I'm putting a small pond in my front flower bed but I really don't know much about how to do this. I already have a formed black pond shell that is about 6' x 4' x 2 1/2' deep. I got it second hand by trading one of my neighbors a nice sized crape myrtle for the pond. The place that I plan on putting it is in full sun right in front of my front porch.

What I need to know is how tightly does the dirt under and around the shell need to fit up against it? Will it hurt it if there are a few small air pockets? The dirt around the pond will have a lot of builders sand in it.

I still need to buy a pond pump/filter. I plan on getting one from Lowes or Home Depot but I know nothing about them so is there anything in particular I need to know about them?

I hope to add some goldfish to the pond and some small water plants. Is there anything that I need to do to to the water in order to prep for the fish and plants or can I just fill the pond with the hose and then add the fish? I'm out of city limits so I have well water, if that makes a difference.

Where can I get some small water lilies and do I put them into some type of floating container?

Should the lip of the pond be raised a little above the rest of the surrounding flowerbed in order to keep the mulch out? I'd like to surround the edge of the pond with rocks. Can I use limestone or could the runoff from the limestone hurt the fish? I thought I read somewhere that I shouldn't use limestone around fish ponds but I can't remember why.

I live in a fairly rural area with plenty of racoons so I'll need to put something in the pond for the fish to hide under. Will a broken terra cotta pot be sufficient?

I know there's probably a bunch of other questions I should be asking but that's all I can think of for now. Any help or advice would be very appreciated!

Thanks,
Kara

They will visit anyway even if there are no fish.

You can make a simple filter by enclosing your pump in a pot with holes in it surrounded by lava rock.

Home Depot and Lowe's carry terrible quality pumps. You would be much better off to mail order a small Pondmaster or other magnetic drive pump. They last far longer, they don't leak oil and they use less electricity.

You do want to pack the dirt as tightly as possible and not have air pockets.

That size pond is great for small waterlilies. They are planted in soil and the pots are submerged. Those shallow round black plastic pans they sell for oil changes are perfect. You can trade for waterlilies on the exchange forum and there are others out there as well. I never buy them retail myself. There are lots of smaller ones.

I have several ponds that size with no fish that I covered the liner bottom with dirt and planted the waterlilies right into it. They are full of frogs and other aquatic life but I have to keep screens over them because the coons wade in and rip everything up looking for food.

I know that I'll have plenty of frogs in my pond since they tend to breed in the retention ditch across the street from me whenever there's been a hard rain. The problem will be trying to keep out the cuban tree frogs, they'll eat all of our native frogs and are very unpleasant to look at (the adults look like large pasty white corpses). Even though there's a fair chance of having racoon problems I'd still like to try some fish. The person I got the pond from has them and hasn't had too many problems. I hope that the fact that we have a good hawk and large owl population will help with the racoon problem. Not to mention the fox, bobcat, and coyote. I'll just have to see.

Thank you for the info about the pumps, I'll start looking for one online tonight. Are the solar powered pumps worth looking into?

We used a bucket with lava rocks in it as a filter for ten years or so for our 900 gallon pond but it gets heavy. Now we have plastic scrubbies surrounding the pump.

I hear ya on the Cuban Treefrogs. If you aren't squeamish catch and euthanize as many as you can, they are a menace to native froggies.

There's a Harbor Freight not far from where I work so it will be easy to go check them out. I tried researching pumps online last night but quickly became confused. I'll be going to a plant swap in a few weeks and the host has offered me the books that she used when setting up her pond.

I've forced myself to get over being squeamish when it comes to cuban tree frogs. The only reason I was skittish in the first place was because of their corpse like appearance. Give me a non-venomous snake, a lizard, or normal looking frog or toad and I'm more then happy to handle the creature. Whenever I see the cuban tree frogs I put them in a plastic bag and then into the freezer. The problem is that when young the cuban tree frogs look a lot like our native tree frogs. It's not until they get to the large pasty white stage that I can safetly tell the difference. The one good thing about the unusually cold winter we had this year here in florida is that a lot of the exotic pests couldn't hack the temperatures and died. it's only in the past week that I've seen any frogs, toads, or lizards and almost all of them have been of the native varieties.

I would really prefer to not wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a cuban tree frog being tormented by my cats outside my bedroom door again. The thing sounded just like a kitten in distress!

Your little pond can be a lovely water garden, and pretty much any kind of aquatic plant will grow there. Lilies will be wonderful, but some bloom better than others. Check with aquariumplants.com before you decide. They state which ones are the best bloomers by variety and their plants are always big and robust, one of the best plant sellers I've ever used. Both tropicals and hardies will grow fine at that depth.

A lot of people do have trouble with coons, others do not. A lot will depend on your area. Some places seem more prone than others.

Pondmaster Mag is probably the finest pump you can purchase. They just don't wear out. Mine has seen a lot of abuse (impacted algae, pebbles, etc), and it just keeps chugging away. They come in sizes based on gallons, so check to see how many gallons you have in your pond and go from there. Go with a pump a little greater than your number of gallons. Pondliner.com is a good source, as is Bestnest.com.

Don't overstock the pond with fish. That's a mistake almost everyone makes, including yours truly, ;-).