Hi Rita,
Yes, you can buy that siphon at a pet store. But get the biggest one. Its just a big plastic cylinder on one end, with a tube coming out of it. You hold it under water, to fill it up, then hold it upright to get the water flowing in the tube, and then quickly put it under water again, and it should drain by gravity. Sometimes its a little tricky getting it going, but you'll get the hang of it. its just a couple dollars. You can then connect more tubing to it, if you want it to drain away from your pond. It does take a little while though, and you still have to hand drain the bottom water.
Another trick is to just keep your pump running, but lay the tubing for it over the side of the stocktank, and it will drain it.

HURRAY, HURRAY, HURRAY. IT's here!!!!!

Wow, its really nice. 4 foot by 7 foot in a deep smokey grey color. Of course the ends are rounded and it isn't square. 26 inches high.

It has three of those levels like some stock tanks have around the sides, I just don't know what to call them. Its pretty easy to drag around some now that it doesn't have any water in it. I put it were I want in roughly. I have to decide on enough room for edges and such so move it a foot this way and that.

When I ordered I had intended to leave above ground. But I think that I am not going to like that and should put it two of those edges into the ground and the last up out of the ground and then I put rocks around it. Have to think on this some.

Yay Rita! Congratulations!
Vanessa

YAY!!! I'll bet you're really excited!
Will you have any help with digging the ground out? I hope so. It ends up being alot of soil.
If you do sink it in the ground. be sure to tighten the drain and I suggest even caulking it. Also, keep it flat on the ground. I propped mine up on its side a little, while the guys were digging the hole over several days, and it warped it some.
You're going to have alot of fun with this! Congrats! Keep us posted on your progress, and take lots of pics!

YEAH! Use the dirt you dig from the hole to pile up the sides to help support the rocks, or create a small waterfall or stream. Good luck :) S

I am not crazy about the idea of digging, although fortunately there are no big roots in the area it is going. I still don't know what I will do. I dragged it around some this way and that way looking at it to see what I liked best. Right now, I am thinking of leaving it above ground for the summer and just thinking on it.

Hi Rita,
I think just leaving it above ground and mulling it over in your mind is a good idea. Its a BIG tank and will require a big hole, and you want to be sure its placement and orientation is exactly where you want it. Maybe it will even take a couple years, to find the perfect spot for it.....but you'll be sure of it. I think waiting is a great idea. I'm doing that with a small 40 gallon container that I have a lotus in. I was going to dig yet another hole in my backyard, but couldn't decide on the perfect spot. So even though I really wanted to have it sunken, so I wouldn't have to store the lotus anywhere this next winter, I'm leaving it above ground....so I can change my mind over the summer.
Plus, it will give you time to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of sinking it or not.

Rita, I agree with Catherine, sounds like a very wise decision. You can be sure it gets enough sun, or shade, whichever the case may be, for the plants & fish you want to have. Congrats on your new pond, have lots of fun setting it up. Be sure to take pictures & keep us posted. Some of us live vicariously through our buds here on this forum!! LOL Catherine, I just love the questions you ask & the answers you give others, you are a very wise person.
Regards
Dianne

Ahhh shucks Miss Dianne. That was a really nice compliment. I don't get very many of those! Thanks! :)

Oh, I can see this all happening....Rita tries the new tank, here and there, here and there, finally sets it up for the summer...

....and by next spring goes with BIGGER and this tank is now a skippy :) lol!

Good luck from one pond addict to another (doesn't take much)!

You have me laughing but its VERY true. I was out there today with my tape measure trying to see how big a ten foot circle really looked laid out in the side yard because I am dreaming of a ten foot stock tank. And my side yard is not that big but this is the sunny side and the other side is totally taken up by gardens so no room for anything else there.

The thing is that before I ordered this tank that I have now, I measured and laid out the dimentions and it looked really big looking at the outline laid out on the grass (used some out clothline to make the outline and shape of the tank). Now that the real thing is here, it doesn't look that big at all to me. Now how can that be??

Hey Rita, It's the Murphy's Law of Ponding! You always want a bigger pond! I think it happens to all of us! That's part of the fun. Always dreaming of what you are going to do next! Just stay away from your local Japanese Gardens!! OMG! I really want a much bigger pond now!
Dianne

Hi Rita,
Aren't you on the wrong forum? I always see you on the daylily forum....LOL

Anyway I have to agree with everyone else, no matter how big you make your pond, you will always want a bigger one. LOL

As for your pond and putting it in the groud, above the ground and so forth. I think you would enjoy something I did at my previous home.

