Simon
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Registered: 24th Apr 03
Location: Oxfordshire
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Did you finish your pond?
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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at my house in aber? Pretty much, just got to build a retaining wall to tidy up the face of earth thats there , and put down some more stone chippings on the other side of the stream. 
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Simon
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Registered: 24th Apr 03
Location: Oxfordshire
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get some pics up of that one!
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Marc
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Registered: 11th Aug 02
Location: York
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So much better than before! Like the border.
For your next pond project I want to see something really special! lol
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc
For your next pond project I want to see something really special! lol
My dad wants to build a large koi pond one day, and I will probably be designing and building that. It may not be for a few years, but it will be a proper concrete rendered blockwork one, 6 foot depth, window the lot 
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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Not had a chance to update it again for a while, its pretty much finished now apart from the waterfall, and even that just needs cementing together so really not too much left to do.
I ran the waste pipe from the filter to the drains under the garden and slabs...
The pipe just needs clipping against the wall now, but its quite a tidy job
Better pic of the pond from above, with the rebuilt wall.
Ive taken the stone chippings half way along the lawn to the right so far...
... but cant do any more cos im waiting for a water feature to be delivered that I bought off ebay. Thought it would break up the stone chippings a bit, and will look nice directly outside the kitchen window
Ive put the filter system, UV Clarifier, air pump for the bottom drain, air pump for cleaning out the filter, and all the electrics inside the greenhouse, with the hope that the fact that its in the dry will encourage my mum to clean it more often, cos she never used to 
As I said in the other thread about outdoor electrics, we got armoured cable going to outside that goes to a junction box just outside the greenhouse, but it was too fat to fit into the 6 switch box, so it goes to another junction box where it goes to regular cable, then into the main box. I also wired up a motion sensor on the other side of the pond so the lights come on automatically at night when there is someone outside
Thats the basic idea of how the waterfall will look, but im leaving that for another time to do properly cos Im going back home to Aber tomorrow.
And how it looks at night, although I justput green lenses on the other two lights by the house (so now all 3 that side are) and blue ones on the opposite side.
Pretty pleased with it now! I'll update one last time when its all completely finished in a few weeks in case anyone is still reading this thread
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C2RL R
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Registered: 28th Mar 02
Location: Redcliffe, QLD
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looks good mate, wish i had room for a koi pond. not too keen on the coloured lights, i prefer white really. That water feature you're getting will look great i think.
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Superlite Ltd.
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Registered: 9th Jan 07
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Looking great 
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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Time for anohter update...
I never got around to building the waterfall properly as I moved to Spain beofe I had time, plus the long term plan was to build up the pond above ground level when I moved out of my house here in Aberystwyth so by the time I had moved bavck from Spain there didnt seem like much point! Anyway, my final year here in Aber has come to an end and ive just graduated from uni after 5 years here (3 1/2 in this house) so for the past 3 weeks I've been back at my mums house in HEreofrd with my best mate, making her pond bigger so I can bring my koi to her pond there for the foreseeable future so I thought I should put up some of the progress pics for whoever is interested...
Her pond before was about 9,000 litres, not a bad size really at all, but for the amount of fish we will have in there it had to be made bigger (The new one is 19,000 litres). We started off by catching the fish in there and putting them into their temporary home, and then draining the pond of water.
[Edited on 17-07-2009 by drunkenfool]
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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Then I went off to pick up the filter that I had bought off Ebay. It was advertised as the Nexus 200, but when I went to go and pick it up I realised that it was actually the next model up and worth a hell of a lot more than what I paid for it Heres a pic of it in the van
and after taking the front of the greenhouse off, we got it in the place of the old filter.
I hooked it up to the same waste valve, but now that the new pond is gravity fed and not pump fed, I had to sort out all the plumbing for the new inlets, outlets etc
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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Then came taking out the old edge of the pond and putting down the foundations for the new walls in roughly the same place
and the long process of building up the walls. Inner skin of concrete blocks, outer skin of bricks (but not on the back wall cos nobody will see it, we just used a double skin of blocks there) and then filled the cavity between the two with cement. We also build in the tank connectors for the bottom drains at this stage.
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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another day or two of building saw the pond at this stage...
Then a little road trip up to Wolverhampton and back to pick up the two panes of reinforced glass that we ordered for two 3ft x 2ft viewing windows
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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Bit more building
Then the old liner and underlay was removed, I put a bit of old carpet on the very bottom just for some extra support, then resanded the entire bottom and put down the fabric underlay, then finally the new liner.
