1900 Gallons of ducky bliss

gentila said:

Well, this year we decided finances weren't looking so good for either the pond construction or the super quack shack. But duckies can't be kept happy on meal worms alone. OK, they probably can... So we decided for the time being we would get them a super stock tank 11 X 2 ft. We went and talked to our local feed store (only one we have). They talked to their supplier and we will be lucky if we can get one by mid to late summer. Well, that won't do... Our nearest other towns (all of them) are around 100 miles away or more and we don't have anything that could get a 400 lb 11x2ft stock tank here, for them to ship freight, you have to buy 3 or the packing costs more than the tank. Well, we will have to wait until our feed store can get one. But in the meantime... I got them a 12' by 30" cheapie pool and built a two way ramp out of PVC pipe so they wouldn't try to climb the side walls and scratch it with their claws. A couple of days ago, they knew something was up when I laid down a tarp and set up the pool. Greta and Pocahontas were the first on the scene to inspect the tarp. They brought in Tevye and Snow for a second opinion. Snow muttered something under her breath probably about the tarp being to clean to be in their yard. They called in the rest of the flock and the situation was soon remedied. I didn't do a super job of leveling or put sand under it since no one would be walking on the bottom of the pool and I figured that the tarp would take care of the constant pressure of the water. The weather picked up while I was finishing the construction so I put about 100 gallons of water in it (about an inch and a half) and figured with 800 lbs of water in it it wouldn't blow away. The next day I filled the pool and went shopping for parts to build the ramp. The next day I built the ramp. Everything was ready... Just had to wait the hour or so before the wife got home (couldn't let them christen their new pool without her). I put the ramp up against the pool and blocked it with a 100 gallon stock tank. They were all curious what was going on. They had seen the pool now for two days, but from a duck's eye view, it was just a big blue building. I sat out and watched them. They darted back and forth from me to the ramp. They knew something was going to happen but not what. Finally, the wife got home. I removed the stock tank and we put some meal worms on the ramp to let them know where they were supposed to go. As each duck crested the top of the ramp and their perspective went from meal worms to pool you could see they were very happy. They practiced using the ramp going in and out repeatedly. "Really... for us!!!" "Wow! I can really spread my wings in this!!!" "There's enough room for everybody!!!"

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needlessjunk said:

Omg that is a pool!!! They look so happy.

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Mrs.H said:

Whoa!!!! Spoiled ducks!!!! What's your plans for keeping it clean?? I have one of those pools in my attic that we don't use anymore

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gentila said:

This has only been partially thought out, but here is my foundation, and we will see what happens as reality kicks in.

First I will divide "dirt" into three categories:

1. Poop
2. OTP (Other than poop: sand, dirt, leaves, bark, rocks, oyster shell, etc.)
3. Algae

Last summer the ducks had two sources of water
1 Kiddie pools.
2 Stock tanks.

The kiddie pools hold about 150 gallons of water and are completely trashed in a day.
The Stock tanks hold 100 gallons of water but are deep and need to be changed every other day and can be stretched to every 3 days.

In both cases, they averaged 2 pools for the whole flock.

The stock tanks stayed cleaner for the following reasons:
1.  The ducks had to climb a ramp to get to the stock tanks.  They couldn't reach the water from the ground or the ground from the water.  This drastically lowered the OTP levels.
2.  The additional depth allowed the poop to settle to the bottom  leaving the surface water relatively clean.  In the kiddie pools it was constantly stirred up.

Water saturation based on this experience is: 300 gallons/day worst case 66 gallons/day best case.  This should translate to 6 - 29 days as a base line and due to the depth and the ramp, I would expect it to be closer to the latter.

Half of my property is swamp.  This is where the ducks would like to live, but it is hard to construct a fence and keep out predators there.  However, dumping water is no problem.  My base plan is to dump approx 1/2 of the pool (pumped from the bottom where the yucky stuff is) into the swamp every weekend.  This would give me approximately a 14 day cycle for the water which should be sufficient for dealing with #1 and #2.  Additionally since this pool won't be flipped over and has a large surface area, it will need to be skimmed every day (2 minutes) to eliminate OTP type 2 which would be leaves and feathers.

Now for #3.  Last summer, the kiddie pools had quite a bit of algae growth (blue-green) which had to be scrubbed out every day.  They are shallow and heat up quickly.  The stock tanks were in gazebos so did not have direct sunlight and grew a small amount of brown algae which could be easily hosed off since it doesn't cling as tightly to the sides of the tank.  I think the difference was the shade and the depth of the water which didn't allow the water to heat up as quickly.

1900 gallons is around 15,000 lbs. of water.  That means that it requires 15,000 BTUs to raise the whole pool 1 degree.  It takes 8340 BTUs to evaporate a gallon of water so if I lose 25 gallons of water / day (that would only be between 1/4" and 3/8" of water level)  , I would lose 208,500 BTUs just due to evaporation which would be enough to lower the temperature of the whole pool by nearly 14 degrees.  Assuming 50% solar radiation for 16 hrs (worst case scenario) 1/2 * 433 (radiant energy constant) * 113 square feet * 16 hrs = 391,432, the sun has the potential to raise the temperature of the pool by 26 degrees.  By putting a tarp over the entire pool area (approx 8-10 feet up), I should be able to provide some protection from hawks and eagles as well as eliminate nearly all of the radiant energy reaching the pool.  The pool is large enough that I think it would end up fluctuating only a little from the average temp and due to the cooling from the evaporation, I would expect the range to be say 10 degrees below average at night up to average during the day. Algae grows once the temperature reaches around 60 F.  The average daily temperatures here are as follows:

May 54F
Jun 63 F
Jul 70 F
Aug 69 F
Sep 58 F

This would lead me to expect moderate algae growth in June and heavy growth in July and August.  But with my experience from last year, if I can construct the framework for the tarp before June, I should be able to limit my algae to the brown algae which wasn't that bad.  Finally, I have one last bit of ammo in the algae battle.  Our ground water is around 48 F year round.  So if the pool temperature were 70 F and half of the pool was replaced with 48 F water, I would expect that would bring the temp down to 59 F.  I will see what reality brings, but I have considered automating this by hooking a thermostat to the sump pump so that when the temp reaches say 58 F the pump will turn on until it falls to 55 F, then have a float valve maintain the pool level with 48 F well water.

Anyway, that is where my thinking is at now...  We will see when reality kicks in  

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