5000 gallon pond build begins 🙌

Indexed: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Oosh, welcome back to the channel, guys.

[00:00:04]It'll be about 3 weeks, I think, since my last video.

[00:00:07]I did a little TikTok today, and somebody was like, "Get back on YouTube." I thought, "Oh, I'll make a little video."

[00:00:12]You know, my uh just another little update video, really. I'm going to throw it together in one take.

[00:00:21]No uh bad editing.

[00:00:24]Fish are doing good. Got some weird like foam on the water. It won't Well, I haven't done anything to get rid of it, but it's uh Spin you around, show you.

[00:00:40]Any ideas, put it in the comment section. It's not actually bothering me.

[00:00:45]Uh I see people online I have seen previously people like stressing about it, but I think if I had a skimmer, I wouldn't I wouldn't have had I wouldn't have it, but um Yeah, for now, I'm just happy the water's green and there's no heron.

[00:01:00]Haven't seen the heron. Seen a big like few big birds of prey.

[00:01:07]They all seem happy out.

[00:01:09]This green water and the tamas sabas don't go together, because the tamas sabas stay on the bottom, and they just come up, and then they go straight back down. I haven't seen one of them. I haven't seen him for about 2 weeks, and I thought, "What if he's dead in there, and he's on the bottom?"

[00:01:22]But then I saw it. So, I I clocked all three of them.

[00:01:26]Um but it's like literally like there's one that you only ever see like So, I've chucked a handful of food in now. I might see one of them this time.

[00:01:35]And then in 2 days' time when I chuck another handful of food in, I might see the other one, or I might not.

[00:01:41]Yeah, this green water and tamas sabas not not the one.

[00:01:47]Uh someone commented on one of my videos that they're the ponies were like the horse version of tamas sabas.

[00:01:56]I'll show you them in a minute.

[00:01:57]Yeah, I took this little box filter off.

[00:02:00]Um I tell you what, I hadn't cleaned it since I put it on there, and I was like I was pulling the sponges and those little washy things, and it was like putting the dirty water back in the pond.

[00:02:11]And then I was like, right, so am I supposed to turn the filter to the side, pull the sponges, and let the dirty water run out, but then I'm filling all this up with water. And I just thought, you know what, this is probably mature that's probably mature.

[00:02:23]I will take uh away and um just lay off the food for a couple of days.

[00:02:30]I've been continuing to test it cuz I've I'm having to clean that easy pod quite often now.

[00:02:36]I did it about 3 days ago, and it's just about to overflow, I think.

[00:02:41]Yeah.

[00:02:43]Not far off.

[00:02:46]Um Yeah, it's not getting on my nerves a little bit.

[00:02:51]I I realized like I got one of those controllers under there, [clears throat] under that bucket, and the bucket had pressed the the up button all the way to 100%. So, it's for probably I don't know how long.

[00:03:04]A few weeks.

[00:03:06]Yeah, it's getting like maximum 10,000 L, you know, without the head height.

[00:03:12]I probably didn't do any favors.

[00:03:16]Yeah, all good.

[00:03:19]All the fish seem happy. I mean, normally this time of year you get the old flicking flash, and then you get the old flukes and flukes are coming, but touch wood.

[00:03:27]I've seen none yet.

[00:03:29]Just mowed grass.

[00:03:32]Been cracking on with a little extension build.

[00:03:35]Oh my god.

[00:03:36]Hard work.

[00:03:39]I've got I've got about a 30-ton pile of mud.

[00:03:44]I need to backfill some of this.

[00:03:46]Yeah, I dug the footings, poured the footings.

[00:03:49]Found some big old rocks. I had to have a building inspector come out cuz here you go, this is the one one I pulled out.

[00:03:58]See if you can see the size of that.

[00:04:02]That's I reckon it weighed I think this is capable of you know, carrying 2 ton.

[00:04:07]And when I put the forks underneath that and drove the Manitou up the field, the back the back wheels of the Manitou were off the floor.

