Keyword: pond

Who allows this junk to be posted?

It seems the NY Times is hurting and trying everything they can to boost circulation. That story is two years old.

The other possible answer is someone here in the US is about to start doing this and is trying to build marketing demand/interest.

I know my kids aren't going in one of those.

quote" Who allows this junk to be posted? "quote

This isn't junk, it's a different avenue to swimming.
There's nothing wrong with a swimming pond, as long as you call it a swimming pond and chemically maintain it for swimming. It is not, and never will be a swimming pool. But, it is swimmable for most people.
I'd recommend a filter, fountain, heavy duty ozonator, and a little sodium bromide.

See ya,
Kelly

Kelly,

Did you read the post? They are not using any kind of chemical or ozonator.

Heres what they typed...

"friendly bacteria attach, serving as an additional biological filter"

And they really have high water quality standards:
"the water is clear enough to see through to the bottom"

This is not a helpful post and should be in the pond section. I have a koi pond and it works the same way. And you wont see me swimming in my koi pond "with friendly bacteria"!

Jason

You know there are other problems with these things if they are not classified as pools. The first major problem is will they need to meet the suction entrapment and other child safety codes? What about construction standards and codes? Forget about water quality.
Jason

quote" This is not a helpful post and should be in the pond section. "quote

Is there a pond section in GW!!!

I was really kind of LMAO when I read this,

quote" People really want to swim in it, more than in a farm pond. "quote

I didn't mean to promote his cause.
But it is ironic because I'm just finishing a 4 acre pond excavation at my country property. It's running 8 to 24 feet deep. I'm depending on the makeup water from rain collected by 2 small creeks draining about 100 acres behind.
Since we get a lot of rain I'm certain it'll always maintain it's level at the spillway.
I want the water as sharp as it can be but don't want to spend the money, LMAO at myself!!! I'd like to make it a truly swimmable pond but I can't. It's my new jet ski, slalom, and wakeboard pond. This, my internet friends, is going to be some fun. Private lake means no cop problems like you have on a Texas public lake!!!
Here's yesterdays pics from my cell phone camera, I'm starting to get the hang of this new toy I got a couple of weeks ago. The pic's are deceptive, max runout to east/west channel behind island 700' by 300' wide. The boys and I will be banging some boats at the corner buoys but are bummed I've called "NO PASSING" in the channel even before building our dam and filling it. I wonder just how long that rule will be obeyed before being broken.
facing NE

Perhaps I should contact "MICK HILLEARY, an industrial designer" for his input LOL!!!

See ya,
Kelly

I sincerely hope you didn't take my responses as negative or antagonistic.

quote" thought I might either find someone here who has one or, at the very least, spark a discussion. "quote

I thought I did, LOL!!!

On my pond I figured I'd run a large multi phase pump through a bank of 4 TR140 C-3's off 6" piping and a multi-filter bypass kit.
Using a WWTP commercial ozonator and sodium bromide I'd have marginally filtered and sanitized water with the current water flow layout. And if I built a pair of 18" diverters I could contain the ponds water after filling and run the excess rain water into either my pond for topping off evaporation and ground seepage loss's or through underground piping to the other side of the spillway and avoid dilution when full.
Once contained I'd stand a much better chance of keeping almost decent water chemistry for swimming and much greater filtration.

I liked your post because it referred to something I currently have in the works, and don't allow the other responses to keep you from feeling welcome.
If there is a pond forum in GW it does relate better to it than the pool/spa forum. I'll have to search and see if there is.

If I came across a little sarcastic on the "MICK HILLEARY, an industrial designer" for his input statement I was just having some fun.
I'm a traditional pool builder but have built a few ponds too. However they were stock ponds for cattle, fishing, and duck hunting. I didn't feel your post was threatening.
Just note that IMO you won't get a very large swimming pond area with the filtration and sanitization schematic attached to the first post.

See ya,
Kelly

G/Ws pond forum is

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/ponds/

Here is a link that might be useful: Pond forum

Scott,
Thanks for the link.

After making my reply to dragonfly I went out and worked on cleaning my pool some and then pounded some cold beers playing pool with a buddy for the past 4 or 5 hours.
I just went to the pond forum link, there are some pretty ponds in the gallery. When I searched "big ponds" I got a great laugh. The largest was 20 by 14.
I didn't have the heart to ask anyone for input because I felt it was out of the element of the forum members.
They're concerned with ponds of less than a 1000 gallons.
I estimated my pond at 18 million gallons.
With 4 tandemed TR140 C3's on a 6" I should hit 400000 gallons filtered daily. Not really a drop in the bucket on standard pool filtration turns but IMO adequate for a pond as long as I can avoid dilution by makeup water.
There are some powerful commercial Ozonators for wastewater treatment plants, I could use one and search the chemical plants in our greater Gulf Coast area for who a good wholesaler of sodium bromide may be. These two together make one bad-ass disinfectant, hypo-something acid which is, to my understanding, 2000 times better than bleach and a 1000 times faster.
All I want is as much clarity as possible and as well sanitized as possible.
I think the combination of these two, if even close to reasonably affordable, will handle my needs.
I'm probably chasing a pipe dream and will end up swimming in regular pond water after I price out the application.

See ya,
Kelly

I don't know why this freaks people out so much. It's just a different approach to swimming. Didn't anyone else ever swim in a lake or pond, or the ocean for goodness sake? The idea of "swim ponds" or "natural pools" has been around for a long time. They usually use bog filtration, which is also used in sewage filtration facilities too. It does work.

