Pond Set-Up Recommendations?

[sierraforest]

Hi everyone! This is my first forum post outside of my intro and responding to an existing thread so if I should do anything differently, let me know.

My question is, does anyone have recommendations to fully or partially automate keeping a duck pond clean? What I'm hoping for is to find out about specific brands and models of filters (bio filters?) and pumps to look for and ideally ideas based on others' experiences.

For reference to know what we're working with, here's a photo of our duck house for our two girls. The main structure is about 8' by 10' and the attached enclosed pond area is roughly 6' by 4'. The pond itself is a Rubbermaid 50-gallon stock tank that we buried with maybe 6" above ground. We have sort of small river rock surrounding the pond.

Our current practice is to place a pump in the pond each evening to pump water up and out over our yard; we have a very long, wide hose attached to the pump to avoid creating small marshes. It's not difficult but it's getting tedious, and I'm not looking forward to having to keep this up through the wet, cold winter here in NW Oregon. We thought we'd have come up with a solution by now but as first-time duck keepers on a budget, it's been really hard to want to spend a couple or few hundred dollars to figure out what's best.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Ratchnick]

Why don't you leave the pump in the pond and run a garden hose to the pond. Put the pump on an electric timer to auto drain once a day and put a sprinkler timer on the garden hose.

 

[sorce]

So this is to refresh it everyday?

Sounds expensive.

I would consider an aquaculture system that may be able to provide natural filtration as well as food for you and your ducks.
Even fresh fish if you have enough space.
It may take one hundred times the energy to research and set up, but if you plan on doing the current thing for more than 100 days.....it'd be worth it and then some!

Go all out!

Sorce

 

[CoriM]

This blog is a pretty good source for building a duck pond - but it's not cheap:https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-build-a-backyard-pond-with-diy-biofilter/

 

[333113]

Hi everyone! This is my first forum post outside of my intro and responding to an existing thread so if I should do anything differently, let me know.

My question is, does anyone have recommendations to fully or partially automate keeping a duck pond clean? What I'm hoping for is to find out about specific brands and models of filters (bio filters?) and pumps to look for and ideally ideas based on others' experiences.

For reference to know what we're working with, here's a photo of our duck house for our two girls. The main structure is about 8' by 10' and the attached enclosed pond area is roughly 6' by 4'. The pond itself is a Rubbermaid 50-gallon stock tank that we buried with maybe 6" above ground. We have sort of small river rock surrounding the pond.

Our current practice is to place a pump in the pond each evening to pump water up and out over our yard; we have a very long, wide hose attached to the pump to avoid creating small marshes. It's not difficult but it's getting tedious, and I'm not looking forward to having to keep this up through the wet, cold winter here in NW Oregon. We thought we'd have come up with a solution by now but as first-time duck keepers on a budget, it's been really hard to want to spend a couple or few hundred dollars to figure out what's best.

Thank you in advance!

Wait, you said "duck" and "clean" in the same sentence?!?

Your pond sounds really ambitious to me. I have a couple of small breeding duck flocks, max of 5 ducks to a pen, mostly hookbills and runners. In each of their pens they have a 3 gallon rubber container that I clean and refill almost daily. (I keep a couple extra containers, and bring a fresh pan to the cage to replace the one I drag out.)

In the barnyard "common areas" we keep a doubled-up kiddie swimming pool. We dump that and move it to different locations in the yard every couple of days.

I have never tried to have a more permanent pond. But I too would be very interested in a more permanent pond, if possible.

 

[DiYMama540]

So it's not "cheap" but building a real pond never is. Research "natural pools" and and you will find a lot of great information, including the science behind natural filtration. The only problem with a lot of the plants that are commonly used is the ducks will destroy them. So you'll have to think outside the norm and go with plants they ignore. I've not read any threads about the success of this with ducks fouling up the water, but whenever the giant hole in my yard gets transformed to a pond, "natural pool" is what I'm going for.

 

[Ratchnick]

If your using plant filters normally you have a filter system consisting of several drums with plants to facilitate slow water movement through the filter so it can settle and still get enough water turnover to be effective. If you pay for water by the gallon it might be worth having a system like this, especially if you like to garden you can use the pond water for hydroponics.

 

[sierraforest]

This blog is a pretty good source for building a duck pond - but it's not cheap:https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-build-a-backyard-pond-with-diy-biofilter/

Their landscaping and set-up is definitely a goal, but not on our current piece of property, unfortunately. I've tried reworking their suggested equipment and basic idea to fit our space and haven't been able to come up with a solution...yet. Thank you!

 

[sierraforest]

Why don't you leave the pump in the pond and run a garden hose to the pond. Put the pump on an electric timer to auto drain once a day and put a sprinkler timer on the garden hose.

Agreed, this would be easiest, but for various reasons won't work in our particular situation. Thank you!

 

[sierraforest]

If your using plant filters normally you have a filter system consisting of several drums with plants to facilitate slow water movement through the filter so it can settle and still get enough water turnover to be effective. If you pay for water by the gallon it might be worth having a system like this, especially if you like to garden you can use the pond water for hydroponics.

Yes, some variation of this could work.