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Easy concrete job? Fish pond

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Discussion Starter · #1 · a moment ago

A guy I did some landscaping for, and also helped his friend repair a stucco wall, called me back today and asked me to finish his fish pond. Turns out the guy he had doing it just won't show up and it's been a month. He and I both know that I am not THE cement pond man, but I've worked as a helper for his main guy and he likes that I show up on time every time.

"I know you can figure this out" was what he said. I had a laugh, but I said give me a week to play the 10,000 questions game on the forums and every building supplier in town so here I am with the big question (as I'm currently reading all I can), is what should I be considering and planning for as far as any unforgeable mistake goes.

He has materials, and wants chicken wire and cement where his old (failing) rubber liner went. No design, no filter calculations, no nothing other than lay some wire and spread some cement. Any foresight, reading material suggestion, or anything related is much appreciated.

Once I finish with my application process for becoming a registered contractor and finish my classes on landscape design, I would like to do projects like this over the landscape maintenance I have been doing, so I am very gung ho on using this as my first experience with fish ponds. Any help appreciated.
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#6 ·
It's me said:
Bags are no no?
Click to expand...
Not neccesarly. If you have a mixer and are able to do it all in one pour you can get some good results but mixing a couple bags here and there will leave seams in the concrete that will not hold water.
 
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#7 ·
Oh my, oh wow, that just looks like a nightmare job...
Maybe that's the reason his other guy won't show up.
Man...

One suggestion is to have the customer call the big guns guys, like some big national corporation, they can send someone out for a quote and then listen to what that man or woman has to say...At that stage your customer will most likely want to call at least 3 or 4 different companies, big and small, and get all sorts of ideas and quotes.

That should help him or her make a decision, but I don't think it's going to be cheap.
I mean I'm thinking five figures easy, like 20 to 50 thousand or more but again let the big guns come in and talk it out as I could be way off.
 
#9 ·
WTF?
You've posted some pretty nasty projects lately!
What's up with the new existing concrete? That does need to be one pour, or it will not seal, and you will need a waterproofing agent like Thoroseal.
Easier to do (and I did this on my first two water features, is to put a good epdm rubber liner down, then a nice skim coat of concrete on top. That way you don't have to rely on the concrete to be waterproof, as it is mostly just for protecting the rubber liner, and as a base for mortaring decorative stone two. Oh yeah, if you die the concrete black, it will make the pond seem deeper. Or a tan or brown for a natural look. An old landscape veteran gave me that trick. But leaving it concrete grey like that is not very classy....
Either way, seems you will need to bust out the new concrete that is in there
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
Hayduke said:
WTF?
You've posted some pretty nasty projects lately!
What's up with the new existing concrete? That does need to be one pour, or it will not seal, and you will need a waterproofing agent like Thoroseal.
Easier to do (and I did this on my first two water features, is to put a good epdm rubber liner down, then a nice skim coat of concrete on top. That way you don't have to rely on the concrete to be waterproof, as it is mostly just for protecting the rubber liner, and as a base for mortaring decorative stone two. Oh yeah, if you die the concrete black, it will make the pond seem deeper. Or a tan or brown for a natural look. An old landscape veteran gave me that trick. But leaving it concrete grey like that is not very classy....
Either way, seems you will need to bust out the new concrete that is in there
Click to expand...
Very interesting about the black bottom and the sealer.

I know , I know!! I passed on the pavers job, after doing the research and listening to y'all, I told the guy that I couldn't guarantee a great job so I had to pass. I told this guy that it seemed simple enough, but Harry Homeowner always misses something worth considering...always.

So there is no way to join old and new concrete?
 
Discussion starter · #12 ·
I was taking a walk I'm looking at expansion joints on sidewalk and I was curious if there was a way to pour two or more separate concrete surfaces and then join them with some kind of rubberized expansion joint so that it doesn't leak and I just found this online from pond trade mag.com. does anybody have any ideas on this?
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#13 ·
What you are not understanding also is... excavate out all of the little walls dividers sandbars etc.
First build the pond, put in liner, and as someone above said skim coat the entire pool with cement.
This is now your waterproof envelope.
Now add in decorative dividers, channels, hills, rocks etc. The pond stays leak proof. Everything else is cosmetic. Not part of the waterproof envelope.
 
