Designing The Perfect Pond 

If you have a pond with an island and you’re worried about the grass, just have some ducks, they will actually cut the grass for you. a nice feature to have swimming around your pond.

Doug's brother seems like he's got it all figured out!! Beautiful ponds - so peaceful!! Great information!! Have a blessed day!

I saw a video once of a swimming pond. It had a pump that moved water up hill. There was then a rock "creek" that fed back to the pond. This helped filter the water naturally.

You can put rabbits on the island and they’ll eat the grass for you and you can eat them if they start overpopulating. The reason the pond is so clean is that it isn’t creek fed so there’s less sediment in the runoff and it’s full of aquatic vegetation which filters the water.

Just a couple pennies thrown here, consider incorporating a 6" metal standpipe for fire dept. connection, I'm pretty sure if you build it to spec (nfpa) you will get a reduced rate with property insurance since you'll have an emergency water source for the fire dept, also same pipe can be used for a pump connection to water the field in the future if you decide on growing things. Either way, what ever you going to do, is more then likely going to come out great and become an asset to your property, either for aesthetics, entertainment or practicable use.

Such a beautiful property. Can't wait to see what you come up with. Good luck and keep up the good work!

The perfect pond would be constantly aquafer filled with a small creek at the low point to a nearby river. This will allow fish to swim up stream via the creek, but will also keep it crystal clear.

Thanks Adam that was great to see how they did the ponds beautiful places take care

I recommend Peak O2 pond aeration kit #2. It is $499 . Much cheaper than a windmill I believe. I have that system in a 1/2 acre 14 foot deep pond. Installed last August. The pond is 29 years old and vegetation was getting out of hand. At this time there is a very small amount of vegetation. Works great and the pump does not use much electric. Haven`t even noticed a difference on electric bill. The pump runs 24/7. Has only been shut off 4 or 5 times in the year to clean the filter for the pump. Basically the same type pump as used in septic systems. And I have and still you use Aquashade pond die. It helps but only in water I think 4 foot deep or deeper. So vegetation will still grow in the shallower water. And then spread.

So great. I'm building 5 small ponds on my land, this definitely helped me clarify some design ideas. 👍 🇺🇸

Enjoy your channel. I built a1/2 acre pond. I lined the edge with 12’ of road fabric as a weed barrier. I placed river rock of various sizes around the rim as erosion control and I like the way it looks. My pond is 12’ deep. We removed 400 tandem loads of dirt when digging the pond. I also put a beach at one end. I used very tiny gravel in stead of sand. Easy to walk on with bare feet. I can show pictures if you would like to see.

The third (swimming) pond looks like it could be a variation of what you will have. Good to gather others experience. Enjoying the channel!

This is a great video! Very informative with excellent visual support and great descriptions. Thank you for posting!

my goodness, how amazingly beautiful.

This is so beautiful and worth the investment put in there. Once such a pond is created, the ecosystem with work on its on, giving you a peace of mind. I feel so refreshed just watching this video!

Awesome video! Love these! This will be fun to watch your pond. Def on my dream list.

all our ponds had stand pipes with a 180 degree fitting on top, acts like a P trap, water enters from below the surface, and it never clogs up.

I've definitely stored some info in my brain after this video. Not that I plan on doing a pond any time soon. Thanks Adam. We'll done 👍

Wow, great ponds. Nice to have the resources to do this, I can only wish. Enjoy, looks great

I live on a small lake but this video makes me want to buy some acreage and build a pond!

The fire pit by the pond with the patio looks awesome.

I loved those first two ponds. Just wow👍

The most beautiful pond I've ever seen🤩

The lawn is soothing too.

The walkway to the island is called a Causeway, two famous ones over here in the UK 🇬🇧 are the one to Holy Island ( Lindesfarne) in Northumberland and the one to St Michaels Mount in Cornwall, both are tidal one in the North Sea the other near the widest part of the English Channel. The USA probably have more than we do but these have a lot of history to them.