(For some reason my mate looks like a migit in this photo )
We ordered a 10x8m liner but were accidently sent a 12x9m one, hence it looking absolutely huge!
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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Started filling up the water to get the liner into place
Holes cut out for the windows and the liner sealed to the glass with special sealant.
Peekaboo!
The fish went back in the pond again because the inner wall was 100% finished, then the old filter was hooked up temporarily just to keep the water parameters ok. THis is as high as we filled the pond (Just under 2 blocks high) until the outer wall had been built, but we also put reinforcing brackets on the corners of the inner wall for some extra support.
...then carried on builkding up the outer wall
Then it was time to go back to Aberystywth to get the first lot of fish from my house there as I am leaving here next week for good. I also brought with me one of the two Eazypod filters and hooked it up after the pumped return from the Nexus 300, so there's now another 50l of fully mature media in the system.
Maverick and George
Rick, and Bob the Kohaku (which going by the size of it, I would put money on him actually being an egg laden female so maybe Barbara would be more appropriate )
In their new home...
and one last photo for the meantime, my best mate Eddy in his full scuba gear, retrieving a brick from the bottom of the pond that fell it from the top from where it was holding the temporary net in place! There was a slight leak from the window too but that has since been fixed.
Its on hold again now for a while as we have graduation this week plus the house move, but hopefully there will be some more progress pics up when its getting towards finished
[Edited on 17-07-2009 by drunkenfool]
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marklawton
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Registered: 24th Apr 05
Location: Pensby, Wirral Drives:Golf mk4 GTI
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just read the whole topic, bloody awesome mate. would love something like that but must cost a small fortune
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N16K
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Registered: 4th Oct 04
Location: Belfast, NI Drives: Corsa D SRi, Tuned Cooper S, B
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Great pond, very interesting thread.
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micra_pete
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Registered: 23rd Apr 03
Location: West Yorkshire
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what a brilliant project
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Simon
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Registered: 24th Apr 03
Location: Oxfordshire
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Thanks looks really good. At work are working on a new science building for a school and the landscape designer has 'designed' a pond with a glass viewing window but has left us to detail it up. Best solution I've found so far is for the pond to be fibreglassed and then glass can be sealed in at this stage. But you've managed it with liner and a special sealant? This pond will have no fish at all only insects and plants. Have struggled to find Pond specialist who will tackle it because of the glass viewing screen
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Tom
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Registered: 3rd Apr 02
Location: Wirral, Merseyside
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That's fully awesome, well done 
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Ben G
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Registered: 12th Jan 07
Location: Essex
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that's a bit big isn't it 
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a_j_mair
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Registered: 23rd Jan 04
Location: Scotland
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impressive
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_Allan_
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Registered: 24th Mar 04
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Job Done TBH 
Nice build anyway.
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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quote:
Originally posted by marklawton
just read the whole topic, bloody awesome mate. would love something like that but must cost a small fortune
Building materials came to about £900 in total including the pipework and fittings. The filtration system should have been around £4000 in total (there is also a bubble bead filter being fitted soon) but we managed to get it for a lot, lot less. Then the liner was £120 (ebay), lighting and remote control for the electrics around £200, the windows were £105 each which was an absolute bargain. I got the contact details for the company (Watkins Glass in Wolverhampton) off the koi forum, the local companies that we asked were giving quotes in the region of £300+ per window! A professional build of a pond this size you would be looking at around £6k probably, plus the filtration system. but we have done the whole thing from start to finish for around 1/3 of that including the filtration system.
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drunkenfool
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Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
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quote:
Originally posted by Simon
Thanks looks really good. At work are working on a new science building for a school and the landscape designer has 'designed' a pond with a glass viewing window but has left us to detail it up. Best solution I've found so far is for the pond to be fibreglassed and then glass can be sealed in at this stage. But you've managed it with liner and a special sealant? This pond will have no fish at all only insects and plants. Have struggled to find Pond specialist who will tackle it because of the glass viewing screen
I looked into it quite a bit before starting this build so if you want any more advice feel free to chat to me on msn. Basically though, we cut the concrete blocks out to make a recess then held the window in place while we filled the gap with expanding foam between the front of the glass and the blocks. This gave an even surface for the glass and water pressure to press against, and then the liner was sealed to the inside face of the glass using Gold Label pond sealant. If you do decide to go down this route then let me know and I can give you some tips!
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Colin
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Registered: 4th Apr 02
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Awesome....I thought the 1st version was good then it got a whole lot better!!
I want one at my new house
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