Small Water Feature?
 

Wife wants a water feature in the backyard to make water noises. We live on a busy street, the fence and trees help some but I agree that water noise would be nice.

So, we can install a pot type of water feature - at its most simple, a big pot or birdbath with a pump and fountain.

Or we can install a pond with a pump - dug out, with a liner, rock edging, plants, pump.

Which have you had, and perhaps DIY'ed?. Which do you prefer?

This is a small urban backyard, that already has a lot of stuff crowded into it. Size of clear spaces available for the water feature will be something like 3' x 3' and one option will be right next to the house, that location won't have trees overhead.

I went to an open house, where the property was a corner house alongside a busy street. The owners had made an outside patio/sitting area with a fountain against the wall. It was perhaps 3 feet wide and four feet high, with water falling into a basin. Along with the wall, the falling water did a surprisingly good job of hiding traffic noise. Flipping through gardening and decorating catalogs and looking at nurseries, you could certainly buy a prefabbed fountain or easily custom make one just like it.

If you do a pond, you'll need a good filter system to get rid of the biological waste, and to keep the water clear and free of algae. Just get a water fountain from HD or Lowes and chlorinate it. lol

I have 15k gallons of koi ponds, streams and waterfall. It is a PITA to care for.

Algae and filters are not sounding good to me. I would like this to be low maintenance.

Something like this is not much more than a trickle. Plus it keeps the water aerated to reduces algae and makes it nicer for goldfish if you so wish...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1462258014.jpg

We have done these modern type water falls on the side of the house up against a fence to block out the nosy neighbors or just create a slight visual impact instead of a boring fence. Very low maintenance. Change 30-50% of the water every two months. They are about 2' wide x 6'long with a curve in front, usually no more then 24" high. Water coming down a slate wall about 5' tall. The real PITA is keeping the calcification under control. A couple of low voltage submerged lights does the trick lighting the ares up from under there. We use a liner for water proofing and build the pond out of cinder block. Finish both the inside and exterior with material of their choice. At one time, we were building a bunch of these for condo owners out in West LA as their condos have limited outdoor space.

The algae is easy to take care of. A little chemical will do the trick. Its feeding the local wide life is the problem. If you have fish in there (Mosquito fish are great) and a few floating plants like water lilies would be pretty. I had a pound in back of my house. All I did was feed the racoon nightly. For days, I have no idea what happened to the gold fishes. Not until they brought beer to hang out that's when I discovered the problem.

Given your space restrictions you may want to go with a pre-formed liner and a simple drop-in pump.

Preformed Plastic Ponds - Everything-Ponds.com

Pondmaster Starter Pond Kit - Includes Pump, Filter and Fountain Head - PMK190

I put in a 2500 gallon, 40" deep pond with skimmer, particle filter, and bio filter about 10 years ago. It is NOT a set it an forget it project. Every week there is something to do - usually cleaning the particle filter. I have to keep herons away because they LOVE colorful fish. But it is amusing and there is always something going on. Right now the green frogs are mating. In a few weeks the bull frogs will be at it. Then the fish will start mating. We have some golden orfes (fish) about a foot long that prowl the pond like sharks and jump halfway out of the water to grab something to eat. It is very relaxing to sit out by the pond with a martini, listen to the waterfall, and watch the fish glide along.

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The pond is seasonal here in Ohio. None of the water lilys are up yet and the ferns that grow in the bio filter (black thing at the top of the waterfall) have not come up yet to hide it so it looks kind of bare and ugly at this time of year.

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There are at least 12 green frogs mating in the pond. This little guy is looking for love. We'll probably have a couple thousand tadpoles in 10 days or so.

Mom has 2 - sorta. Out front is a nice 5 acre pond wtih bass, bluegills, etc.

Out back is a 10' diameter stock tank wtih a pump that releases water to run over some rocks. Gold fish, gouramis, gambusia, etc. in it.