[00:04:14]But they'd make a nice feature on it. In that pile of dirt, there's so many rocks I can keep for for when I make this big natural pond here.

[00:04:23]It's so it's full.

[00:04:25]I'm going to have to pick through it. A friend of mine is going to take all the waste away.

[00:04:28]And I said he said he wanted it. Um but I said, "Oh, when I pick through it, I'm taking all the rocks."

[00:04:35]There's loads of them. It's absolutely full of them, so I'll have plenty to go round the pond, which I'm really happy about.

[00:04:42]>> [sighs] >> Yeah.

[00:04:45]Yeah, so dug the footings.

[00:04:47]Did the block work.

[00:04:50]Backfilled it. It was loads of subbase.

[00:04:52]Insulated it. Had the concrete poured this morning. Happy days. Oh.

[00:04:57]Had to redo all the drains.

[00:04:59]All right, I'll four new pits.

[00:05:03]Toilet is a new toilet going in there, so dug through there, put in a pit.

[00:05:07]All the way down here, another pit all the way down there, another pit all the way down there, another pit.

[00:05:12]Yeah, and I couldn't get into this bit with the digger, so I had to do it by hand. Oh my god, water. Horrible.

[00:05:18]I think I've spent like 3 weeks just digging holes.

[00:05:22]I'm battling big rocks. Building inspector said chuck some rebar over the rocks, they don't go anywhere. He said, "By the time the conc- the the concrete will take 500 years to get as hard as those rocks." I was happy to hear that, so that was good.

[00:05:37]Um Yeah, so the concrete truck came this morning. I dug out the pond in the shed.

[00:05:43]It's [ __ ] sunny here.

[00:05:45]Dug out the pond in the shed.

[00:05:48]Ah.

[00:05:50]Tell you what, we'll have a look at that in a minute.

[00:05:52]Look at this way.

[00:05:54]I've set up the little grow on tank. Yeah, I said I told you about it in the last video.

[00:06:03]I filled it up.

[00:06:06]The other day I put there Oh, yeah, I was explaining this to my as you can see what I mean now.

[00:06:12]So, there's my kind of bottom drain.

[00:06:14]And none of that is welded so I can pop it off and put a net round it to stop the little fry getting sucked up.

[00:06:23]Sucked [snorts] up there.

[00:06:24]And then when they get big enough I can pull it off, take the net off and reach in and put it back on. I couldn't do that before with that bottom drain in my last one. It was too deep and too far away.

[00:06:37]Yeah, so it goes from there through a it's a 2-in pipe. There's a 2-in ball valve there straight into the easy pod and then it comes out of the easy pod under there to a well, very flow evolution out of the very flow. It's pretty much identical to my grow on in Bristol.

[00:07:01]Yeah.

[00:07:04]I run it for a week and I stuck a boatload of PP in it.

[00:07:08]Surprised it didn't melt the whole tank.

[00:07:12]But safe and sorry, isn't it? So, that's all ready to be refilled and good to go.

[00:07:16]The only thing is I've got no waste.

[00:07:18]But I'll get to that.

[00:07:20]My little drum filter is up for sale if anybody want it, drop me a email. My email is at the top of my YouTube page.

[00:07:29]Absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's in mint condition.

[00:07:32]Wash pump, control panel.

[00:07:35]Yeah, it's all all there good to go.

[00:07:37]Screen's mint.

[00:07:39]Yeah, it's not going to be big enough I've thought about putting this on here, but because if I put that on there, I'd have to have a trickle in trickle out.

[00:07:50]And you know, the slowest trickle in is probably going to turn this tank over so much. I don't think I'm going to be able to to keep the KH under control.

[00:07:59]So, for KH stay stability stability stay stable you know what I mean.

[00:08:06]I'm probably better off just running that and doing a you know, a weekly clean two weekly clean twice weekly clean. I can't even talk.

[00:08:14]>> [laughter] >> Right, [snorts] what else we got going on? We got some eggs.