Discussion starter · #15 ·
MowDaddy said:
What you are not understanding also is... excavate out all of the little walls dividers sandbars etc.
First build the pond, put in liner, and as someone above said skim coat the entire pool with cement.
This is now your waterproof envelope.
Now add in decorative dividers, channels, hills, rocks etc. The pond stays leak proof. Everything else is cosmetic. Not part of the waterproof envelope.
Click to expand...
The guy is anti-liners.
 
Discussion starter · #17 ·
So far this is the plan...
Remove old cement. Tamp dirt. Lay expanded metal 1.5 inches off the dirt. Pour one single concrete form at 3" thick. Seal it with a water proof sealer. Paint it black.

I think this is doable for me, I just need a alittle extra info from some pros on what else I should tweak or consider.
 
Discussion starter · #18 ·
Yeah actually just called the guy up right now who wanted me to do this job, because he wanted a decision by the end of today and I told him that I just I'm not super 100% confident on this. I talked to a lot of guys and got a lot of good information about ceiling concrete and painting the it black because the fish like it and because it the algae just looks like s*** on any other color when it starts growing and the acidity and how it affects the fish and blah blah blah and had to fix all that. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do this all in one shot by myself since none of my buddies are concrete guys either and I'm just not even going to deal with it but I didn't I had some questions on rebar versus mesh and what size to use and breaking up some of the old concrete wasn't going to be that bad but this guy poured a stream halfway up and I just think it would be a lot of hammering and I think at the end of the day once this guy paid me he could have just paid a contractor or Mason guy just a little bit more and had a definite result so for that I passed. I was a welder for 6 years and work for some awesome fabricators and this dude had an awning job that's going on at the side of his house so I just told him hey you know I'll do your awning job with a concrete thing it's something that I'm going to get into later and I just do not have enough research time in it to give you a fantastic foolproof job.

I can't say that I got a lot of things stirring though and I got a lot of good questions but I got to go get answered. And it would be very cool especially here in the desert to start doing some custom fish ponds and water features for people. Pretty creative and I got already have a bunch of ideas and it's definitely something that makes a lot more money then line trimming and hauling off dead branches so hopefully, I posted another thread about learning from somebody else or just taking some kind of class on masonry, that this is something that I could start doing within probably a year when I make my big jump from just regular maintenance more of to like a landscape design company. Starting to get a pretty good clientele so I think next summer I can get a guy and we can start doing stuff and then maybe I can start focusing on doing more projects. It seems like I'd make more money and it'd be a little bit more fun.
 
Discussion starter · #20 ·
Okay so here's an update on this I just did the first coat of Master seal 581 and found out that the spec sheets instructions are the opposite of what you should do. I had this confirmed by a tech who was kind of blown away about what it said. It says to completely let your substrate dry and then apply. When I applied the master seal it's like it almost instantly turned into dirt, with how dry it was and I wasted half of bag on about 10 ft which made absolutely no sense. The tech told me that I should slightly wet it before I put it down which does seem right I seem to use almost as much as the bag told me it would use and it applied very nicely. There are some spots in this thing where it's probably a little too wet and a little too dry so I don't know how the hell this is going to turn out. I also added some concrete coloring to the mix about 8 oz for a 50 lb bag and it only seemed to make a little gray so when I go and put the second coat on I'm probably just going to double that amount and see what happens.
I'm very disappointed in Masterseal s instructions, and am waiting on a call back.

I also had trouble, with repairing the cracks. A week before I use repair mortar and some of the cracks which are probably should have ground out I just smeared a thin layer on top, all ended up being piles of dust. These areas I just slapped extra Master seal into the cracks, the rep says that it can take up to 16th-in cracks even though that's kind of pushing it, that's what we did. It was very weird I don't know if it was normal for that when you wet this concrete and when you go to put Master seal down the concrete seemed to drink up the water extremely fast, I'm not amazing guy so I wondered if that was normal or if it had something to do with maybe the homeowner not wedding the concrete as often as he should have
 
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