Natural Swimming Pools?

big brown horse

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Wifezilla said:
Wifezilla, have you had the water in your duck pond tested?
Tested? My ducks swim in it daily. I don't want to know :gig

But in all honesty, it doesn't stink, the ducks are healthy, and a particularly fast feeder fish I put in there months ago as a snack for the ducks has been living in it. I didn't KNOW this until I was suctioning out some sediment and it darted out from under the waterfall and scared to half to death!

Here is my set up. Of course, on the day this photo was taken I had just taken the weed wacker to the pond edge and it is full of grass...LOL (That's me on the right teaching my friend's daughter how to bribe ducks with worms)
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2986/pondlro.jpg
Hi Wifezilla? I just wanted to say you have a SWEET set up back there!! Cute kiddos to, the feathery ones too! Is that your filter that looks so nice in that big flower pot?
 

Wifezilla

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Yup :D

It is a plastic pot I got at Walmart on clearance for $19

I have pieces of biodegradable furnace filter in there to give a home to the bacteria that eat the ammonia.

As for the kids...my fluffy little dinosaurs are going through their scruffy teenager stage right now.
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Thewife

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Hmm....

What do you think?

I have a spot here on the farm that has a year round spring. I have always wanted to dig me a swimming hole, but Hubby says it would get icky?
Do you think this natural swimming pool thing would work with just the spring running in and out of it? Or do you think I would need some sort of filter?
 

punkin

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I know that spring feed ponds are always more clear than standing water ones. I've also saw those big fountains that shoot up out of the middle to help aerate them.
 

Wifezilla

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I would try it. What is the worst that can happen?
 

Thewife

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Shhhhh...
Hubby is home, I'm doing a little secret research on the subject!
I will let you know what I find out!
 

Mackay

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My husband is in the process of building a pond right now. Can't remember the size but about 50 x 30 feet, about 6 feet deep. Its going to be lined with a standard pond liner.

We have irrigation rights off of a good sized ditch so the water will flow into the pond and be shut off when it is full. On the days we get to take more water we will pump out of the pond as it fills off of the ditch.

The goal is to keep the pond pretty full all the time, maybe draining it for the freeze of winter. It will have a pump to pump water out and a waterfall feature on the incoming water.

On days that we are not irrigating our neighbors will be likely taking water off it with their water rights...they had rights but no water access as they were too far from the ditch, until we came along and created this possibility.

There will be a little pond leading to the big pond with a little creek like feature, guess a to be duck pond, who knows, maybe about 10 x5 and not very deep. just a foot or two.

So I figure, minimum, water is going to be circulating out 4 days a week, maybe more. Do you think we will have to do stuff to keep it clean?
 

nightshade

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I grew up swimming in a creek so really the thought of a pond for a swimming pool is not really a new think for me lol I will defiantly have to check the article out :fl
 

FarmerDenise

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My grandmother turned a swampy spring fed area behind her house into a pond. She had a friend with a backhoe bring in dirt to make a dam around the lower part. At first some water seeped through the dam, but eventually the springs found a way around the back of the pond and a creek was created further back. She got some ducks the first year we had it, but then we butchered them that fall. It was quite a good sized pond and we spent our summers swimming in it and winters skating on it. I know she talked about stocking it at some point and I don't know if she ever did. But we did have lots of frogs. The bottom was squishy and those who were bothered by it wore tennis shoes. The natural spring provided plenty of fresh water. You knew you were over it, because it was icy cold. The pond drained to one side, where a creek got created by the overflow. As a teenager I used a stick to help form the creek and direct the waterflow.
 
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