[00:08:21]Ooh.

[00:08:24]We got some chicken eggs were cooking away, baking away.

[00:08:28]I think they'll be ready in 9 days.

[00:08:31]Yeah, I thought I'll put 18 in there.

[00:08:35]And I I thought maybe half of them won't actually develop a chickens. And after 7 days you can candle them, you get a torch and put the egg [snorts] on the torch in the dark and then you can see whether a chick is developing in there or there's still a yolk floating around.

[00:08:49]The one with the yolk obviously no good. So, out of the 18 we only had one that was a dud. So, now we've got 17 chickens on the way.

[00:08:58]And >> [laughter] [snorts] >> my wife said she liked these chickens.

[00:09:05]They're they're called Seabright chickens.

[00:09:08]And uh I couldn't find any cuz they're not very good layers, so there weren't many about.

[00:09:13]So, I found these other ones. I thought oh, they're quite similar. So, I arranged to buy six of those.

[00:09:17]And then during the week I was like YouTubing them and it turns out they're the biggest chicken you can have and they're they're massive.

[00:09:23]My lads really like into it now cuz he thinks they're going to have like dinosaur chickens running around the garden.

[00:09:30]I need to build them a chicken coop. I mean, as if I've got enough on my plate here.

[00:09:34]I've now got to build a chicken coop.

[00:09:37]But, I think I'll show you over here. It's quite It's quite tall. I'm talking about chickens.

[00:09:44]I go over here.

[00:09:46]That stable on the end there isn't being used, so I can have the chicken coop in there.

[00:09:54]Make Make a couple of nest boxes and stuff.

[00:09:57]We've been watching loads of YouTube videos on chickens.

[00:10:00]And then uh I'll probably knock a block out of this and I'll build a run. I've got loads of timber knocking around, so I'm just going to go and get a big roll of chicken wire fencing stuff and knock something up.

[00:10:13]>> [sighs] >> Yeah. I I said to my lad we're waiting till they hatch cuz once they hatch you got to keep them in in a box with a heat lamp for 2 weeks.

[00:10:22]So, I said, "Well, get Let them hatch.

[00:10:23]As soon as they hatch then we'll be on the the chicken enclosure."

[00:10:29]I've been sta- stockpiling blocks. Every time I've ordered something from the builders merchants and hasn't been enough for delivery, I've just chucked another pack of blocks on for the pond for the big pond in here.

[00:10:43]So, poured that this morning. I think it was I worked it out it was 4 cubic meters.

[00:10:52]It's It's 6 in base in some places, 9 in in others.

[00:10:59]And uh Yeah, it's five It's going to be internal.

[00:11:04]I I wanted to go as far back to that wall as possible.

[00:11:08]But, when I dug it out I realized that this building has really got much footings.

[00:11:14]And I was playing with fire digging under them.

[00:11:17]>> [snorts] >> So, I I uh changed my mind.

[00:11:21]And I've come just out, you know, out with this bit.

[00:11:24]I was going to Can you see that bit?

[00:11:25]It's about 6 in more in.

[00:11:27]I was going to cut these pieces of concrete and try and get it way back a the wall, but nah, nah.

[00:11:34]Yeah, so once I put the blocks there, internal dimensions 5 and 1/2 m, 2.75 m, and then I measured it from the top of the bottom drain up to that mark, which is going to be the top of the wall.

[00:11:48]The reason that's the top of the wall, let me go over here.

[00:11:54]It's a footing on here, look.

[00:12:00]You got footing there.

[00:12:02]So, the top of that footing or the bottom of that block will be the finished floor level, and the whole whole floor in here now slopes down.

[00:12:11]So, I marked from the finished floor 800 top, so the top of the coping stone on the pond, even though now when I stand here, it's like up to my you know, the bottom of my ribs. Once the floor comes up, it'll be nice 800 to the top, which means, sorry, waffling, from the top of that bottom drain to the top of the coping stone is 5 ft 2 in. So, so, [snorts] take out a couple of inches, it'd be 5 ft deep.

