My wine barrel pond(s)

[miket]

My non reef fish keeping experiment... so far so good!

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/barrelpond/bpond1.jpg

Website about the ponds:
http://www.socaldivevideos.com/barrelpond/

- MikeT

[Mike O'Brien]

That is a great idea. Very nice !

[stevo4535]

those are sweet!

[miket]

That is a great idea. Very nice !

those are sweet!

Thanks a lot guys, I had wanted to make a barrel pond for years but never got around to it, this last spring I got 6 1/2 barrels on craigslist for $50 (for all 6). Since I had extra barrels I thought the raised barrel/waterfall idea would be pretty cool.

There are no liners in these either, it's just solid Oak. The wine residue made for some neat water color and algae blooms at first, but three months later the water is super clear (for a pond).

It's nice to use sunlight for growth. If you can belive it I, started with just three tiny Water Hyacinth plants in early May, I easily throw away 20-30 plants a week as they overgrow the barrels. Can't wait for my Lilly to start blooming and the Cattail plants to start growing tall.

It creates a nice stream sound in my backyard. Very Zen like.

- MikeT

[GSELLERS1245]

what would be very nice is to make your RO waste water feed the waterfall :)

[miket]

14 months later...

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/barrelpond/Pond_09_23_08.jpg

The wine barrel pond is still going. There have been some problems...

While I live in the Los Angeles Metro area, I seem to have a wildlife problem.

Maybe 3 or 4 months after this post I woke one morning to find complete devastation of the pond. Plants were all over the ground, every submerged potted plant tipped over and dug through and every plant's roots dug up. The few lilly pads I had were eaten or the stems eaten... Out of the 8 original fish, two were alive, one was fine. The other had some bad wounds. The snail population was halved.

Having no idea what happened and figuring it was a hit and run attack (and I had left the back gate open), I fixed up the screwed up pots, salvaged what I could of the plants and made everything as good as I could.

The next morning, the pond was devastated again, last two fish gone... Our neighbor found some raccoon footprints.

So, my wife and I bought a sonic deterrent that was motion sensitive, it was supposed to work on Raccoons so we got 8 new fish.

The next few months were great although we lost two goldfish (one jumped, and the other died of unknown causes). But the remaining 6 were big and strong.

Then one night, All but one goldfish dead, total destruction of the ponds. Arrrrr!

After this incident I just have to admit the goldfish may get eaten and the Raccoon who found it is just going to keep returning. I used large cement blocks to hold down planters and large PVC "caves" for the fish to have a chance to survive next time. I got 3 more fish to go with the "survivor" Goldfish.

I recently cleaned out the under-gravel filter I made for the ponds. Here is a pic while I was working on it. I had had planters over this large pebble gravel that the Raccoon had flipped over, mixing the fine planting media into the pebbles. This totally screwed up the under-gravel filter and was jamming the pump constantly. I had to sift out the smaller fine plant media before putting everything back together. Works great now. While it doesn't look as good, I decided on nothing but floating plants in this bottom (or Sump) barrel.

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/barrelpond/PondPVCfilter.jpg
Here is the cleaned barrel and UG filter.

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/barrelpond/PondUGFilterGravel.jpg
Here is it filled with "only" the pebble gravel that will never clog the holes in the UG filter.

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/still_galleries/Aug08gardengallery/images/P1010085.jpg
This picture is a few months old, it's the top barrel.

- MikeT

[miket]

The barrel ponds are sometimes called water gardening. And while on the subject of gardening...

We moved into this house less than 2 years ago. There was nothing in the backyard but grass, concrete, walls and fences.

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/still_galleries/FoodGardening/images/01_20_07_Backyard.jpg
Here is what it looked like when we first planted some stuff in January 2007.

http://www.socaldivevideos.com/still_galleries/Aug08gardengallery/images/P1010023.jpg
This is what it looked like about two months ago!

Growing stuff is so cool... it's like my giant outside reef. I have attracted many native bird species and they use the pond as a bath.

- MikeT

[FishTankFreddie]

my mother would be proud

[FiSHy sAy HeY]

Thats pretty cool

[Europa]

Very cool barrel ponds. Damn raccoons. Love what you've done with the back yard.

[wfuavenger]

That is an awesome idea! It looks great. I would love to have that and maybe a koy pond that it feeds into or something.

Great job though!

[miket]

That is an awesome idea! It looks great. I would love to have that and maybe a koy pond that it feeds into or something.

Great job though!

Thanks all,

I have seen people use wine barrels as pond filters (to hide the pumps and media, grow different plants etc).

- MikeT

[miket]

... Last night, I saw my motion lights go off out in front of my house. I go outside with a flashlight and there is a huge Raccoon with a limp looking back at me.

He then limped away over the neighbors fence.

I then went to the back yard where the ponds are...

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Bastard!!! he ate 2 of the 4 fish, including the large one that survived his last two attacks... he also made an effort to destroy and uproot the submerged plants. Water was everywhere, I think he hops in when he does the dirty work.

I need to order some Coyote piss and apply it around the ponds, I hear that scares the crap out of them as long as I apply it every two weeks.

I HATE RACCOONS!!!

- MikeT

[Europa]

That gimp raccoon sucks. Hope the coyote urine works.