Here is a link that might be useful: Here is a link to an old Mother Earth News article.

I have no distaste for PONDS. I have been swimming in PONDS, lakes, rivers, and oceans. I like PONDS. If you want to swim in your POND go right ahead. I simply want to clarify that what has been described is a POND not a swimming pool. The no.1 reason people build swimming pools is to have clean water to swim in. Your POND may have clear water, but it may not be sanitary. A properly maintained swimming pool has cleaner water than you get out of the tap. If you dont like such a sterile environment then swim in your POND.

Kelly,

You might want to rethink allowing gas powered anythings in your pond. They do spit out some gunk and oil.... that will mess with your water quality.

You might want to stock some small mouth bass, trout, cat fish, carp, sunfish, etc..., to help maintain and monitor your pond's health. Bet they're a lot more cost effective too.

I'd give up filtration and sanitization before I gave up the ski pond,LOL!!! I'm a guy who wants his cake for free.
During the post hurricane/economic crash down time we've had 3 of my excavators out there to keep my hands busy.
I laid the pond out exclusively for a slalom skiing buoy course down the center, a full circle speed lap course, and a multi gate buoys course that will incorporate into the slalom ski buoys.
My boys, my buddies, and I could have little (4 boat max) in house races, great practice sessions, slalom skiing, and wakeboarding all in the same arena. I'm hoping my prior corner speed plus acceleration down the straight speed arithmetic will bring us into the east inlet of the channel at less than 60mph on the speed lap course, and more importantly that my concave radius channel has enough water apron to accept a boat coming in a little to hot. These babies will dive to the inside on high speed turns, but can drift wide in another boats wake or froth. This past weekend we were eyeballing the channels apron, target practicing, and shooting skeet. Drinking beer afterwords I told my DS and SIL that I'm not going to allow passing in the channel.
They were bummed because no passing violates every rule of racing, passing others is what we live for.
I'm going to take some ski's to our local lake in the next week or two and set up some temporary buoys with the inside of my radius at a right angle to the shore, come in hot and start moving the buoys closer and closer to the shore. Hopefully I'll be able to use the info gathered to determine if the channel's OK or if I need to widen the outside of the radius.
I didn't mean to sound Anti-Cop earlier because I'm not, but they'll probably come give us static when we set up the buoys. The river authority has never a allowed closed course race on the lake and the cops think the water is only there for boaters who're out for a slow speed Sunday boat ride regardless of what day of the week it is.
I'll take some pic's as we progress if anybody wants to see them, I'm hoping to be wrapping up soon and that springtimes rain will fill it prior to Memorial Day's weekend.

See ya,
Kelly

Swimming pond is what you are referring to. They are very popular in Europe, but they are not called pools. In Austria/Germany it is called a "Teich", which means POND! They try to sell it as a pool to their English speaking customers, but a Teich is a Teich.

Click on the link below to see for yourself

Here is a link that might be useful: Swimming Pond (Teich) Youtube video

Long time lurker, first time poster.

WOW! What an ugly reception for a new poster! It's frustrating when people react with such hostility on a matter that they quite obviously know little to nothing about.

Dragonfly Wings: should you still be lurking about, try looking at this page: http://clear-water-revival.com/

I have been following the progression of Natural Pool/ Swim Ponds (semantics argument aside) for a few years myself. There are many ways to establish a Natural Pool/ Swim Pond, ranging from a completely natural vegetation filter, to a high tech mechanical system which includes bio filters, uv sterilizers, etc.

As you know, they are very popular in Europe. Europe however, is quite a bit colder than where I live in Savannah, Georgia. To my knowledge, there are NO working examples of NSP's in the South Eastern U.S. IMO, this is stil nascent technology at least for my climate and I am patiently waiting for a proven system to be established that I can study to my satisfaction.

I would LOVE a NSP! I have dreamed about having one installed for over 2 years now! :) The thought of EVER having to swim in water so poisonous it only stops short of killing the swimmer is ridiculous to me. I can't imagine letting my nieces and nephews swim in water I knew proven to be carcinogenic or asthma inducing.

That said, I think it is a bit early to be digging our pools. :)

Good luck Dragonfly!

Yeah, Michael Phelps will never see 30.

dragonfly, When you start a post in a swimming pool forum that is dominated by Americans, by dissing their product and calling it "a white tiled thing", what kind of reception do you expect? Sorry if you think you can insult people and expect them to like
your opinions.

As far as your swimming ponds go, they would not meet any health dept specs that I am aware of or electrical codes. These codes are designed around public safety. If people wanted to swim with the frogs, snakes and dragonflys they would not build swimming pools.

In order for your ponds to work they have to have a certain level of dissolved oxygen which is not desirable for clear warm water. ORP stands for oxygen reduction potential. The way you test for oxygen levels in a lake is using a clarity test, the clearer the water the less oxygen. A cold mountain stream could be clear and have a high level of oxygen but it has a lot of flow and is cold.

So if you expect to gain favor from professionals by insulting their taste and intelligence, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Kelly, I guess you intend to do some serious rip rap or something in your ski lake, otherwise it will alway be muddy with the waves and current created by the boats. I have seen ski lakes made out of concrete that towed the skiers from an overhead cable system and they still had difficulty dealing with the erosion issues.