how do i build a low cost pond?

Answer 1

Any pond should be build along a natural waterway. It can be a dry stream bed, but it'll function best if it has a natural inlet and outlet.

You could simply block off the outlet to a low point with a dam. But it would last long.

To do it right you should remove all organic material and top soil from the area, excavate the center and use that material to form a dish out of compacted clay and let it fill with water.

Answer 2

Options Small to medium ponds
Any large container or series of containers that will hold water and to which you can fit outlet pipes to will do. A large old filter of the basic Blagdon type where water feeds in a the top of the tank, goes down through some filter brushes and up through filter medium to flow out back into the pond would be perfect. However any waterproof container can be adapted.

Starting from Scratch
Take a waterproof container (a domestic header-tank is perfect) and glue with silicone or hot glue gun a profile that will fit inside to make small compartment 10cm wide that will be the settlement chamber. There needs to be a 5cm gap between the bottom of the divider and the bottom of the tank.10cm wide strips of plastic glued into place between the profile and the inside wall of the container act as braces and supports.
A filter medium support plate is made from a sheet of plastic drilled with holes.
Glue 5cm wide strips of angled strips of plastic on the underside of the filter medium support sheet. These will help support the sheet from sagging when the weight of the filter medium is pressing down on it.
The container itself is drilled with a ‘hole-borer’ attachment to an electric drill. A 40cm hole is made in the front to take the 40mm waste pipe fitting that will make up the outlet. Another 25mm at one end of the new small ‘settlement chamber’ will take the standard 25mm hosetail fitting that will be the inlet.
With the filter in position and the fittings and support plate in place, the main filter chamber is filled with coarse inert (not limestone) gravel or even better Alfagrog to 10cm short of the outlet. This is topped of with smaller gravel to just below the outlet.
The same procedure would be adequate for a DIY biological filter except that the medium ought to be an Alfagrog or hortag.
A larger system could also be devised from a series of filter boxes or domestic loft header-tanks.

Or... a good site with a lot of info is: http://www.springdalewatergardens.com/articles/pcfaqs.html

Answer 3

There are mnay ways to approach this.
I built a pond for Gold Fish and such in my back yard using brick and mortar.
I dug the hole 12 ft by 4 ft
Then I had a palet of brick deliverd to my house and I mix the cement up and layed down the bricks.

I also installed a water pump to flow water off the ridge.
I have all kinds of fish in it now. and I keep my live bait in there too.

Answer 4

My wife and I made one that is ten by eight and four feet deep, lined: connected to one that is eight by four by four feet deep. We have one that is one foot deep and two by five with a grist mill on it and a water wheel sitting on it.

We've had as many as two hundred gold fish and many Blue Gill sunfish and Coi in them. A Blue Crane came in while we were gone ( two of them and ate all the fish) It's not the ponds so much as the maintenance. The pumps, the cleaning. You have to keep a biosphere going all the time. It can and will be killed by the weather, any one single thing. You have to start over, like we have to now.

Heat from the sun, the cold, any number of things. Good luck. Many times you'll want to fill it in and plant flowers.

Answer 5

Dig a hole and put in a pond liner. The expense is in maintaining it.

Answer 6

Dig and dig and dig some more until you have a big hole. Then put a plastic liner in it. Put some rocks around the edge to hold the liner in place. Then fill it with water.

Answer 7

Dig a big hole.

Wait for rain.