I had 3 ponds and two of them were buried and looked really great. The 3rd pond I buried half way in the ground making sure it was level. Next I bought a bunch of bags of good soil potting mixture from a local nursery. Then I had ordered a bunch of those Keystone bricks that weigh about 70 pounds each and went around the pond with them. Leaving a big gap between the bricks and the pond. Then I filled in the gap with the good soil I bought, leveled it all off and plante some of the most beautiful plants I could get my hands on in that area. Then I topped the keystone bricks off with their tops that are about 3 or 4 inches thick and they interlock with the bricks so they don't move. When I was finished I had a place to set on the side of the pond (the keystone brick area) and either just enjoy everything I had done or work on whatever I needed to do in the pond. I wish I had some pictures of it to share with you but I don't. It was breath taking.

Now I'm like you, I'm just getting started back up with ponds again. I now have 2 above ground and one huge one I'm building in ground with a waterfall.

I have a big stock tank that is about 1/2 acre the horses drink out of but I still want to try planting some interesting water plants in it. LOL

I'm too busy with daylilies and irises right now though.
Best of luck with your pond and all.

Happy Gardening and ponding, Marian

Heck, I still am on the daylily forum and the roses forum and the bluebird forum and the bird forum. Used to post alot in the Wildlife Garden forum and shrubs forum but don't go there much lately.

They way you did your pond sounds like a very interesting idea. Me, I have decided that I am going to leave it above ground for this summer and just take my time thinking on how to set it in ground.

Its been raining heavily all night and then more than steadily all day. Just a half hour ago it started up heavily again and supposed to continue heavily till about midnight then lighten up some. Not sure how much it will clear out Tuesday.

I have not been out there but I bet there is water in the stocktank now. Since I have not leveled the ground yet in the spot that I am going to keep it, I guess I will be bailing it out.

Does it have a drain? Plus, they're not that heavy to tilt up on their sides, providing there isn't too much water in it. And watch for poor widdle mice that fall in.

Yes, it has a drain. That is one reason I wanted a stocktank above ground. I thought it would be easy to empty. But then I thought I read that you shouldn't use the drain plugs much for fear that they start leaking. Will keep very careful watch for swimming mice but if they fall in during the night, they are on their own.

It wouldn't hurt to use the drain a couple times if necessary.
You could put a milk crate in the stocktank for the mice to hold on to, until you could rescue them. :)

Well, after the rain stopped this afternoon I went out and emptied the water that had gotten into the stocktank. Fortunately there were no mice in there. I just tipped it onto its side and dumped the water really easily.

Just as well that some water was there, it allowed me to see that I really do have to do a leveling job. I would guess that there was about six inches of water on one of the long ends and at the other there was just a hint of a beach. So the ground its sitting on is no were near level.

I have been thinking on getting it level and the only way I can think of to do it is to remove the sod as soon as I position it permantly and then just work on leveling the ground by removing more dirt under one end than the other.

I haven't even begun this project (even thought it has to be done before I can fill the tank and therefore before I can buy my plants and fish) because all the daylily plants I ordered for spring have been coming (more coming this week and lots came today) and since they ship bare root, they need to be planted ASAP. There is only so much I can get done in the garden and it all seems to need doing at once.

You can remove sod, or just build the other side up with some extra soil. Do you have any extra around? Since DH and DS dug my 2 inground stocktanks, we always have lots of extra soil! If you do use loose soil though, give it a few days with a bit of water in the tank to see if its still level after the soil settles. If you remove sod, you probably wouldn't have to wait, since its already packed down.
You still have plenty of time to get your stocktank going, so don't worry about it. Just take care of your daylilies.

You can use the drain. You just need to replace it with a PVC ball valve type faucet. If you get it sealed properly it won't leak and you can use it all the time to flush out the bottom of the tank, change water, etc. It really makes upkeep so much easier.

Here's how I leveled, Rita. It's not perfect but nearly so. I was doing an 8' round so I fastened a loop to the end of a 4.5 foot straight board (I wanted to level a slightly larger area, just in case). I jammed a long screwdriver through the loop and into the center of my space. I marked where the loop (one of those fasteners for thinwall conduit) hit the shaft of the screwdriver so I could keep it at the same height all around then I sat a 2 foot level on the board and just moved it around the screwdriver, stopping every couple of feet at the outside edge and added or removed dirt till it read level with the mark on the screw driver. Took 2 or 3 passes around before I was satisfied but it worked pretty well.
Vanessa

I think the difficult part is that you want to support the entire bottom of the stocktanks, not just the edges, so you have to keep moving the stocktank back and forth, to get to the soil underneath it. Its pretty much a 2 person job for the larger tanks.
You can usually see the imprints of the bottom of the stocktank in the soil (at least with Rubbermaid), and you can see where it needs more soil.

