DIY duck pond - stage 1

[BornToQuack]

From plastic kiddy pools to custom 5 1/2' x 3' pond with an average depth of 15" (it's sloped so the heavy muck settles by the drain).

Foreman Phoebe made sure to check our progress throughout the project, then called a meeting with project managers Ash and Freckles just before completion.

Still need to do some final touches to "pretty it up," build a custom ramp (current one is repurposed from their big plastic pool), and add a small deck. When it's warmer/dryer, we'll stain the wood and possibly add decorative copper corner accents.

Long-term plan is to build raised garden beds near the pond and create an aquaponic system (or duckaponic as I like to call it).

Here's a short video of their first swim:

 

[CrystaBub]

I love it!!! And your ducks are beautiful!!! Where did you get them?

 

[DuckyDonna]

I love it!!! And your ducks are beautiful!!! Where did you get them?

X 2!

 

[BornToQuack]

I love it!!! And your ducks are beautiful!!! Where did you get them?

Thanks! We got these girls from a local feed store just outside Portland, OR. Not sure who their main supplier is, but I've been meaning to ask. I'll try remembering to tell you when I find out, if you're still curious .

 

[Runner duck mom]

Fantastic pond! I'm hoping to do something similar this spring. They are such pretty ducks

 

[Duckworth]

Very cool! Until you get your duckponics system going, I’m curious about your clean out plan. Installing a drainable pool in my duck pen is on my to-do list, but I’m afraid to bail anything I design with a pond liner because I’m clumsy enough to tear the liner while bailing. I’ve also considered using a small fountain pump just to draw off a lot of the water into a bucket that I can dump on my trees before I get down to the sludge then use a shop vac.

I have a large raised bed vegetable garden starting about 30 feet from my duck pen, but hope someday to turn my duck area into a combo of greenhouse or cold frame and duckponics system.

 

[DuckyDonna]

Yes, I'm curious about how you got a drain in with that liner? I'd love to do something like that with one end raised up and the nice poo water draining into my sweet potato and blueberry patch which is right next to the duck run.

 

[LilyLoo]

We use a sub pump to drain our duck pond. We attached a five ft. more permanent hose that can be attached to the 50ft. garden hose and it runs out to the trees. It is a wonderful system. Takes longer to fill the pond then drain it lol. Lily and Loo love to play in the hose while it's draining. It only takes a few minutes and drains all of it. the pump was given to us and I think the pump is about a $80.00 investment and we'll worth it. Saves the bucket work. Our pond is about the same size as this one. Beautifully set up by the way, and love your ducks too!

 

[Leonardo da Quacko]

Husband of BornToQuack here. The drain is a standard 2" bulkhead, like this. The hole was cut using a razor blade with the liner set over the bulkhead. Just feel through the liner until you feel the opening in the bulkhead and cut around the inside edge. This should give you a hole that is about 1/8 to 1/4" undersized. You can't be oversized at all when using this style bulkhead. When I pressed the bulkhead through the liner, it stretched a little and covered some of the threads for the bulkhead nut. I carefully cut away at the extra liner until I could screw the nut all the way on. For a 2" bulkhead, I had to use a pipe wrench and a set of oil filter pliers to grasp the bulkhead and nut while tightening. It did quite a bit of damage to the threads on the outside of the bulkhead, but I don't plan to mess with this again. The liner will try to twist while tightening the bulkhead nut so just go slow and keep everything straight.
As for general pond information, our property is completely flat. This makes it difficult to setup a gravity drained pond which I have found is the only way to have a chance to be successful long term. The pond is 2x12 pressure treated boards and dug out in the middle to enhance the slope and available depth of the pond. The 2" drain gravity feeds to a yet to be built filter that will be half buried in the ground. I plan to setup something similar to a sieve filter but have not seen too much DIY information on them. I chose the sieve filter design because they are nearly impossible to clog. The debris/muck should slide off the bottom of the filter while the water passes through. From this first filter, the water should be clean enough to pump up to a settling/bio filter before gravity feeding back to the pond. Hopefully this should mean little to no water changes and not having to clean a pump pre-filter everyday. The pump is a 2500gph submersible. Eventually the water will be used in an aquaponic grow bed setup but we are still 2 months from the start of the growing season and I haven't thought that far ahead.

 

[Duckworth]

A real duckponics system for us will be a year off, since we would have to move the entrance (swinging) door to our stand-alone garage to accommodate our greenhouse. Based on our city code, we had to put our duck house/pen 50 feet from any neighboring dwelling if we ever want to get any more ducks, so we built everything to comply with the code, just in case. The only place that worked was the side of our garage that currently has the entry door. That would mean that to add a greenhouse to two sides of the pen, we would have to go through the greenhouse to get to that door. We need to move the door around the corner (or just add another door) so that we don’t have to drag our lawnmower through a greenhouse to mow the lawn.

We have about 700 square feet of vegetable garden beds on our residential lot, now, with a soaker hose watering system, but for now, I have to haul duck water by hand. Duck waste, even dissolved, would soon clog my soaker hoses, but it makes my veggies grow like crazy, so I’ll keep hauling that water until I get something better worked out. I want to grow greens through the winter and have the greenhouse provide a little heat for the ducks, as well, since our winters are so cold.

I like the sound of your setup and am looking forward to your reports on how it is working.