Hi indycat: Sorry to hear about your pond situation. My pond is only 1,000 gallons and I had a major blowup with my sprinkler system irrigation. It burst underground - right next to my new pond - and it leaked water into my pond and created a big flooded mess. This went on overnight and I had no idea it was even happening until I woke up the next morning to see my entire backyard flooded! Thankfully, I was able to get it fixed within a few days. At 1,000 gallons, it took 4 - 5 days to clear up where I could finally see the fish and bottom again. Since your pond is so large, it might take up to a month to clear up. It WILL eventually settle - just give it some time. After mine settled completely, I did partial water changes (20%) about every week with a wet/dry vacuum and it eventually got rid of all the mud at the bottom of the pond. You could probably start doing partial water changes now to get a jumpstart. I just waited it out until I could see that all my pondlife was ok. Good luck.

I wonder if you only heard "extension cord"? An extension cord is not to code and not desired. However, I've often installed small ponds using conduit and run the pump cord thru the conduit to the outlet. Pumps can come with very long cords, 15'. Running the cord thru the conduit keeps everything neat and safe. Your contractor could get away with no conduct and just bury the cord because most are rated for burial. But conduct makes it easy to replace a pump later. Tie a string to the male plug, pull the pump out and the cord out thru the pond. Untie the string, tie onto new male plug and pull the string thru the conduit along with the power cord. Sounds like a good contractor and I can count on one hand the number of times I've said that. Having an outlet next to a small pond is something I try to avoid. They're a little hard to hide imo. If the pond is changed later it often has to be moved. But OK if needed. Now for the myths...and there are many. I'm assuming you'll have a few goldfish and aren't planning on koi. 5' diameter, 3' and you want simple. Good news is simple is also the easiest way to keep a pond. People on the web are bored and like to make pond keeping as complex as possible so they have something to talk about. Retailers like complex as possible so they have something to sell, and boy do they have stuff to sell. 1. If you're in a retail store to buy anything other than feeder goldfish or food you are going to make your life very complex. 2. Steep sides protecting fish from predators is a myth. It only sounds good and for many people that's good enough. Raccoons can pin a fish to the side vertical pond wall no problem. Herons, including Night Herons, have no problem jumping into a pond after fish or taking one on the wing. Plenty of YouTube videos showing that and I've seen Great Blues do it in an 8' deep pond (was a pool). 3. Marginal plants do not need to be submerged. When the label says submerged 6" or 12" they're taking about the max depth the plant can take. All marginals do much better in damp soil than submerged. And your life gets much easier too. String algae will often grow in and around the plants and getting it out is pretty much impossible. With no plants in the pond pulling out string algae is very easy. Plant pots on a shelf don't stay on a shelf. Little wind and over they go, dumping stuff all over your pond. And pots are raccoon magnets because looking under rocks for food is what they do for a living. If picking pots out of your pond every few weeks and trying to get the soil/media out doesn't sound like fun I concur. Water lilies and floating plants are the only plants that have to be inside the pond. In general these don't have the raccoon and algae issues. Completely submerged plants also, but these make life harder for you. 4. Plants do not add O2 to the pond, at least in any meaningful way. They consume O2 at night so the net result is water O2 is higher without plants. Not saying you shouldn't add plants, I'm saying adding them to increase O2 is a myth. Water Gardens are fine with plants because they don't have high fish loads. 5. Bio filters are almost never needed in a Water Garden. There are few enough fish that the pond by itself is bio filter enough. But buying an ammonia test kit is a good idea. Seeing a growing level of ammonia that isn't explained by water changes is when you need to consider adding a bio filter. Bio filters are easy to add later. 6. Mechanical filters (pads, sponge, etc) are pretty much worthless. Yes they will collect crap, and it does look like a lot when you clean them, but 99% of the crap stays in the pond. Way more effective in your size pond to just use a net and scoop around the pond bottom every week or so in the summer. You'll remove more and stir the bottom which helps break down small stuff. Emptying a new is sooooo much easier than cleaning these crappy filters sold to new pond owners. 7. Pumps are not required, but are very nice to have and does improve water quality. 8. Skimmers aren't just for leaves. Water surface tension allows dust to settle on the surface. It can make the water look dull. Skimmer fixes that. If you have a water falls it can produce foam on the surface and a skimmer helps reduce the build up of foam on the water. I like a catch basin under the fall to totally eliminate foam and makes the surface still for better fish viewing. Personally I think a skimmer is a good investment. I build my own so I can place the pump behind the skimmer basket for the basket acts as my pre-filter. I like the pump up high. Easier to check and a pump on the bottom can drain a pond if something goes wrong. 9 Shade does indeed reduce algae growth...but not enough that you would notice. Whether it takes 20 or 22 days for string algae to become a problem doesn't really matter. Or whether a pond is sea green or forest green doesn't really matter, the pond is still green and unacceptable. 10. You didn't mention it but plants also don't use enough nutrients to starve algae to death. Adding plants increases the amount of nutrients in a pond in almost every case thanks to the soli/media/fertilizer we add. One good thing plants do normally bring is string algae. Algae species battle each other different ways and one is by producing chemicals that make the water toxic to some other species of algae. They're why clear ponds stay clear although they almost never get the credit. 11. UV filters are sized to keep a clear pond clear. If you wait until the pond is green you might need a bigger UV, although with a bypass and slowing the water thru the UV they can often clear a pond. The most likely time you'll get green water is during the initial startup. If you can get some plants into the pond, even if only temporary, string algae will likely come along for the ride and maybe get the upper hand and be able to stop green water algae from ever getting started. That's hit or miss. Green water algae also produces a chemical to kill string algae so the plants have to be there when water is added. But if you don't want to screw around a UV is your best investment. They can often be turned off after a month or two. The UV kills the green water algae so no chemicals to stop string alage (actually all macro algae) from getting established. Macro algae will appear on its own, spores float in the air, but can have a difficult time growing in green water. Waterfalls can help macro algae establish even in green water sometimes. UVs can just be turned off. In some climates there are sometimes special instructions. When starting them up after being off for awhile it's a good idea to remove the glass sleeve that has the bulb inside and make sure that's clean. Also, these glass sleeves can sometimes cloud over, like a lime deposit but it isn't lime. This can happen after just a few hours of use. It's rare, but if water doesn't clear it's something to check. It's easy to clean off and surprising doesn't seem to repeat. I've only seen it once. The most important advice I give is to not believe the most popular "facts". We live in a much different age than even 20 years ago. There used to be a filter on info. Now everyone's fantasy is presented as fact. It's getting harder everyday to wade thru the mountains of crap info. I think it's actually probably impossible. And that is by far the biggest cause for ponds to be filled in.