Oh, yeah! Catherine's right. I made sweetie help me place it a couple times and you can see where the low spots are. Then we sort of scootched it back and forth till it was all smooth underneath.
V

I am going to go with the remove sod method. Trying to build it up is not going to work for me and at least with the sod gone, I will be able to see the imprints in the soil of were the tank touches. I can move it fairly easily myself my dragging, as long as it has no water in it.

I also bought myself a level, so that might help.

I am still really swamped planting my daylilies as I ordered so many that each time I get the last box planted, another one arrives. Plus I want to plant my tomatoes this weekend.

I really hope to be able to work on the pond by the begining of next week but we will see.

Rita, you'll have to show us pics of all those daylilies sometime!
Funny story.........I have those native daylilies around the property. One time I had people over for dinner, and cut some daylilies for a vase in the middle of the table. hahaha........they are DAY lilies, not evening lilies! It was sort of embarrassing when they all closed up and died in the middle of dinner. lol!

Oh, Catherine, that sounds like something I'd do!!! hahaha
Anne

Catherine, I used to have the native daylilies but got the daylily crazies just like I have gotten the rose crazies and the bird attracting crazies and the small fruit crazies and so on. Now the pond crazies. My yard does keep looking better and better. I mail ordered and planted LOTS of daylilies last year and this year. All my daylily orders have not even arrived yet, although fortunately the bulk has and I have planted them. Was out there yesterday planting daylilies again.

Before I was planting the daylilies I moved my stocktank again. It has actually been sitting in one spot after lots of moving this way and that the first few days. This time I got the idea to drag it about 8 feet further in line were it will get more sun and the ground is actually abit more level. Still will have to do leveling though. This is why I didn't want to immediate start to dig, I like to get the best location and that requires trying a few different spots.

I get the crazies too Rita, so you're not alone.
But now I'm getting too old and worn out to keep up the crazies. We have about 33 acres, and even though only about 5 are kept mowed around the house, its just too much.
I got the chicken crazies, which keeps me busy, the tree crazies, the veggie crazies, the pond crazies, the baking/cooking crazies, and on and on! It keeps like interesting though, doesn't it? :)
(I have the plain old crazy crazies too). haha

I have lots of crazies too. Everyone that knows me knows that I am quite peculiar. Suits me fine.

I spent the day digging for my stocktank. Had to dig up the grass in stips or clumps and then it was a matter of leveling. I spent the last hour trying to get the last 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch in some places. Gave up and am filling it now. We will see what happens when its full. If its not really, really close I will be pumping out the water and starting again. I am really picky.

Not that I have a pump yet. I would like to go tomorrow and get my pump and filter so I can get that set up.

catherinet What kind of filter and pump are you using? Was the waterfall or fountian not enough to keep it from freezing? I am also in zone 5 and just recently acquired a metal stock tank that I can't wait to set up. I was thinking about using a tank warmer that they use for the animals. It doesn't really heat the water it just keeps it right about freezing.

Ok, so I filled it. This way I can see exactly what is what. I am off by close to an inch I think from front to back. That is the front of the tank longways is about an inch lower than than back. Then I am off from side to side by about a half inch. It doesn't really look bad, just that I want everything just so. There is nothing I can do about it right now anyway as I don't have a pump so can not pump the water out and I am not about to bail it out with a bucket as my back already hurts from digging and moving that stocktank back and forth too many times to count.

Hi proudgm,

I never used a pump or filter in my 100 gallon above ground stocktanks. They just didn't seem to need it for the lilies and lotus. And I chose not to use a deicer in winter, since we've been known to have week-long power outages. I just didn't want to chance it. And when the power goes out, the last thing I want to do is try to bury the plants in the frozen ground!
But there are people on this forum in zone 5 who do leave everything in their stocktanks throughout the winter, with the use of a deicer.
Rita......you can just put a couple inches of water in your leveled stocktank and let it sit a couple days, and you can see how level it is, without filling it up all the way.
I've learned to tolerate a bit of imperfection in the level.........but it can drive you crazy if its too off.
My sunken lotus bog is VERY unlevel and it drives me nuts. But there's no way I will ask hubby to dig it all out and re-do it!

I forgot to add that I had put my milk crates in the pond as I was filling it and now they are floating around in there. I thought they were supposed to stay on the bottom. Milk Crate Islands were not what I had in mind.

