Oh go ahead and ask your questions. You must have some or the old & dead thread would have answered them.

(We don't bite, really.)

Thanks, Ernie. I will go ahead and ask since that old thread was an in ground pool.

I have a 16x28' above ground pool that gets very little use lately. One would think with teenagers, they would LOVE it. But we have found that the older they get, the less they want to be in it. It is not heated, and my husband and I do not like cool water. I can't stand the thought of upkeeping this thing when nobody is using it, and worse would be ripping it out. It was mucho bucks. We had a cedar deck attached, and it really is neat. I have always wanted a larger pond (I have a tiny one right now), and I'm wondering if anybody here has converted an ABOVE ground pool into a pond?

If anybody can give me some leads, places to go to research, etc. I would be grateful. I'm surfing, but there's not much info coming up. I would need to figure out how to use my existing plumbing for the filtration. The pool is 4' deep in the shallow end and about 6.5' deep in the deep end. I would think Koi would love it. But I'm just not sure if it would run into a lot of money getting the filtration up and running. Would be great if the existing skimmer and main drain could work.

Thanks for any help. I'm excited to think that POSSIBLY it could work!!!

Sandy

I have the same thoughts about using my pool as a pond too but couldn't come up with much info as to the costs and amount of trouble it was going to be to put it back up if it can't be done reasonably. Hopefully someone here has done it and has input for us both.

The thing that would worry me is making sure 100% of the nasty all anti-life-form-killer chemicals are OUT of the system. For example, we have a great suction dirt pump for our hot tub that would be great for my little pond but I'm terrified what trace chemicals may come along with it, so I never use it (and can't find any more at the pool store).

Seriously conceder draining the pool, flushing out all the plumbing and filter, then refill with straight city water. If your area just uses chlorine that evaporates in a few days on its own, but I'd add some serious conditioner anyway so I can sleep soundly.

Other then that, your pump is probably well sized for fish. I'm not sure how pool filters work but pond filters work my first straining out some muck then flowing the water thru as much surface area as possible so bacteria can grow there. Its the bacteria that does the main filtering, converting ammonia to nitrites to nitrates.

There are very expensive things called bio-balls, see some at an aquarium or pond store then find something else that would work (they are very over priced). Some people just use lots of scrubbie pads. In my small pond I use several layers of furniture batting so I can pull the top layer (with the muck) and rinse it, leaving most of the bacteria layers below alone.

A good water change (10-20% a week) or lots of plants takes care of the nitrates, as nitrates are natural plant food.

We converted our pool to a pond (but with no intention of going back again) although ours was an inground unit. While that makes some difference as you can imagine there are other things that remain the same whether it is inground or above ground. First thing: size of your pool/pond to be. If you have, say a 20,000 gallon pool, do you really want to continue to turn over that volume once an hour? Most pools use 1/2 to 3/4 horsepower pump running continuously, although you could get buy with turning them off sometimes (when it was operated as a pool). Not so with a pond IF you intend to have a biofilter/fish. Turning off a pump for long periods of time is a guaranteed way of killing off the biofilter. By reducing our pool to a more manageable pond size we run the whole thing on about 200-250 watts. Secondly, your filters. The filters for your pool are excellent for taking out particles/bacteria - that's what they were designed to do - but they were meant for a relatively low loading. In a pond environment algae grow constantly, which along with bacteria and other things from the pond place a significantly higher loading on the filters. The result will be that they will need to be backwashed much more frequently and therefore your water consumption will go up. Just replacing the innards with some other media may work although you may find you cannot achieve the necessary degree of surface area/volume of biofilter to treat the original pool volume.
As to the chemicals or chemical residues: stop adding any algacides and any chlorine/shock/etc. The pool will, within a week or so turn quite green. At that point you will not have to worry about chemical residues. While chlorine (free) does evaporate, chloramines don't evaporate nearly as rapidly and can persist for several days. However, both decompose fairly rapidly upon exposure to sunlight (that's why they add a UV-stabilizer to most chlorine bars/pucks). Aerating the pool while you are thinking of what to do next will help with the inevitable odor problems associated with things going anaerobic if you are not actively circulating the water. Just a few thoughts.
---David

Just curious what everybody here thinks about my idea. The pool is about 13,000 gallons. I have a lot of learning to do (I am reading a lot), but when you have a pond, is it the goal to turn the whole volume of water over once an hour through a bio filter? Do any of you have ponds this large? I don't want to get my hopes up for nothing. I also don't see us filling in part of the pool and only using part of it for the pond. It would probably be an all or nothing thing.

Another member here has been gracious enough to give me specific info regarding my project, but I just wanted to get a general consensus of what you all think about this to start with. Maybe 13,000 gallons is just way too large for a pond, especially an above ground pond in Michigan, where we drop subzero frequently in the winter.

Thanks for your input.

Sandy

hallo

also here [ north california ] we have a
ca 13,000 gallons in ground concrete pool.

would like to convert to pond without any fill in.

How ? regards walt