Or get creative wtih terracotta pots and a pump - maybe check out the ponds section on monsterfishkeepers.com for some ideas

That size you could also use a rubbermaid livestock water trough (stock tank).
Black, fish safe, many sizes, not that expensive, sometimes you find them on CL for half price and tough as nails.

http://en.lmgtfy.com/?q=rubbermaid+water+stock+tank+images

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This is our pond in the back yard. We had it put in by a local professional team. The dirt we have is pure clay and is like digging into abobe when it is dry and when wet you can make bricks or throw pots on a spinning wheel. They dug the hole and hauled away the clay.

Typical of someone installing it for someone else they did the fastest and easiest plumbing hookups for the pump. It was PVC pipe all glued in place. Of course when the pump dies it was an ordeal for me to replace. I put in a quick connect for the pump so it is easy to remove and clean the gunk that collect on the intake.

There is a dual filter at the waterfall side and the intake basket has a net and a filter. We have to clean the filters about once every two weeks.

The first year we had it we waited a few weeks before we added fish to give the alga time to season the water. The toads found the pond and we had hundreds of baby toads. And I do me hundreds. We spent a few few evenings rounding up the baby toads and I took them to a local creek. They would have had mass die offs in my back yard with that many. Now the Koi keep the toads and frogs in check. The Koi will eat the toad eggs and young tadpoles.

The dachshund in the photos was convinced we put in the perfect playground just for her. She would spend hours out there hunting for bugs and lizards.

I'm in the exact same boat. Once a week my wife sees something on pinterest or one of the home improvement TV shows and says "Oooh, can you do one like that?"

In our front yard, we have a small fountain we got @ OSH. I thought I had a picture somewhere online, but I don't. It's about 3' high, 18" wide, 2' long, and the basin is about 8" deep. The pump pushes the water up to a small trough on the top section, which fills up and spills across a copper funnel back to the bottom. It sits right outside her office, and she likes the background noise, although I think it sounds like some guy urinating constantly. I replaced the original pump with one that shuts off when the water gets too low.

At least she only wanted a pond...my wife and kids want to build a natural swimming pool and ponds.:rolleyes:
Something like below...

http://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/bc31370101...ional-pool.jpg

Mark, that is pretty BUT. Does the water smell like a pond?

I can't imagine wanting to swim in water that smells like our koi pond. Our dogs will get a drink from our pond if they are out in the back yard and then come inside and want to get in my lap. It is easy to tell they have been drinking pond water for the smell. It is not real bad but I would not want to swim in that. Maybe a large pond does not have the pond smell.

Very nice!!

love and hate the damm frogs and their tads
good that they eat bugs
and when the baby fish get about an inch tads are free good live food
but when the koi spawn the tads will eat the little baby fish
so I spend too much time chasing tads out of the outside baby tanks

I converted a swimming pool 37x17x 9 to a koi pond
and just change out the water often rather then run pumps and filters
but with lots of free well water less then 10 ft down in s fla that may not work else where
but often water changes will keep the smell down

It's built as a natural filter system, it has a skimmer, pumps, etc. and it has to have a percentage of area for plants and the gravel filter bed.
The big thing is you can't have fish in it, but things like frogs are encouraged.
Some do it with a semi-traditional type pool area so they can use a barracuda pool cleaner.
These are big in europe.

You could do a separate koi pond away from the swimming pond.

We have both a built in water feature and a stand alone water fountain.

This is our built in unit. Very simple with just a single 140 GPH fountain pump. This was with the house when we bought it but in serious disrepair. The bottom is shaped concrete about with max depth of 16". I painted it black with simple latex paint and it has held up for 3 years now. I removed all soil and plants that were around it which helps keep this pretty tidy. I add 1/4 cup of chlorine ~ 2 weeks apart and we run the pump in the PM when we are home. I have contemplated expanding the water fall feature up the block wall and add a stacked stone finish but that would be strictly for looks. The sounds now are perfect.

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This stand alone fountain we purchased ~ 2 years ago. Also very low maintenance with a cap full of chlorine once in a while. I actually prefer it to get a bit green with moss and algae to look like the huge fountains at the Santa Barbara Mission.