LOL Rita,
Yeah, you gotta put a plant on them to hold them down. I like floating them at the beginning of the season for the frogs to hold on to.

Well, I put a rock on two of those milk crates and took the third out. What I was looking for was the effect of having the underwater plants ancored in something with a milk crate on top so that the plants would grow thru the holes on the top of the milk crates. These that I just bought can't do that as the bottom is solid.

I threw 4 bunches of hornwort and put a small pot of Red Stemed Parrot Feather in my stocktank late yesterday afternoon and today I noticed all the sides of the tank have small bubbles all the way around underwater. Also on the milk crates. I swear they were not there the day before.

Have to try and set up the pump/filter now.

I have to laugh at myself. I am out there trying all the fountain heads and all the various different configerations. Works very well.

I am just so happy with the new Stocktank pond I want to just jump up and down. Or at least stay and watch the new fish I added today. But its dark outside so I have to wait until tomorrow.

There's always a flashlight Rita! :)
I'm glad you're having such a good time!

I'm just so glad to hear of all your "stepping Stones" as you set up your Pond. I just wish you had some pictures to share with us. I can just imagine you in the store buying all those fish. Why do we always want more? I guess I'm lucky to be so far out and away from tempting Garden and Pond shops. There is so much I'd like to buy but have to be content with what I have. Rita, I can just picture you as you move from step tp step with your Ponding. Thanks for sharing!!! Enjoy!!! Kathy

Try doitbest.com

I paid $77 and change for my 100 Gal Rubbermaid stock tank. By using "Ship-to-Store" they will deliver to my nearest store for free. I like free.

Rita....if you are like my husband and I, then your pond and garden planning must keep you awake at night. We have found that we are so anxious for the next day to start, that we have a hard time going to sleep on the weekends.....like kids on Christmas Eve. Then weekdays, we both find ourselves day dreaming of our ponds while at work. Adding a new pond to the yard is so fun. What will you do with yourself when you are done? (Other than start another new pond...LOL)

Amanda

Hi, Im new here and I want to get a 300 gal stock tank for my goldfish that have gone through 3 tanks. When I was given the first carnival prize, who knew where this would lead. So I decided a pond is the way to go. I live in Az and it gets HOT here, so I figured I would put it on the patio, with the filter that also has two fountains. Can you put these stock tanks on concrete? What kinds of plants can grow without being in direct sunlight? What is the DIY Skippy(?) filter? Help, I've been reading and learning alot but Im worried about the heat here. My guys need a great new house. They've been through alot while I learn the hard way that goldfish are not the easy little fish in bowls as they are portrayed.

Yesterday it rained all day, much of the time really pouring. I did not even go outside, it was so nasty. This morning when I went to visit the Stocktank I saw that all the Azolla I had was washed away. I had it in one of those floating rings. I few specks did survive here and there floating around the pond.

I am thinking maybe the Azolla is for ponds with still water? My water is not still. My pump puts out a nice splash gush that reminds me of an underground spring bubbling up. The fish love to play around in there but none of the surface is still, it has quite a bit of up and down movement in it.

Since its above ground and oval 4 feet by 7 feet the whole things reminds me of a boat. My mailman called it a bathtub :-(( I like the boat immage much better.

Yeah Rita! Glad to hear you got the stock tank/pond set up.
All the azolla I put in my pond last year got eaten by the fish or splashed out by the rain. I finally put some in a container & it grew there just fine. I would add some to the pond ocassionally, because I love the way it looks. Enjoy your new pond, it sounds great.
Dianne

I have been so enjoying finially having a real pond with waterplants and fancy fish. Only problem is I get less work done as I am often going over to just watch the fish swim around.

Today it was raining all day but I got out there three times briefly when the rain slowed. I just couldn't not go see my fish :-))

{{gwi:193468}}

My plants have really filled in and the Stocktank looks good.

Rita,

I've been wondering how your stocktank was doing. Looks good!! Is your parrots feather free-floating or potted?

Anne

They are potted. I have one small pot of Red Stemmed Parrot Feather and a somewhat bigger pot of the regular parrots feather but its not big either. The stuff really likes to grow and the fish don't eat it.

They eat the Watercress like crazy and you can see lots of stems there in the picture where the leaves are gone, eaten.

It's looking really pretty, Rita! Sorry about your water cress. I'm trying to save my variegated water celery from the fish by putting barriers around it. They've trimmed back every leaf they could reach! They bite my parrot feather but they don't seem to eat it. I just find these delicate bits sadly floating around the tank.
Vanessa