Fantastic video I’m getting ready to expand our pond and plan to build a second one in the future

If you use a diverted type setup like the first 2 ponds you showed ,a spillway going into the pond would help with erosion on the intake of the pond sort of like having your own boat ramp. If you use a spillway on the out side of the pond you would have to lay it o few feet past level ground on the back side of the dam to help with erosion control. The bigger ponds and lake spillways that I have been around are beautiful after a heavy rain but they were made of asphalt or concrete and that would definitely make the cost go up and become extremely slippery after moss and algae starts to grow on them. Both ponds on the property here have out pipes. The bigger pond has a 30” plus out pipe that drains into it’s own man made gulley for erosion control. The other has several smaller out pipes that clear the dam but it tends to wash more on the flat ground behind the dam. It’s only a year old and we haven’t finished setting it it up because we have been building it up a little at a time with 3 tractors and have had and extremely wet year this year. Sorry for the long post but I hope this helps you with some ideas.

I watch a lot of the Letsdig18 channel. When he does a pond, he uses a pipe to maintain level, but also has a spillway for torrential rain so that the pond dam can release extra water without failing.

Those are some beautiful ponds!

Wow!! Absolutely gorgeous!!😍

Very interesting video. I have a farm pond that needs help and I got some good ideas from this video. These were all beautiful ponds.

Awesome video and pond. Loved it.

Wow these ponds are awesome. Really nice property

Love this channel, couldn’t be more remote from my own life in Scotland but really enjoy the videos. Keep it up buddy!

This is just awesome. Planning on getting 60 Acres in Florida, that seems like a great idea.

Those are all very nice ponds with high budgets. Don’t see many of those around here in KS. I do like the pavilion next to the pond. Here in KS if you don’t take the run off you don’t have a pond. Good luck man. 👍

Love this place. Look at all the grass.. lawn for miles 😊😊😊. I would keep Newts though lots of them 😊

Gorgeous pond.

I have 37 acres and really want to build a small pond these set ups are amazing.

That first one was pretty awesome!!!

Very helpful information and straight to the point

Good morning Adam, What hurts our pond the most is getting the run off from the horse pastures, Dougs idea of tiling around the pond to catch the runoff is a good idea that we may consider. Seeing these ponds makes me want to get some work done on ours, We've only owned the property for 2.5 years now. Some beautiful properties. We were down in Lancaster county and over to Loganton Pa doing some business with Amish and Mennonites .

I feel like these are just aesthetic ponds. They serve some but minimal purpose for a healthy ecosystem. Leave some weeds around the sides. Fell some logs into it. Get some algae growing for fry to hide in. Lmk your thoughts but I think natural ponds look way better and serve more purpose than a plain pond. If the pond is solely for swimming then sure. But you look at a pond more times than you swim in it so you might as well make it look serene

The beach aspect was super cool.

thank you for this video. i really needed this input

Man these are gorgeous

Excellent info!

Beautiful!

I'm confused with all the info., but what amazing ponds,take notes and references them. Great viedo, from Fl ,😁

Adam, it is great tonget out there and visit other ponds and find out what works and what doesn't. Those are 3 wonderful ponds. Ours is built with runoff going in and a stand pipe leading to a ditch and down seep tile to the big ditch. We are able to mow just like this. We pit in rip-rap to around it to keep it from eroding away. Looking forward to watching the next video of ponds! Are you having it professionally built or are you going to be doing it yourself? Either way best of luck designing your pond!,

Great sample ponds and explanations. We’re watching you do yours and then we’ll know more about what we want in a future pond. #purplecollarlife

I recommend anti-seep collars for the primary spillway or pipe through the dam.

the first one is by far the nicesest and most natural looking.

I don't think I could resist adding an island. If you could figure out a way to discreetly store a manual push mower on the island that would help the maintenance issue. Or replace grass with lower-maintenance plants, stones, etc. Keep it looking nice without all the mowing.

You really need both an overflow pipe and a spillway. The spillway is usually at one end of the dam and is meant to handle excessive amounts of runoff that the standpipe can’t handle (it’s an emergency relief valve if you will).

I have 70 acres on a mountain side, my proposed pond area is on a 10-12% grade! A pond not very wide, but long is what I have in mind. The stand pipe concept solves the main question I had so far.

Awesome video!

Spillways always work better but pipe drains usually create a second pond behind the dam that can be very good fishing.