[00:12:44]Which is good because I was aiming for 5,000 gallons, and bringing the bringing the sides in a bit brought me just under there, but now I've worked out the height, you know, measured from the bottom drain, I I can get the 5,000 gallons.

[00:12:57]I brought What am I doing here?

[00:13:00]Two bottom drains. I've just gone for cheap cheap bottom drains. I'm not really fussed on aerated bottom drains.

[00:13:07]You know, I've been in been in the pond in winter trying to fix some of these bottom drains, and that's not fun.

[00:13:14]I know there's a new new ones out now, isn't there the the easy ones.

[00:13:20]They're fiberglass and whatnot, but and everybody's raving that they're the best, but you know, everybody was raving that the spin drifters are the best and now they're the worst, so >> [snorts] >> I've just gone for bog standard. I don't know the cheapest chips are 25 quid each or something like that.

[00:13:36]Um, and I'm going to have a nice air bar. I I prefer I think I prefer I don't know.

[00:13:41]Yeah, yeah, and then you can go over the top of it all.

[00:13:45]Um, yeah, so that one goes over there.

[00:13:49]That one goes over there.

[00:13:52]I I've gone for cheap.

[00:13:55]Yeah, it is a pattern, yeah. I've gone for the cheap solvent weld um, pipes.

[00:14:01]I did quite a lot of research on like the forums.

[00:14:06]And um, you know, on whether to use pressure or um, solvent weld and it it seemed to be the outcome to me it was if if you think there's going to be any movement in your ground, you know, if you're building on clay then it's better to go solvent weld because if the ground moves no no, if there's any movement in the ground it's better to go pressure which is it's tougher for if it anything moves it's not going to crack, whereas this would crack. Here, well, you've seen the rocks I was pulling out of ground up I couldn't even go any deeper. I was hitting some big rocks.

[00:14:46]It's quite good as well. I don't know if you can see over there. This half of the pond was like like a natural sub base or maybe somebody poured it in there, I don't know.

[00:14:56]But it was really compressed and nice.

[00:14:59]So, I kind of used that as a sub base.

[00:15:01]And this bit over here was like a bit a bit more muddy, but I don't know whether that was cuz that's always been open and rained on.

[00:15:07]So, I kind of dug that deeper and then dragged a load of this nice stuff over and then whacked a plate it all down. Compressed it nicely.

[00:15:17]I did use some rebar.

[00:15:19]I didn't cover the the thing in rebar. I put rebar over the pipes.

[00:15:25]And then I chucked one piece of rebar mesh in there. You can kind of see it.

[00:15:29]Look. I did have one more, but I only put that one there because I'm going to be building up here for the garage door support. Like the supports are on the wall, so I thought I'd make that a bit tougher.

[00:15:42]Yeah, I've got these two little blocks over here, which I wasn't willing to pull out out of there, so like my block is going to go into there and out of there.

[00:15:51]They'll be two courses kind of square on top of each other, but I suppose I could maybe knock that one out, the top one. But no, I'd rather leave it there. Last thing I want is to knock that out and the whole building come down.

[00:16:04]>> [sighs and gasps] >> Wow, feel like I'm talking a lot.

[00:16:07]I I covered the bottom drains with some plastic DPC this morning to stop anything going down.

[00:16:19]Yeah, my aim over here, I don't want to see any filtration on this wall. I I I I I want to come in here and not see any filtration, so I'm going to put the drum there.

[00:16:31]This wall will come up here, obviously.

[00:16:33]And then I'm going to put the bio over there.

[00:16:37]And then put a deck straight over the top so I can basically stand up there or sit up there and have a full-on, you know, side view down into the pond with no wall. That's what I want.

[00:16:51]Whether it all fits in there, I don't know.

[00:16:54]It has to, really, doesn't it?

[00:16:57]I measured a drum that I got my eyes on.

