Finally, after much work on spare time which is hard to find, the gar river renovations are complete for the most part.

Got some big pieces of used EPDM for free, so out with the little narrow ( useless for gar) sections and replaced with wide slightly deeper areas.

If anyone remembers the American Currents article on Gar River, the changes are dramatic. Instead of two levels, its now three levels. I call them pools and number them from the lowest in elevation being pool one, and the highest pool three. Keeping with my Mississippi River theme.

A few of you were promised a video of this and the rest of my ponds two years ago. I got the footage done, but never edited it ( spare time is hard to find). So now, besides getting some pictures to post here if anyone is interested, the video will need to be added to and create more editing.

Now I will have a bit more spare time, lots of work went into doing this, mostly moving plantings, and creating those areas for the plants and small trees to go to to make room for the wider water. That is an entire story in its self.

All that is left is some tweaking of the dikes and levees ( how quaint), trim work, and connecting one more spring to the pump that runs the spring to pool two. Pool three is fed at the "spring head" by the pump in the new skimmer. These store bought skimmers ( my biggest expense) beat my home made one the sun destroyed. It has a floating trap door so it can still skim even if the water drops several inches, which happens alot when adjusting the dikes and levees.

Oh, and the bog is built into the pond itself now, which is really neat. Tiny killifish and sunfish young use the shallow sands protected from the main pond by slabs of sandstone.

I know, I know, now the pictures will be demanded. I will try to produce over the weekend.

Very cool...and yes photos are demanded.....

Whaaaat? {dumbfounded} This sounds incredible. You just sold me on membership and American Currents - I gotta get in on this level of zealotry . Can not wait for photos.

Finally, got a few pictures worth sharing. One is a shot of one of the gar cruising, then two more that pretty much show the entire pond. Then later more close up pictures will be easier to understand referencing these two. The two pictures fit together somewhere in the middle. Pool 1 is to the south, pool 2 in the middle, and pool three to the north. I am facing west when I shot the photos, so pool 1 is to the left and pool three to the right.

how do you join the EPDM? (ethylene propylene diene monomer)

do you have problems with keeping it clear?

do you have a substrate, the pict with the gar looks like a sand bottom


i am very impressed

Ray, how interesting! Look like a lot of fun.

Yup, thats pretty much the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Gar River is pretty old, well part of it. It was the second pond I built after moving here. That is the heavily weeded pool 1. I then added some smaller liners to make a pond around a large tree that was on that island. In 2001 a derecho came though and tore the tree out of the ground. I kept building and added what is half of pool three now a few years back. Then, to get the current form, I tore out the small pieces and replaced them with larger ones. I hope it is done.

Not a lot of work because I enjoy the pond so much, but it is really a ton of work building, but the end result is worth it.

I join the liner with two kinds of tape sold by Pondliners.com, from Firestone. One is a two sided i would call it, just pure, mmm, I seem to think it was called butyl...no, a, er, I am terrible with names. Anyways, you lay down the one liner, put this on the edge, then lay the other edge over the top of that leaving a small bead of it showing. Then I use the same stuff with a rubber backing on it, called seam tape. There is much more to it than that, but quite simple IF you are doing this with rubber lying out on a flat surface. Doing it how I have done it several times, with an existing pond getting added on to, its tough. Water is the enemy of this stuff adhering, and can cause headaches all around. If its is pretty clean, and absolutly dry, this stuff works really slick.

I have substrate in the shallow areas of sand and some fine brown gravel like I use in my fish tanks. The deepest areas are silt, and algaes grow on the exposed liner on steep sides and intermediate depths, giving it a natural look.

I could go on and on, but will just try to get more pictures posted, since a thousand words written is boring, but pictures are awesome.

The picture is of the orignal part, now called pool 1, looking east.

Here is a picture of pool 2 looking west. This was shortly after getting it running well enough to get the fish in. You can see the bog to the left, looks like sand with a little water over it in the foreground.

Oh, oops, forgot to answer the question of keeping it clear. Rarely does the water get cloudy. Lots of plants I think helps here. I do have problems with floating and submerged stringy algae. Barley straw helps cut this back.

In this picture, you can barely make out a redear sunfish, but it shows the algae I have troubles with quite well. I do like a bit of this stuff growing on the bottom, since it covers up exposed liner. I don't like to use substrate in the deepest parts since it hinders cleaning. I like to use it shallow since it promotes thick weed beds, but as you can see in the pool 1 picture that this gets out of hand. I really have been weeding that one a lot over the past several years. I figure though, weeding and still having too much is good for water quality and cover. I just have to learn which plants are suitable, and which ones are just weeds that quickly take over and turn an area a foot or more deep into a four inch deep area of weeds with roots eight inches thick mixed with sand. That is some heavy stuff to move, like rolling up carpet inbedded with lead.

Yep, that's amazing. What do you do when that sycamore drops its leaves? How much ices over in the winter?
You've got me staring at my own backyard at all hours of the day now.

That is a red maple, but makes little difference what kind of tree it is, leaves cause trouble when they come down.

Fall is a hard time, but not as hard as winter. I have tried netting, but its going to be a bit of work to cover it this year. Years I didn't get the netting up in time, I was busy scooping leaves until ice, which is a never ending loosing battle, finished in spring, when more leaves blow around and start the process all over again.

I have gotten bad ice the last several years. Not sure if its colder nights and days with the length of these cold spells being longer/OR/ that when I added on to the pond last time I had too many narrow shallow sections cooling the water too much. I am hoping that the addition of the wider deeper areas in place of those small ones will help.

I have tried lots of things ,but fighting ice is nearly impossible around here. I decided a few years ago to bring all the fish I can inside and then I can watch them all winter. This winter will be another experiment.

The problem is testing methods, you get one shot a year. If it fails, you have to try something new the next year, if you have time. Winters are never the same or predictable, so just that makes it tough to figure out sure fire ways to avoid thick ice that stops the exchange of gasses from water to air.

I did hoop houses one year, the big ones could not handle strong winds and snow, and failed. The small ones worked quite well. It was amazing what pvc tubing frames and 3 mil clear plastic could do with a little winter sun.