A friend of mine put white sand in the swim area and beach. It was Amazing. Like a real beach

great ponds

*BEAUTIFUL*

Awesome content! Brad👌🏻🔥🇨🇦

Great informative video bruh 👍❤️‍🔥

COOL. FROM LONDON. GRACIAS

Beautiful property, some one is lucky and worked hard. It's east just keeping that mowed. Let alone the rest.

nice learning process

What do these people do for a living? The amount of money put into these ponds are mind blowing 🤯

the tiny island and cabin and little pine tree is super cute. they should add a small pine forest for deer

The ravine fill it with tree 🐸 frogs yes😊😊😊

Make sure you go as deep as possible. The dye isn’t bad but any fish you stock will do better with some vegetation to lay eggs and hide from predators. You may want to consider putting in piers before it fills up so you can build a nice permanent dock. Mine is a roll in with a 10’x10’ floating section moored to the end and it makes it nice.

Very nice and well done! Loved the pond tours oh and Doug’s wife is a very lucky lady, he is a handsome dude.😜

Those small ponds would be great to store minnows and shad

Nice ground!

Inspirational

Why ohh why is your video showing up n my feed a day after you posted it? Have to love the RU-vid algorithm, even when someone is subscribed and has the notification bell on.

Fantastic job, I am so building Pound ! But my is small 😕

Like most things: bigger is better. But bigger is more expensive and more maintenance. I’m not sold on the beach sand - messy. Love the windmill aerator and the s’mores deck.

To keep the lake clean, it must be regularly cleaned of silt and algae. This can be done with a dirty water motor pump and a Bagermaster suction nozzle.

I can see the beauty of such ponds and the chill factor of these, but how many days of the year you will really have the time to benefits of its existence? Count swimming, fishing, relaxing, BBQ, ice hockey. How many days will you spend in maintenance to make it look pretty ( water, beach, grass, plants, cleaning )? I am a lazy f..k, so don´t listen to me. lol Live your dreams, Adam. You are doing great.

The main reason our first pond build failed was too small of a key way and not enough compaction on the dam. We had seepage and the back slope slid. We are adding an overflow pipe next time around as well, but a small one to handle normal rain and then an Emergancy spill way for our heavy rain events. Excited to see what you come up with!

Thanks for the dam information and dam pictures.

I caught a bunch of Bluegill from a pond with that blue crap in it. All of them had deformed tails, some so bad they had no tail fin at all. Don't be fooled by what the manufacturer wants you to believe.

Great video!!!! What size are the ponds?

Cements , sands, gravels and pebbles; they sure pretty, and they’re good for the fish.

My idea of the perfect pond would have an island green with a flag stick. About a 100 yd shot to the green.

Nice ponds ! Where is this?

You might want to check the local laws in PA for building a new pond. The neighbor did and found it was a nightmeare. Between the paperwork and the cost of permits was insane. Our pond was made when our house footer was dug in the 60's so it was a gran father type deal. Ours has a stand pipe but we are looking to put in a spillway. I would stay away from a standpipe there a pain in the a$$. great video

13:27 nice color.

I would love to be able to do his turn into my own trout fishery .

In sweden we build a Sauna if there is water for bathing all year around. Prerebably with a good wood heater.

I want to see the mower someone uses to mow all that grass. Good lord

Depending on size of your pond you should definitely install a dry hydrant for your local fire company to draft out of it should the need arise. Speaking from the fire service is is a very nice thing to have a water source to use

His brother owns a beautiful piece of property, wishing it was mine LOL!

Where is this? It looks beautiful and green. And hilly. Really ideal place to live.

Love the Video Was wondering if you might be attending the homesteading convention in VA in few months.

Water for every farm by P. A. Yeomans, a must read for anyone building a dam / pond

Look at aquascapes they do backyard garden ponds but I know they have done farm ponds where the use pumps to skim the water surface and pump it back into a biological filtration system to keep the water clear.

My dad put in a 3acre pond in the early 90’s he stocked it and it’s been doing well up until he passed away 2 years ago. 😔 I’m catching hell trying to keep it nice. The muskrats are present and they’re driving me nuts! My son was a big help but he’s in college now. The flood gate is covered and I have to pump it today because the water is way to high. .

Cool!

How big is this property ? Trying to figure out how much land should I invest in a pond to make sure I generate enough rain water to irrigate my land ..