How I Built my Natural Pond for $0
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- Опубликовано: 9 дек 2020
- I have a goldfish pond in my back yard. I built it by digging a hole, and putting plants from a ditch along the edges - as well as some goldfish and rosy red minnows. Have a watch as I talk through my reasoning for why this simple approach works.
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What makes something like this really nice is that it ISN'T "fancy". It is uniquely yours. The rocks show up from where they've been buried beneath the dirt for centuries. We've got cow-ponds on our farm that were dug by my grampa and, after him, by my dad, and now that we no longer have farm animals they're just ponds for wildlife habitat but they're still a pleasure to sit beside in the silence. Ponds create mini-ecosystems for supporting a wider variety of life forms on your property. Thanks for this video. I'm having a city-friend down from Kingston for a walk on Friday and I think I'll make a point of walking by the pond.
I agree - it looks just like a lake does from above.
Sitting and staring at a hole filled with water is just as satisfied as sitting and staring at a campfire.
For the longest time, I wanted a pond in my back yard...just a little one, enuff to listen to the peaceful sounds... THANX for this video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Love your simple and down to earth attitude. You make the supposedly complicated things easy.
I try :) Thanks!
We did something similar in our property here in NB, but without any fish, as we didnt dig too deep. We had all sorts of water insects and looooots of tadpoles. We let it dry completely during this summer, after all frogs were already out and about. Now in the late fall it filled back with all the rain and we had some "pond grass" (I dont know the proper name) that I have no idea how they "found" the pond..lol. Thanks for the video and all the amazing tips for gardening in the Maritimes. All your content is so helpful, specially for a newbie to Canadian gardening like me. :)
Thanks. Crazy how the water organisms find the water isn't it :)
What benefits did the frogs provide besides eating insectd
It amazes me how resilient nature can be. We have a small lake and every spring the fish come back..!!
Always a pleasure to see that changes in the seasons
Love the pond. That's funny that one jumped out of the hole in the ice lol "Let me out"😂
Natural and no fancy stuff is to me the most attractive. No maintenance is great also.
Very beautiful and peaceful.
Nature finds a way to survive.
Thanks for sharing ☺ 👍
I love it when nature solves my problems for me :)
A clay pot in the deep end (or a length of pvc pipe if you don't mind the plastic) would give the fish a place to hide.
Great idea!
Thanks for the video man! I’m in NB and have been wanting to dig a small pond in the yard. Problem is finding people in this part of the world with experience! Good advice here
Glad I could help. I just made a new pond and did a step by step series on that process if you're interested
A rocky overhang would maybe give some shelter to the fish…nice setup…good job…I just hate the idea of using plastic…
Do you think you can put turtles in an leave them all year
@@macmoney4011 they would leave for better habitat Bc animals would make a quick meal out of them
Thanks so much for sharing! We also have rosy-red minnows in our pond. It's about the same size pond but with a liner. Anyway, our minnows love hiding in the folds of the liner. The only time I ever see them is when I leave my GoPro recording underwater in the pond for an hour...LOL. They are very crafty survivors! (PS...I have a couple of those videos on my channel showing them hiding.) Thanks again for another great video!!!
Is that the video with Strauss playing in the background?
@@maritimegardening4887 LOL, yep.
Very beautiful nature pond so you can pump the water out to your veggies garden , thanks for sharing and like the content
Thanks for visiting
Im sure if he had a pump the pond would get drained. Bailing keeps a close eye on it. Don't 4get its only approx a ft deep and then there's evaporation!!!
Liked this video coz it's a natural pond. Not some other plastic/sheet laid pond
Years ago I dug a big hole in my clay yard to throw yard waste into, hoping it would compost into garden soil. (Before the internet). A friend told me compost had to be in a pile above ground, so I never did throw anything in. It turned into a pond in the fall and since my daughter didn't take care of her goldfish I released them into it. Seemed they lived for long time, but a severe pounding rain did kill the smaller fish at one point. This year I tried to dig a better pond in a better spot, but it does not hold water. It is irregular, some spots deeper, and I don't see how a pond liner will fit in it properly, so it has just been sitting there for a few months, empty.
If you already have a lot of clay in your soil, adding more is viable for ponds. Specifically look into bentonite clay, which is a type of clay from volcanic ash.
@@bobprivate8575 Yeah, I am watching videos on bentonite and other methods. Thanks.
Great info, Greg! Going to share with my daughter who has a boggy area at the back of her property. Thanks!
Oh it's wonderful! Thank you so much for showing us and explaining the care! I had no idea they could live throughout winter! I love this idea!
I think it was your emphatic request that inspired the video the most :)
Happy digging
Very!
Will have to try and create a pond like this - thanks
Have fun!
Great work., Thanks for what you do.
