How to Build a Fish Pond Part 3 - Installing the Edging, Pump and Filter

Hello there, welcome to part three of how to build a fish pond. In this episode we're going to be using sandstone which we got from the quarry yesterday, like that, and that basically we've hand selected it so we've got two flat surfaces so when we're building with it it's easy to build ones on top and as long as it's got one decent face we can use it so we're going to be building that around the inside of the pond where the big rockery stone isn't, that'll give us a nice solid Side of the pond to stand on. So we've got the rockery stone round the back edge of the pond, mixed in with a few cobbles and so on, which are cemented in. And then we're going to bring out a very short dry stone wall, basically just two, possibly three stones high, all the way around the inside of the pond. This will actually be mostly underwater. So we're going to take that all the way around there to meet up with that rockery stone. We may put one or two big rockery stones in the middle of it. I'm not quite sure. I'll see how it goes. And on top of this wall, we're going to use nice, big, flat sandstone pieces, which should come, you know, kind of around here. So they'll straddle the wall and the grass. We'll obviously have to dig out certain sections to be able to fit in these stones, but they'll be cemented on the top of the wall. Good thing about building a wall like this is, when it's cemented on the top, it's going to be very secure, you know, perfect to walk on. It's not going to fall into the pond. make a really nice edge and also you've got all these gaps behind the wall with it being a dry stone wall you've got little gaps between the stones where frogs and newts can get in and excellent places for amphibians to hibernate in the back of here, this is a handy trick we've got the conduit that's going to supply the pump buried through the lawn under the paving slab and it comes out here there's going to be an electric box on the wall there to distribute But obviously the cable, because it comes like that, doesn't stand a cat and hell's chance of going through there. So we've got a thick earth cable, pretty much inflexible sort of stuff, very thick. We've stripped the pump cable down, and we've tied that onto there. So when we pull from the other end, this should pull the pump cable through with no problems. That's it, job's a good'un. That's the pump and filter cables put through. One goes through here, one goes through here. Back to the garage where the electrics going to be. We've got the dry stone wall finished around the inside. As I said before it's only a tiny little wall and the water should come at the very least halfway up that wall. So now all we need to do is just put some big flat stones around here. So got big flat stones to go around here and they'll be cemented on. We're busy putting the edging stones on now. So I've plonked it on here on top of the wall. Obviously it's not sitting level, it's leaning in towards the pond because the surrounding land is higher than our wall. So I'm plonking it on, marking it by cutting in with a spade. Then we'll flip that stone off, dig out this area here that we've marked down to about two inches or so, roughly a little bit deeper than the thickness of the stone. Then we'll put mortar in, which is sand and cement mix, in here. and across the top of the wall And then we'll put this big stone back on top of that mortar and that'll secure it to the wall and the ground. So this is the first hole that we've dug. We had the stone on here. We cut out what we needed to cut out. And now we're ready just to drop a bit of mortar on and flip the stone back into position. After getting halfway around with the large edging stones all cemented on, we decided that it would look a little bit too much if there was big edging stones all the way around there. so we actually demolished a bit of the dry stone wall and instead of the big edging stones we're actually going to put these rockery stones in just to kind of break it up a little bit it would look a little bit too much if it was all just flat stones there so by putting the big rockery stones it'll kind of tie it into what's happening on that far side with all the rockery stone there so with these we're trying them in position first whipping them out putting Putting a bed of cement down and laying them on the cement, exactly the same as we did for the big flat stones that's the edge of the pond done now obviously the water is still low it needs to come up about another eight inches or so cover that shelf looks a little bit better adding the big rockery stone in between the big flat lads which breaks it up gives it a bit more interest we've sorted out the soil pile a little bit as well took a lot of the grass sods out of it that the digger driver had seen fit to put in there and we've dug a trench for the water So, pump will be in the pond, pipe will come out. into here through the filter back out and follow this trench up and it'll loop down over the top of there and into this hole and it hopefully will come out there and nowhere else and then it'll go down the cascade and back to the pond. So the next job is to connect up all the pipe work, run it up here, bury it, stick a plug on the pump and try it. That's the pump connector there with a stainless steel clip, keep the pipe on. Ordinarily you just chuck the pump in at the furthest point away from the cascade to set it away but because we've got quite harsh winters up here I want enough pipe on the pump so that it can go here in the summer in the deep bit and in the winter it can be moved up to here just below where the cascade comes in so it doesn't disturb any of this deep relatively warmer water in the winter. So I'm going to chuck it in the shallow end and gauge the length of the pipe to the filter from that distance to the filter. Right, the pump's connected, filter's connected. Obviously you can still see the pipe there, I haven't put the pump in its final position, it's literally just chucked in to test the filter's working, i.e. it isn't leaking, and also to test what the cascade's like. So until we actually get it pumping and the water coming down here, we haven't filled in any of this just in case there's a hole in the pipe, although I Although I doubt it because it is like a super reinforced pipe. Needs a... Hack saw to cut it. It's not the sort of thing you can cut with a pair of scissors. So this is the moment of truth. We're going to switch on and you'll be the first to see it running. It's never been set away before so it'll be as much of a surprise to you as it is to me and hopefully it'll work. Top one's level. That's a bonus. Everything seems all right. Water's going underneath that stone nicely, which is what I wanted it to do. Creating a little bit of a pool just there. Again, I wanted to do that. I'm concerned about the level of the header pond so I'm going to check that, that's probably the most important thing because if the water is disappearing back over it's not a good job. And there's plenty of height there, looking at that there's probably about 3 inches or so. So it's in no danger of going over. It's pretty good, pleased with that. Obviously the pond has to go up quite a lot so it'll cover up these cobbles down the bottom here. And it'll also cover up the liner that's still showing around the sides of the pond. But things are heading in the right direction. We're going to switch this off now, give the cement another couple of days to go off before we set it away proper. In part four, which will now be tomorrow's work, we're going to be filling in the trench where the pipes go, also finishing off around the sides of the pond, topping the pond up, and we're going to bring some nice big rockery stones, similar to what we've used in the cascade, to plant in either side of the cascade and around the mound to create a bit of a rockery. Thanks for watching