[00:17:00]I'm pretty much committed to that now because I put the pipes in the right place for that drum.

[00:17:05]But I think, yeah, >> [sighs] >> I think from this from here to there is 3 m 20.

[00:17:13]And the drum is a meter, so that leaves 2 m over there for a bio chamber and pumps in the middle.

[00:17:22]>> [sighs] >> I'm not going to flash it. I'm going to try and keep it simple.

[00:17:26]But I'm not having a backy shower. I hate them. Hate the noise.

[00:17:31]I just want to come in here and have no filtration on show at all.

[00:17:35]Just pond.

[00:17:37]I'm going to make light it so cool.

[00:17:40]Um yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do yet. That's the beauty of this, isn't it? For me.

[00:17:46]I don't want to plan it all out because it in my head then if you plan it and stick to that plan, it's finished.

[00:17:55]Whereas the beauty of having a pond to me is you can keep tinkering, you know?

[00:18:02]Yeah. Anyway.

[00:18:04]What else is going on there?

[00:18:06]Oh.

[00:18:07]>> [snorts] >> Yeah. Yeah, we're good there. It should be dry tomorrow, but I'm going to try and do a layer of blocks every evening.

[00:18:14]I've got so much to do in there.

[00:18:17]>> [snorts] >> Um but if I come out here and do a layer every night it's taking me about 2 weeks to do the block work then.

[00:18:27]And then I really want to get that door on so I can close this up and I can take these gates away.

[00:18:34]I mean they're so Yeah, I ordered some I ordered new windows and front doors for this the other day, so and they gave me quite a good price on I was going to buy a cheap second hand one for there, but I might get what what I want, but you know.

[00:18:50]Who knows what I want?

[00:18:55]Upgraded the mower.

[00:18:56]Well.

[00:18:59]Found this on Facebook this time. I reckon every I'm obsessed with buying crap on Facebook at the moment.

[00:19:04]Got found this little mower for 200 quid on Facebook marketplace. The deck was knackered on it, so I ripped all that off and the lads has been driving it around.

[00:19:12]>> [laughter] >> It's uh it's got a Kawasaki V-twin 700 cc engine in it, 23 horsepower. So, it's really powerful.

[00:19:21]He's pulling me around the fields last night. I was sitting in the trailer.

[00:19:26]That's it.

[00:19:28]That's it, guys. So, we've got chickens, we've got ponds, we've got grow ones.

[00:19:33]And we've got building work going on.

[00:19:36]Oh, I've got some perspex. You know perspex?

[00:19:40]What's this stuff called?

[00:19:43]It's gone.

[00:19:44]Polycarbonate. I've got some polycarbonate sheets to cut out there and put onto the grow one.

[00:19:50]I'm going to put a piece See where I've got those two pieces of timber there.

[00:19:57]I'm going to take those away and put a polycarbonate there and cut a hole exactly like my old one.

[00:20:02]I'll cut a hole in the polycarbonate and put a rubber 90 I've got lying in the van. I'm going to stop cap one of these.

[00:20:08]I put my hand over it the other day and saw what the flow was like. Just my finger goes the wrong way.

[00:20:16]I put my hand over that one and to see how much water came out of that one and it was plenty big enough.

[00:20:22]So, I'm just going to have one return back into the pond.

[00:20:26]That's it.

[00:20:28]Going away tomorrow. Going to Manchester to see a gig.

[00:20:33]Be nice to get away from here. I've been leaving that place, you know.

[00:20:36]My commute in the morning is from it's from the uh finger again. Back your doors to here.

[00:20:42]I said to my wife last week it's Friday.

[00:20:44]So, I've got to get out I've got to get out got to get out of the lane.

[00:20:47]Just drive to McDonald's and back.

[00:20:48][laughter] Oh, no.

[00:20:51]Going to take video. Lot of waffling.

[00:20:53]I've lost my voice.

[00:20:55]I will catch you on the next one. Bye.