[ootyboy]

Back in October I started a concrete pond project. The plan was to build a pond between 6 to 9 thousand gallons with adequate filtration for a light fish load. Looking back I knew I made some mistakes in the filter design and the overall look of the pond, and certinaly the choice for a water proofing membrane, that I was planning to resolve in this phase.

I built the pond using concrete blocks and a light plaster with the intention of coating it with Epoxy. I won't bother everyone with my problems with the Epoxy (see my other post about Epoxy coating). The pond worked relatively well, and held water for nearly 3 months. I did have to fill every couple of days, but the loss was rather small.

Here are the pond specs:

Gallons: 8000
Depth: 7 feet
Filters: Aqua Ultima 10,000, feeding into a Oases Biosys 18 and a small home made Filtration media with Bacteria House Media.

However, I woke up one morning on April 2nd, 2008 and to my amazement found that the pond had lost more than half its water. I panicked and filled the pond again, to find again the following day that I had lost more than half the water.

See Attached Picture.

After some research and hours spent looking for leak in the pond, I found a number of cracks in the Epoxy lining that was causing the leak. I figured my only choice was to redo the entire pond, and add additional filteration to enhance water quality.

The basic layout of the plan was to add possibly a vortex settlement tank and would feed into a couple of biological filters before going back to the pond. Anyway, to make a long story short I went back to the drawing board.

I will continue to post my progress on this board.