Recreation Pond - Foreshores, QLD Australia
“Brad & his team were awesome to deal with, and their workmanship is superb. Nothing seemed to be a problem and his whole team were completely accepted by our Foredog “Peppa”. Watching the progress from lawn to pond was one of the most memorable experiences. After install assistance has been pretty good and Brad is always able to assist with any of our questions. Highly recommend United Waterscapes for what ever sized pond you are looking for.”
Background
United Waterscapes was contacted by the client for a Design & Consultation after seeing our Calliope Recreation Pond project. The client had long dreamed of installing their very own recreation pond and upon realising that we work all over Australia we booked in a Design Consultation. Upon completing the Design & Consultation, United Waterscapes provided a fully itemised Project Estimation and Design Concept document to the client who accepted the proposal.
The proposal included scope for a 7.5m (L) x 5.5m (W) x 1.75m (D) recreation pond with a 1.2m (L) x 1.2m (W) skimmer intake bay, a 3m (L) x 2m (W) wetland filtration system, 1 x Floor Filtration system and was estimated to take 10 days to complete.
The Project
The Recreation Pond was located on a rural property surrounded by broad, open paddocks. Access was great and we were able to utilise the 14 ton excavator and 75HP Positrack Loader with ease, and stage all of our materials in piles close by which always makes for a project that flows smoothly.
The earth was great for our type of excavation, consisting of mostly soft clay. The soft earth was removed easily and readily moulded into shape for our pond liner installation. Utilising our "Triple Layer Leak Defence" waterproofing technique, the United Waterscapes team installed the geotextile fabric and EPDM pond liner.
With a recreation pond this size you tend to need medium sized boulders as the larger you go, the harder it is to make the turns inside the pond for natural curve lines. We still had some decent sized boulders, but the team saved these for the waterfalls and upper areas of the pond where they could be recessed into the earth more easily.
There were some cold starts as were installing in winter, but the weather was fine with a few light showers which made the project a pretty straight forward installation. We were also able to relocate 3 mature palm trees from elsewhere on the property for a stunning backdrop ready for landscape plantings.
The Result
The resulting project was a beautiful recreation pond. The project was built to specification and includes low voltage LED lights installed underwater and in the landscape.
The pump shed contains 1 x 40,000lph variable speed FlowFriend pumps which suck water from the intake bay and Aquascape Skimmer and fed the water to the 3m (L) x 2m (W) wetland filter and 3 x surface circulation jets installed around the pond. The pump shed also contained 2 x air compressors, 1 to feed compressed air to the Air Lift Floor Filtration Systems and a 2nd to feed compressed air to the air stone in the pond. In addition, 3 x automatic dosing systems were installed with outlets in-line to feed bulk bacteria enzyme, flocculant and a swimming pool algaecide directly into the pond via the circulation jets.
With the system incorporating variable speed pumps complimented by air-lift floor filtration we are able to operate the system at least 30% more energy efficiency than competing systems and our bulk water treatments and automatic dosing system also address the start-up phase of the recreation pond with affordable and automated, high concentration dosing to expedite the start-up phase and boost the water quality during this time.
As a recreation pond is a very large fish pond, the installation was made home to 50 x Rainbowfish, 25 x Australian Glassfish and 10 x Silver Perch.
The client was very happy with the end result and we are proud to have produced such an amazing project.