My pleasure!
All our rain water goes into our fish pond then into buckets around our garden we put duckweed in several buckets we find it in the wild around us
We don't feed them much outside but they will eat mosquito larvae and algea
Goldfish are plant or algea eaters but will eat small larvea too
Do your goldfish eat the duckweed?
@@maritimegardening4887 yes they will eat a pond full in a few days
So I breed the duckweed in other buckets bin size or so
I sink them in around the gardens
I find duckweed in swampy low flowing river in the spring
I'm trying to get something growing out of the fishtank in winter lol easier said than done lol
Great video Greg...I have wanted a gold fish pond for years but everytime I bring it up my wife reminds me we live on a lake front piece of property and why do I need a pond! 🤣 She may have a point!
Hey did you get a chance to make the Kraut Noodle recipe I sent you?
Have a great day and stay safe!
Mike👍😁🇨🇦
I have to make the saurkraut 1st. Will be making some in over the holidays
@@maritimegardening4887 Awesome...if I don't converse with you between now and Christmas have a wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season!
Mike
So long as u don't release them in the lake!!! I've seen them take over a lake, eat fish and grow huge!
@@michaellippmann4474 Thanks man - you too :)
@@lavendercrowl5695 Agreed. Your pond has to built such that there is absolutely no chance of them getting in the lake - but I agree with your wife - If I had a lake I wouldn't bother with making a pond.
I can’t wait to try this!! Thanks Greg!
Hope you enjoy
Thank you for sharing your pond with us. I am going to dig a little pond next year on our property. I laughed when you said that you don't know how the aquatic critters find your pond because I experienced that myself last year. I was surprised that frogs come to a plastic kiddie pool I have set out for my two ducks. I don't know how the frogs found it. It has pretty high and hard plastic sides on it. The frogs would have to jump up over the sides in order to get down into the water. It's too slippery for them to climb on and definitely too high for them to see that there was water in it so I too am mystified as to how they know there is water in it. I'm always excited to see one when I go out in the mornings.
The frogs just seem to know things :) Crazy isn't it!
I found tiny tadpoles in a plastic garbage can/rain barrel in my yard. I thought they needed to be saved, so I set up an aquarium on my back porch with quite a few tadpoles in it. One morning I found a frog in there, with them. He had come in an open door, found his way through gardening junk, climbed a wooden picnic table and the walls of a glass aquarium to get inside.
@@hermanhale9258 That is amazing. Maybe the tadpoles where his children....lol
This is amazing! Thank you for the video. I'm on zone eight in Arizona so my rain situation and climate is very different but it's nice to know it's easy having a pond
Not sure this technique (no bladder) would work in Arizona.
@@maritimegardening4887 if someone really wanted a pond, they could experiment with filling themselves and maybe having it in a shaded area. Might not work anyway but some ideas
@@ejl9292 Always worth a try :)
@@maritimegardening4887 would this work in zone 7 Virginia?
This was very interesting. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
not bad
With a mud bottom they probably do better
I bring mine in because i have a plastic pond
I think mine frezes solid but we get 40below weather too
We bring ours in for the winter after 3 or 4 years now mine are pretty big :) we have 6 out of a dozen left
Somehow with the mud there's a degree of heat transfer from the soil that seems to keep it from freezing to the ground. Mind you -40c does not happen here :) I would probably have to go deeper if that were the case
@@maritimegardening4887 ya I think you would we left a rock bass in 2019 winter and it froze so did a frog
If I kept a pump running it would be good but that's too hard for me at this point
We have sandy area that wont hold water but our liner works
Oh insects usually fly too or have a flying stage and will find puddles if need be they find water well ;)
Much love xoxox great video
Thanks :)
@@maritimegardening4887 your welcome
Oh my pond is 3 or 4 feet in Ontario
If mine was mud bottom the frog would have lived or keep it running so it doesn't freeze goldfish will live in very cold or hot weather low 02 they can gulp oxygen out of the air if they need to
Algea makes o2 too
They are tuff fish
We have a netting over our pond so a bird won't take a fish to our near by river to let it go lol the ministry of natural resources here can be tuff on goldfish rules lol I think a netting to keep birds out would help since I am about 100 feet away from a river system they don't want carp in ;)
Much love xoxox great video
I want a frog pond with some kind of steps for them to get in & out of the water.
any gradual slope will do
How do you keep the water circulation or how does it filter
Maybe put you a cattail or 2 around the edge,just have to keep them under control.
Keep who under control. Lol
Cattails r great but in 3 yrs there would b no pond...!
Its the keeping them under control part that I'm concerned about :)
Anyone know what are the regulations and safety aspects to consider are on having to fence in ponds if they are a big enough for small kids to drown in?