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I like both water features equally and there is no difference in maintenance. The built in unit does attract rodents and I set traps every couple weeks. The stand alone attracts birds in the early evening who come in for a bath and drink. Very pleasant to sit close by with a glass of wine at the end of the day.

I need to do something like this! Might be able to get off my flomax?

Kept it simple....next to the pool.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1462305274.jpg

I like the IDEA of a pond with a foot bridge, koi, lillies, and stuff.

But I HATE the sound of frogs, smell, algae, and having to clean dead stuff out of water. I think I'd probably make a dry pond. That sounds much better to me.

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I put in this free standing pedestal type off of our two patios. Really nice sound to mask traffic. Also right outside our master bedroom.

I pulled power and fresh water supply over, it's nice to be able to add water without dragging a hose over. I also poured the larger concrete base. Just felt like it needed a little more height and slightly bigger footprint. Plan is to eventually tile the bigger base. It runs on a 620 GPH pump.

This is in full sun the majority of the day. Algae grows fast! We use a Beckett fountain care product rather than chlorine. Easier on the surrounding landscape and birds drinking the water. I drain it every couple of months and clean with bleach, then start over with the algae care.

Really a nice addition to our patio area. Worth the effort!

Cooper

I admit the green frogs get a little annoying, but it's only for about a week in the spring. You aren't the first person to mention smell here, but my pond doesn't smell. I don't think a healthy one does. Not sure what you mean by dead stuff.
Maintaining a pond is a hobby, like gardening. It's definitely not a hobby for everyone.

We don't notice any smell from our pond unless you get your hands wet and smell your hands. Or if the dogs have been drinking the pond water their breath smells like a pond instead of the normal sweet smell from a dogs mouth. :rolleyes:

I got a microscope for Christmas a couple of years ago and I looked at several samples of pond water over the course of a summer. I expected to see all kinds of microscopic critters swimming around and was surprised at how lifeless it was.

for noise reduction, it has been found that bushes with leaves work better than sound walls or fences .... if you have a bare fence, noise bounces off of it. place bushes, in front of it, I was going to say ivy, but that stuff escapes and goes down stream to creeks and takes over....

Yes, now that you point that out, it makes a ton more sense to me.

Lot of inspiration here!

I have to keep reminding myself that my space is very small.

I have some left over copper sheet. Maybe I can add something to a fountain to make it louder.

FYI: They make a super concentrated blue dye product (comes in a small bottle) you can add to your pond/water feature to control algae, instead of chlorine. The dye is compatible with aquatic creatures....unlike the chlorine.

Ponds are fun but can be a lot of work. They sometimes need daily attention if the water is warm or you have fish, lily pads, turtles, overhanging vegitation etc. We have a simple two tier fountain on a timer and it sounds nice in the courtyard and is very easy to maintain. Total volume is only about 3 gallons so we just flush it out weekly with fresh water and sometimes give it a little scrub in the summer months. Easy breezy and honey likes it a lot.

More gallons= more maintenance

My pond near my front yard...in a gated courtyard.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1462322968.jpg

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Ceramic basin I think I found at a garden store... antique hand water pump at a garage sale or junk shop - can't remember. Pump is super cheap fountain pump like at home depot. Abalone shells have been collected from the beach over the years. Whole thing is maybe a foot and a half around. Can't remember why I put it up on the Cedar blocks - statuary is garden store clay something or another...
I've had this basin and other parts in a variety of configurations over the years - this is just the current one. Water is blue from a splash of cool mist fluid to keep the iron pump from rusting. I drop a bromine spa pellet in to keep algae away. It runs an little more than a trickle, so not really a sound mask, per se...

Wall fountain that runs off a timer (on/off) and additionally gets topped off with a drip irrigation line tied into the landscape irrigation so it never needs manual refilling.

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The honeymoon is over. The frogs mated yesterday and their constant trilling is gone. There are thousands of frog eggs in the pond and the only sound is the trickle of the waterfall. It's fun watching this little ecosystem go through its seasons.