These pages will attempt to document the steps I went thru in designing and building a double pond system for keeping both aquatic turtles and fish in environments that enable them to thrive.
For those who are handy, do-it-yourself types, you can save quite a bit of money by designing and building your own pond; it can be made with several types of materials, such as cement, wood, or just plain ol' dirt...these last two need plastic liners, of course, to keep the water in! A cement or wooden framed pond can be made either above ground or in-ground, and your basic "hole" is of course in the ground, but can be built up to greater depths using the dirt removed from the hole and compacted to form the edges.
Before starting, I had to think about what I wanted to have in the pond...this is important because there are two basic types of ponds, each with their own specific needs: garden and fish ponds. Garden ponds are more ornamental, have a small number of fish and a great many aquatic plants; thus, the need for filtration is very low to non-existant, because the system is pretty much "naturalized" in that the water and plants can handle the waste load produced by the small number of fish present. A fish pond, on the other hand, has mostly fish, in greater numbers; the purpose here is mainly to get more fish by "natural" breeding. You do have ornamental fish ponds, of course, like koi & goldfish ponds, but these fish are very dirty and produce a lot of waste, making the need for a good filter system a high priority. Breeder fish ponds also require a good filtration system to keep the water quality good enough to keep the fish healthy.
I decided that I wanted to have a decorative pond, with a small number of fish and lots of aquatic plants(which I wanted to produce in sufficient quantities in order to stock my indoor tanks and those of my aquarist friends). In addition, I wanted to add a simple filtration system, to ensure good water quality and keep everything looking nice and clear. Once I knew what I wanted, I got down to business...
First I made a drawing on paper of what I basically wanted to accomplish: