Cu455's Pond

I am coping this from another forum I posted on.  That is why some stuff might seem out of place.

I got my pond in today. It's 5ft in diameter and 18 inches high. I Next summer when I hopefully have a house,  plan on getting something about 7ft or 8ft in diameter.



I started to put the pond together last night.


My main filter is going to be made from a rubbermaid 34 gallon bin. I will be using the lid to reduce evaporation. A pvc chimney for gas exchange will be installed. 

First are my bioballs.



Plastic hooks glued on the side.



Eggcrate with some zip ties on the side to connect to the hooks.



Drip plate. I still have to add the holes.



Filter media. I will be using filter pads and a shoe box sized container with holes drilled on the bottom. Kind of like plastic filter sock.



Here is my planned set up. I will have three returns from the wet dry. One will go to my equipment (heaters, probes, reactors, UV) and macro, one will go back to the pond and the third one, which I need still need to drill, will go to a deep sand bed.

When I saved the pictures all my black lines moved. That's why it looks a little off. The clear storage bin is just a place holder. I will be replacing that with a 55 gallon. The simmer will be on it's own pump.



In addition to the bioballs I got a bunch of pot scrubbers for the filter.



I put the pool together.  I am very impressed with the liner.  It is very similar to the material  inflatable kiddie pools are made from. I either lost the instructions or it never came with instructions. The vertical bar has a hole in it. I have no idea what it is for. The horizontal bars at the rim has holes which I used pins to hold together.



Completed.



Since it is near the bathroom I was thinking of sticking my skimmer drain line down the sink or shower. The toilet will be super gross, but funny if anyone uses the toilet. Just not sure if it's a good idea.




I put the liners in today and started to fill it up. I went through all my tubing and couldn't get it long enough to reach the pond. I didn't feel like cutting the tubes to make more connector pieces so I came up with this. Pictures are a little dark because I am taking them on my tablet with ho flash.



Progress is being made, hopefully it will be setup in a couple of days. I am going to start moving the sand little by little over the next week and then move all my fish and filtration at once. There are only three fish and the move is about 12 ft. I don't think I will have much die off.

Anyone have any ideas for an auto top off? I want to install a bulk head and have it overflow into a sump so I can put a ATO sensor in there. I don't really want to risk screwing it up. If I put a ATO sensor in the pond it will get destroyed.

I was thinking of making a stand at the level I want the water and cage for the ATO sensor. Then securing it in the middle somewhere. This will keep it in place and the walls clear.

I also used this prepond liner.



A few weeks ago I transferred my filtration and fish. A few days ago I went to my  friends house and took the guitarfish back I gave him. Yesterday I added my pacific creole fish and mai tai clownfish.  The other fish are cortez rays, or what I was told was cortez stingrays. I think they might be California rays, velvet damsel and a panther grouper.  There is black sand in there it's just hard to see.

[youtube]Z9F7Z9aqO74[/youtube]







There is a screen on the pump. I placed the pump under some rocks and the tube goes straight out of the water and across the pond above the water. I have an external pump I am going to use. I can't take the pump until I fully shut down my other tank. That is a Mag 9.5 so I can use it as an external, it's something I might do. I still have lots of small changes to do.

The fish selection is very poor for black walls and black sand. The 2 stingrays are the only fish that are noticeable. I am thinking of getting rid of the damsel and panther grouper and getting a couple of garibalds and running my tank at 65 degrees. Then I realized that fish places don't have a great selection of coldwater fish and won't enjoy going to them anymore.

I also have this fish I didn't mention because you just can't see him. This is another reason why I don't want to go coldwater. I will miss out on impulse buys like this.  If anyone knows where I can get a few more that will be great.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/genera...88-fish-id.html

When I got the stingrays they where in mylar. Is that bad for them?



This pool is tough. It's built like a kalashnikov. I had a blanket under the pool. There was some splash from the filter and the blanket got wet. I lifted up each part of the pool so the legs aren't on the blanket and pulled the blanket out. I then cleaned half the floor and draged to pool while it was full about 2ft so I can clean the floor. The pool of doing great. I am very impressed with the strength of the pool.

I cleaned the filtration a little and redecorated the pool. I also tried to get all the fish in the video and spotlight them. I just need to get my UV, skimmer and lights up.

[youtube]cZCJd0I1irk[/youtube]

The pond basically looks the same with the exception of adding my skimmer and UV.

 I gave the barred flagtail away. I moved the panther grouper, damsel, pacific creole, eel and clownfish into my old tank. I had a bunch of zoas someone gave me for equipment they needed. They weren't doing to well in the pond lit up by a dome light so I set my old tank up as a reef.  

While going through my videos looking for something I came across the original pond I had. I will try and find a video of it setup. I know my carpentry skills aren't the best.

For now the only thing in the pond is the pair of stingrays.


[youtube]DSRZj0El9so[/youtube]

This video is from a while ago, thought it was pretty cool. One night I didn't turn off my lights. When I went to look at my fish in the morning the eel was just hanging out, above the waterline, in the light. I gave him a little nudge to make to everything is ok. Then got my camera. By the time I started to tape he was already looking to go back into the water. You can still see him above the water. If you look at the rock you can see were the water and air meet. He also took out my mangroves while he was up there.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&p...1&v=Yss-ZyMmg2I[/youtube]