There's no fence on any of the ditches around here - and someone that are deeper than my pond. I guess check you local regulations.
Water striders. Would a fountain keep them from dying?
Keep what from the dying? The goldfish are fine - and rosy reds can handle even dirtier water with lower oxygen - so no need for a fountain. The rosy reds were probably killed by the goldfish. I did a bit of reading and apparently once the goldfish get big they'll attack anything that's small.
I thought you said you had to replace the goldfish. Oops
@@stassly The water is perpetually seeping into the ground - and then being replaced by rain water. It does run a but dry in the dead of summer - so I just fill it up with the garden hose a couple times. other that that it seems to just take care of itsself
Greg, I know how u like 2 do things as inexpensive as possible. I felt bad for yr fish with the water only a ft deep. You were just 4tunate 2 yrs ago that they survived that winter. As the fish get bigger they need more oxygen and keeping a hole in the ice is so simple. No need 4 fancy or expensive pumps or floating ice heaters. Here's an idea if yr interested or anybody else who reads yr comments. Have a little box thats water proof and keeps the snow out. We used an old plastic mailbox, it looks like a little barn. This is the quick idea, 4 more details if one can't figure it out msg me.
Put a little fish tank pump that's use to blow air into tanks for a bubbler or little filter and put inside a ceiling socket that just holds a light bulb. The heat from a 45 wtt lighbulb will keep the inside warm enough to keep the rubber in the pump from freezing so it blows air through a little tiny tube ( 4 fish tanks) and one weights the end of it with a bolt so it is just below the surface.
Agitates it enough to keep a hole open. What the hole does is let out toxic gases that build up from fish feces and decaying leaves. In a vety large pond one does not need to worry, especially if its at least 3 to 4 ft depth in our part of NS.
Love feeding the fish in summer, they nibble on yr fingers. Lol
Yes, they will eat frog eggs if not fed
I didn't mean to sound negative at the get go. Liked what u r trying 2 do. Build it and they will come... is do true. And hey, if you have some under water plants the fish can hide in it. If u want some plants next spring I have lots. Elodea and horn wort are to great submersible plants and Blomidon Nursery had floaters as u mentioned, I was able 2 get water lettuce which has long roots that hang in the water that helps to absorb high nitrates in the water.
Ponds don't seem to b very popular in NS like in Ontario, but maybe with yr help and some other Utubers in NS we can get them excited again.
Thanks for all the ideas LC - and I may take you up on the offer for the plants! The pond is a good distance from the house, so I'm really not interested in doing anything requiring electricity. My plan is to see how many years these guys survive. If they die at a certain size - then I know the pond needs to be deeper - or to simply use rosy reds instead of goldfish. The water level gets progressively deeper in the winter since the pond is at a low point and all the rain runs into it on those weird winter days when we get rain and all the snow melts. It can get three feet deep in there sometimes. So new rain/melt water is constantly being added (with oxygen it it) and the fish's metabolism slows down considerably when the water temp is hovering above the freezing point . Everyone seems to think I need either a bladder, a pump, a heater, or all three - so I'm keen to keep doing it the wrong way and finding a way to make it work despite the common wisdom. These fish were destined to be piranha food - so don't feel bad for them - they have a chance at life now; they had no chance back when they were in the fish tank where I found them. :)
Another thing I forgot to mention in the video - I think the rules are different when you don't have a bladder. There is no air-tight barrier between the water and the ground that way.
The slopes seem too steep for any turtles in the area to drink from.
I wasn't expecting any to wander in
You should probably warn them then.
There’s few places a turtle can’t access. I’m working on planning some pools for amphibians to use in my yard, I live by the creek so I watch turtles climb a 40’ rocky bank, so steep my neighbors claim “you can’t walk back there” which is false, I can but they can’t… but watching map turtles and cooters literally free climb this slope is impressive
He should put up a Wild Turtles Beware sign so they don't sue him...,😂
Hi Greg - great video. What store do you buy your fish from? Can't seem to find them anywhere.
I think it was petsmart in bayers lake - off chain lake drive - by the McDonalds
Don't get them now unless u plan on keeping them inside 4 the winter. They need 2 climatize.
I don't have clay on my property so I hauled in 5 yards to build a small test hole. The project in mind is a 7000sf pond by 6 feet deep and will be $$$$$$$ expensive..lol
hope it works out for you!
Why would you put invasive fish into a natural pond?
They are only invasive if they are invading something.
I feel like I'd want a pump if it was outside the kitchen garden.
Why is that? It's not needed for the fish
@@maritimegardening4887 to pump water for the vegetables instead of hand watering with watering cans. Lovely reservoir of water you have there!
@@RussellBallestrini Oh I see - yes that would be nice - but they are terribly expensive