Maintaining a Kiddie Pool Duck Pond

Date sort Score sort
how big is your kiddie pool? we have one of the plastic wading pools and empty and clean it everyday. we're getting ready to add a garden tub that will have a drain in it
 
Quote:
I have the upper-body strength of a bunny-rabbit, so I use a bucket to bail about half the water out of the kiddie pools before I dump and refill them every other day - or every 3 days if I get lazy, but my ducks are spoiled and won't use the pools if they're dirty
roll.png


You know, my neighbor has a big, 75 gallon fish tank in his house, and to make cleaning easier, he just got a little sump pump - the kind that goes in your basement so it doesn't flood. He leaves it in the tank (hidden by decorative plants) and when it's time to clean, he connects a hose to it that drains into the bathtub and plugs in the pump.

I'm sure something like that could be rigged up for a duck pond as well - but I'm not that ambitious. I thought I'd pass the idea along though!
 
I have a Mr Turtle sandbox as a duck pond for 8 ducks. It gets very dirty very fast. When i was dumping and refilling daily, it made such a mess of the yard that i put on my thinking cap and this is what i came up with...first, my sweet hubby dug me a hole about 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and about a foot deep. Then we got a few truckloads of rocks. They're not large rocks, but not tiny either. This is the drainage area. I then contacted my plumber to see if he would put a drain in the pool. I told him i wanted a drain with a shut off valve so i didn't have to dump the pool to drain it. He said he would help me out. The next day he brought me a valve, an elbow and a piece that goes on top of that, which was threaded, and had a metal nut on the top of it...along with a rubber washer...or maybe it was a gasket. He told me to buy plumbers cement, and explained how to do it. So a little nervous, i drilled a 1" hole through the plastic bottom. (he warned me to drill it with the drill in reverse so it didn't crack the plastic) After the hole was in, i put the plumbers cement on the bottom and top, and edges of the drilled hole. I put the threaded piece through, put on the washer, then screwed on the nut. The elbow was already connected to the threaded piece. I connected a longer piece of pvc pipe to the other end of the elbow. After it dried overnight, i did some measuring, and dug a trench in the dirt, just next to the drainage area, but inside of the ducks pen. I layed the pool over it, laying the whole drain in the trench, adjusted it so it sat properly, and filled it with water. I drain and refill it at least daily, sometimes twice daily. In the winter, i leave the drain open, and when the hose is not frozen, i'll give them swimming water in the pool...provided i can get water out of the hose. I don't leave it in the pool overnight, as it freezes and then you have to wait for a really nice day for it to thaw so it can get out. Ducks don't mind, they like sitting on the ice! The dirty water drains into my drainage area, leaving the rest of my yard in good shape so we don't have a muddy mess all the time. If it gets cold, sometimes the valve is really hard to turn, as it starts to freeze...so in the winter, i only give them swimming water on decent days, when i am around to drain it a little while later, after they had time to swim.
I am going to attempt to install drains into two more pools very soon, as my geese need a place to swim as well! If only i knew what the part with the threads was called....
 
I have never done this but have been tempted too. My boyfriend cleans pools for a living which is why it tempted me but he see's wild ducks in his pools all the time (what a pain!!) and I have read a few posts on here where ppl said there ducks figured out where the pool was... There is chlorine in all those pools that my boyfriend cleans and I am sure in most of other peoples too unless it is a salt pool. I wondered if in a tiny amount if chlorine is harmful to them if drank (as a kid drinking pool water happens) and if maybe a tiny bit of it would help with the algae. I live in San Diego and right now I am dealing with a green ducky pool constantly because the heat. I find it better when the pool is in the shade.

In the future IF we ever do set up a real duck pool/pond I was thinking to maybe look into how much it would cost to add the same filtration system you would in a salt pool. The salt is put thru a filter and somehow makes a natural chlorine and works just as good!
 
Quote:
Wow that is incredible what you're doing! I would love to see pix of this!!! I ended up putting a small bale of those barley hay pond cleaners in the bottom of our large rubber water tub that we use for a pond. We have six geese and seven ducks and it's just too small for them all so they take turns! We have lots of land and woods and what I'd LOVE to have is a real POND created but that would take at least 10 years of nagging my hubby and I just ain't getting any younger and don't have the energy for that! LOL
 
I have an 800 gal stock tank for my geese that I siphon but there MUST be a pump that will keep it filtered. Does anyone know of one?
Mosquito Dunks are safe to put in the water and they'll get rid of the mosquitos. I am still figuring out the algae problem, maybe algae-eating fish since geese don't eat fish?
 

Similar threads

F
    • Love
    • Like
Not another duck pond post
2
Replies
19
Views
6K
farnk
F
eliz_anne
    • Like
Backyard Duck Pond
Replies
2
Views
675
b0red2tearz
B
Guernsy
Duck pond questions
Replies
6
Views
1K
BallsEleven
B
Guernsy
    • Like
Filter for duck DYI pond
2 3 4
Replies
37
Views
7K
davez
D
B
Duck Pond Set-Up
Replies
5
Views
2K
Flockincrazy
Flockincrazy

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom