartment several pieces of PVC were cemented together and then attached to the bin through the Uni seals a hose was then connected to this pipe which runs to the skimmer box and the pump this pump and the other one I'll use came courtesy of vazha that was a huge help but I'll talk more about those specifically in the next video I'll leave some links down in the video description though the last thing I did was trim down some pieces of metallo Matt was my table-saw these will serve as the primary means of mechanical filtration in the skimmer box once cut they were inserted into the box and it could be closed [Music] the last bit of construction that I'll do in this video is a shelf for marginal plants what I have here several pre-cut PVC pipes and side outlet PVC fittings to connect the corners simply put I'm using all of these pieces to make a box although I'm only dry fitting in the clip here I later cemented everything together after that I spray-painted the structure with some Kryolan fusion paint if you're gonna do this it has to be Kryolan fusion anything else will most likely chip off and probably isn't safe to begin with I'll let the paint dry for about three days until moving on to the next step from there I tied paracord to the corners diagonally to create next this will allow most of the weight to be distributed on the corners and the cord which will reduce the possibility of bowing on the lengths of PVC pipe after that I covered the top with some underlayment and zip tied it to the pipes I also drilled holes in the bottom of the structure so that it's not fold there before using I wanted to give this a good rinse to remove the dirt on the liner as I flip it over here this should give you a better idea of what exactly is going on now it can finally be put into the pond to do so I had to move the rocks aside to make sure that it laid flat on the bottom then I moved the rocks back over top of the PVC to keep it anchored at this point it could be planted I've got an assortment of marginal plants remove them from their planters and gave them all quick rinse given the nature of this build I wasn't too concerned with contamination since it's outside to begin with I did want to remove most of the existing substrate on these plants though before getting them going I added a thin layer of organic topsoil I only added this to jumpstart the plants long-term they'll get all of the nutrition they need from the water itself from there I started adding the plants and capped it off with gravel the idea here is that I can have a lot of riparian growth and provide cover for the fish while retaining all the space in the pond I would have recorded more of this process but it started raining so the camera had to go inside oh yeah there's one more thing I should mention before we move on do you remember how the original pond got ruined well basically what was happening is that the pond was filling up with groundwater from underneath because it's mostly clay to combat this I do incorporate a drain underneath of the pond so the water had somewhere to go I'll talk more about that in the next video though there you have it the first installment of my DIY pond build although it's far from perfect and isn't naturalistic I still really enjoy it and it's not even complete of course there's a lot to fine-tune and a lot of things to add for example I've yet to cover the filter box add the other filter finish landscaping add some more platforms for marginal plants and of course stock it with the fish I should be able to do off that in the next week or two and we'll share it in the next installment like I said the filtration isn't complete but I haven't had any issues keeping the water crystal clear I've been leaving all of the organics and the pre-filter as well to sustain the cycle I'll stuff to gradually stock at those so I don't throw it out of whack I'm also really enjoying off the wildlife that's attracted to it I've noticed an increase in butterflies dragonflies honeybees and birds to name a few none of that can compete with the sound of the waterfall though it's such an enjoyable and relaxing sound to hear and it's probably one of the things like most about it I want it there though let me know what you think about the build thus far and if there's anything you want me to cover in the next video that I haven't already discussed as always say thank you all so much for tuning in I hope it was worth the wait anyways I'll catch you on the next one surfer squad and peace

Channel: SerpaDesign

Views: 4,080,360

Rating: 4.8217483 out of 5

Keywords: diy pond, garden pond, backyard pond, pond, landscape, diy, do it yourself, goldfish pond, custom pond, water feature, water garden, water gardening

Id: TeHybQPz7RE

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 22 2019