The black frame is made of 1 1/2" PVC and hods up a leaf net to help keep some of the millions of oak and maple leaves of of the pond. The light colored object on top of the frame is a piece of shade cloth
to cut down on the sunlight and hold down the alage grouth.
Water Lilly bloom, June 29, 2003
Rubbermaid 100 gallon stock tank
veggie filter
Discharge pipe from veggie filter into mesh planter box filled with lava rocks and
barly straw to form sort of a trickle tower.
Here's a close-up of the discharge pipe and trickle tower, the smaller pipe to the right is the 1" input to the veggie filter from the pump.
That's barly straw laying on top of the lava rocks.
Pipes leading to and from the veggie filter, that's a 1" ball valve
used to control the amount of flow to the filter.
This is the stand pipe discharge in the veggie flter. The white ring arount the pipe
is used t stop items (trash, duck weed, etc.) that are floating in the filter from going down the drain and into the pond.
The veggie filter must be working, before I built it I had pea soup green water.
Now you can see the bottom of the pond that's 4 feet deep.
Our "cement pond" is a converted spa/hot tub that's located inside the walled in patio on the back of our house. We used it as an unheated cool pool for several years because the electric heater died just after we bought the house. We just bypassed the heater since we figured it would cost a small fortune to 1600 gallons of water and all the concrete. As all the trees around the house grew taller they shaded to spa more and more until the water only got warm enough to use for about 4 or 5 weeks in mid summer. And with all the trees is was a real pain to keep clean considering how little it got used. After it set unused for about 3 years I decided to turn it into a fish pond. We have gotten much more enjoyment out of it as a fish pond than we ever did as a spa.
Feburary 2004 snow photos
"Snow Pond"
Latest visitor to the cement pond.
2 October 2004
He's sitting in the plant basket with the Umbrella Palm in the veggie filter.
The Umbrella Palm obviously enjoys being in the veggie filter, this is just the second year we've had it and it's really taken off. The only problem is
it's roots have grown down into the lava rocks and I can't lift it out.
