Pond costs

I thought I would share just how much this pond cost, not including time and labor or electricity for running the pond pump (~100 watts/24 hours a day), just so you can get an idea of the amount of effort and money required for set up. I'll also estimate yearly operating costs.

- Landscaping (plants, dirt, etc.): $1756 (48% of the cost)
*$1366 of that was for rocks/gravel - all delivered
- Pond/bog construction (liner, skimmer, plumbing, electrical, bog tubs, caulk, etc.): $1353 (37% of the cost)
- Pumps/filters: $276 (7% of the cost)
*I bought a backup pump and replacement filters, in addition to current one)
- Fish, fish food, meters, nutrient additives: $307 (8% of the cost)

Grand total: $3692

Annually, you'll need to buy new fish, fish food, nutrients, some plumbing/caulk for leak fixes, filters. I imagine that will be no more than $500, but I'll keep track and document after one year has passed.

Aquaponics Happening!

Well, everything is finally done! The only thing that remains is to pick up my tilapia the first week of May. The pond is running, the bogs are running, the native plant section is planted and mulched, and the plants in the pond seem to be getting used to their new home. The two garden bogs are already showing signs of seedlings, less than one week after putting the seeds in! The native plant bog is looking great, and one of the dwarf crested irises is blooming! The only species that I'd like to add are some pitcher plants, but the only ones that I can find so far (Lowe's) aren't the native varieties found in NC.

Species List:
In the pond:
- iris versicolor (blue water iris)
- pellandra virginica (bog arum)
- lubellia syphilitica (great blue lobellia)
- sauronus sp. (lizard's tail)
- pontederia cordata (pickerel rush)
- acorus calamus (sweet flag)
- alisma subcordata (water plantain)

In the pond bog:
- chamaelirium luterm (fairywand)
- lobellia cardinalis (cardinal flower)
- hydrophyllum virginiaum (eastern waterleaf)
- iris cristata (dwarf crested iris)
- iris bericaulis (zigzag iris)

In the native perennial garden surrounding the pond:
- oenothera fruticosa (southern sundrops)
- callicarpa americana (american beauty berry)
- peristemon smalli (small's beardstongue)
- symphotichum oblongifolium (eastern aromatic aster)
- muhlenbergia capillaris (hairgrass)
- coreopsis triptens (tall tickseed)
- silene virginica (fire-pink)
- helianthus augustifolius (swamp sunflower)
- rudbeckia fulgida (orange coneflower)
- stokesia laevis (stokes'-aster)
- heuchera americana (american alumroot)

Pond Installed!!

Well, the pond itself is installed! A lot of things came together last weekend (1/11-1/13): the underlay/liner was delivered, rocks were delivered the previous Wednesday, and I found a guy who could get me a load of gravel to suit that day. So, Friday, after everything arrived, I figured I had all the ingredients, so I might as well cook!

Rocks (rounded river, large flat) and gravel for pond

After putting in the underlay, Liz helped me stretch out the liner and stuff it into all the cracks. I think we probably could have done a better job of smoothing out all the wrinkles, but given that this was our first real attempt at this, I think we did OK. Also complicating the installation was the fact that the water table was up above the bottom of the pond, so the pond bottom at its deepest part was actually more like quicksand. Once rocks were put in, the bottom sort of bulged out, but I figure it won't make too much of a difference once the water is in and pushing down on everything.

Liner in place (EPDM, Firestone Pond Guard, fish safe)

Rounded river rocks in place to hold in/hide liner

After some work getting everything into the skimmer and running the plug through some makeshift conduit to the outlet, I covered everything up and put out the big flat rock on the top level of the pond. It was at this point that I realized that we vastly UNDER estimated our need for rock. We ended up using 2 tons of rocks just for inside the pond and the pond lip. We easily need another ton around the top outside, and then at least a ton for the water. It's a bummer, as we'll have to pay for shipping twice. The lesson here is BUY MORE ROCK THAN YOU THINK YOU COULD CONCEIVABLY USE!! We actually did that, but since we had nothing to compare it to, we did a poor job of estimating.

After the rocks were up, I cut away the excess liner. By the way, it looks like we ordered way too big of a liner, but as it turns out, you can only order it in multiples of 5. We ordered 25' X 25'. But after cutting around the pond, there were many sections that we less than 5' wide, so we did not over order. It's definitely better to over order than to not have enough to go all the way up.

After some rain and snow this weekend, the pond is filling up nicely! I resolved to not use any groundwater to fill it, given North Carolina's drought situation, so I hooked up one end of a hose to our overflow for our rain barrel, so the pond gets filled with rainwater/melt-water from half the roof of our house.

Unfortunately, I must have put a little too much on my back, and it gave out unexpectedly last week without notice. As soon as it gets better, I have to set up the grow bed/bog and waterfall, as the pond will soon be full enough to begin running the pump.

Phase II - Planning and System Design

Well, I can't say that I've built anything or bought anything, but I can say that this system design phase is turning out to be harder than I thought! I finally received the Backyard Aquaponics book and DVD, and it was very informative and helpful. I recommend buying it, although it is $98. I guess some of that has to cover shipping from Australia. It's well done, and it definitely helps to solidify system designs and the things you need to think about in your mind.

I started off thinking that I wanted to design a small system and run it in a 5' X 5' corner of my shed. I live in North Carolina, so we have a winter. The idea of putting in the shed was attractive, in that I might be able to run the system year round. However, the shed was absolutely non-winterized, so I went out and bought some insulation and insulated it. It's much more comfortable in there now, and it's a bit cleaner and more organized. But, I don't think I can run an aquaponics system in there without having some sort of heating unit during the winter. That, combined with the fact that I would have to buy a grow light has turned me away from that idea.

Furthermore, when I started looking into the components I would need, i.e. a fish tank, grow bed, pump(s), and a light, I realized that building a "small" system costs about the same as building a larger system. In other words, no matter what size system you are thinking about, you're still going to need at least one pump, some sort of water tank, and at least one grow bed. In my crawling across the internet, I found that the fish/water tank was going to be the most expensive piece of equipment. Polypropylene tanks of food grade quality are quite expensive. I found some water troughs for livestock, but they had long, oval shapes and weird looking plastic. The sizes and shapes and cost were making the shed corner look less and less likely.

So, now we're thinking we'll set it up outside. As Mr. Malcolm realized, when you are setting up outside, the look of the components comes more into play. You don't want a bunch of plastic tanks sitting out in your yard, purely for aesthetic reasons! So, now we're leaning towards digging a 6' - 8' round hole, about 3' deep for the fish pond, and building a grow bed up against our existing garden fence. Also, we're leaning towards building a gazebo over the fish pond and trying to turn it into a nice space to sit and eat dinner. One thing that occurred to me that I didn't see mentioned is the notion of rainwater in the system. Like many places, we get some nasty thunderstorms here in the spring and summer that can drop a ton of rain in a very short time. That seems to me to be a potential problem with a closed, recirculating system like what I have in mind. That's one of the reasons for the gazebo over the fish pond (in addition to trying to keep down the amount of algae that will grow from sunlight).

The image at the top is a ridiculous rendition of what we have in mind (or at least the general idea!).