Scott's Pond Project

I finally started to install my 600+ gallon stock pond. I had picked it up for free on a construction site last summer. It was a remediation project excavating subsurface coal tars at a former manufactured gas plant. I can't believe what our forefathers just ditched-cast!! The stock pond was going to be used to collect water used to clean/decontaminate the excavator bucket but the DEC let us clean it off over the hole. I asked the site foreman if that was just gonna go back to the shop and sit on a pile and he said, yeah ya want it......so the story begins.

I convinced my better half to let me put it in the front of the house. There was a slight hill so I would only have to dig it half out. My plan was to remove some old nasty rock wall and rebuild it around the pond. I have built many stone walls, but never with the rip-rap type stuff available on site. The wall is slow going though, I only want to do it once so I am being pretty anal. I put ~ 8in of aggregate down belwo the wall and ~4-6 below the pond, we have very clayey soils and I was pulling rocks from the original wall that were 2ft belwo grade due to past settlement. It was there for 30+years though and folks just kept building it up as it sank down.

The third to last pic was taken from the porch which is cantilevered off the "1st" floor. I will be able to look right down into the pond so will. The last two pics are of my big pocket pond and finally or view north of the house. Oneida Lake can be seen as a thin blue line waaaay off in the distance ~20 miles away., its abit hazy in this pic though.

Edited by scottefontay, 25 May 2008 - 07:26 AM.

Nice!
I'll be paying much closer attention around construction sites from now on.
What do you have planned for it?

Nice project! Keep us posted! It looks like you live in a great place. I envy you. Our place was sort of in the country, but the suburbs have us surrounded now.

Is that someone fishing in the third picture?

I really want to put some redfin pickerel in there if I can find some adults this summer to get a spawn...to stock the big pond. Since it will likely freeze I can't keep anything year round, I'll probably try something different every summer.

No that is my girlfriend taking a breather and hating the crappy old landscape fabric entwined with grass, weeds, daffodils and tulips in the garden she is ripping up.

Its been a long time inthe planning phase.

Looking good Scottie. If you like I'll give the pair of Fundulus cingulatus 3 Mile Creek Elbertha. I picked up at the AKA auction today. Then we would have lots of the in the fall. Really nice looking fish has a glowing red body color. You missed a good time at the AKA convention this weekend. But it looks like you made a lot of progress on your pond project. Talk to you soon.
Herschel

That could certainly be done! I probably won't have it filled for another two weeks, I want to make sure the walls are complete where they need to be first. I don't have enough rocks and soil to finish everything, but I should get close. The last thing I wanted was to fill the pond and then need to drain it for some reason.

Edited by scottefontay, 26 May 2008 - 08:30 PM.

An update:

Pond is "complete". I am raising rainbowfish fry in it right now so no substrate or filtration, just some plants in pots. More now than are shown in these pictures. I will rig up a simple 55 or 30 gal barrel (canister) filter this winter. I ended up spray painting the top of the pond with a paint meant for plastic lawn furniture so the blue wasn't so visible through the rocks. I plan on collecting and over-wintering some native plants in the garage to get an early start next spring. If my fry-raising is successful I will be sinking more ponds (bins/tubs/half barrels) anywhere the boss will let me

Sorry about the large images, heres a link to photo bucket gallery.

http://s532.photobuc...6/scottefontay/