Thank you, Susie! So glad you like it. I wish I could get a really clear picture of the lily, showing off the bright yellow center, but my little camera doesn't seem to be able to capture it. It is always overexposed looking and washed out. (I think that means it's time for a new and better camera, don't you? Let's see...new camera or Blu-Ray? I need a new toy!) Thank you, Tom. It was amazing to watch how fast that lily grew. I'm so impressed. The tag said it was odorata, and it does have a sweet scent, but you have to practically stick your head in the pond to smell it! And whenever I get discouraged about the fact that only 1/3 of my back yard has even been touched, I just go back and look at the photos of what it looked like when we moved in. Totally empty. A wasteland of burned and ratty looking lawn. (That part is still true, but there are only small areas of that now.) Thanks for ordering the rain dancers, Florah. Evelyn, the world is NOT READY for the sight of ME flouncing around in the yard doing any kind of dance at all! Not these days, I'm afraid. The rain clouds would take one look and head some place more hospitable...like the Sahara! I think I'll just wait for the dancers Florah ordered, and hope for the best. Meanwhile, it's hand watering 3 times a day for some of the plants. I took some more pictures this morning of a few things and will start a new thread with them. My mini waterlily from Nova is blooming, too! So cute!! Marcia

You might want to check with some other people but I've been told that concrete is not good for the fish & can make them sick. Good luck Pond liner is better if your going to have fish.