Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 May 18, 2010 3:18 pm Hi all.. I am building a concrete block fish pond/water feature with cement floor and was thinking of using a bondcryl mixed with my topcoat/render mix to seal it... Does anyone have any other or better ideas that may suit? Scott Re: Sealing a concrete pond 3May 18, 2010 6:21 pm You could use a render based product to make the surface flat and easy to coat over your blockwork, then use a a few coats of a flexible pond sealer such as crommelins http://www.crommelin.com.au/waterproofing.php It's best to wait about 5 days before applying sealer to let the mortar properly go off and stop any shrinkage etc If fish are going in you will need to either fill it up and refill it 2 or 3 times to rinse the alkaline out of the water from the blocks, mortar etc that may kill the fish, or you can buy an additive that will clear it up over time. Planned Landscape Constructions http://www.plannedlandscape.com.au Find us on facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= ... 9907611509 Re: Sealing a concrete pond 4May 22, 2010 8:53 am Thanks for the advice. Is the crommelin product any better than pondtite and the sealers available from other companies...? And also is it worth putting any waterproofer into the render mix itself as well as painting on afterwards.. Hopefully I can get it started next week-Time permitting.. Scott Re: Sealing a concrete pond 5May 22, 2010 10:43 am The questions start by asking will the fish be 'table' fish or ornamental? Reason being, if you intend to eat them then you want a food safe coating. If you are having a concrete base then why not make it a monolithic concrete pond? The block construction is ok but most will develop mortar cracks and will require re-sealing. FWIW - Here is a link to some ponds we did a while back, they produced trout in the 1.5kg(started at 50grams) range after about 10 months. The thread is quite long but a skim read is worthy if you intend to keep fish. Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Sealing a concrete pond 6May 22, 2010 11:53 am Hi Onc, I already have a barra pond,creek frontage and a couple of boats...so this pond will just hold ornamental fish. I'm doing it from block to satisfy the criteria for a Hort.3 certificate to get my structural landscaping licencing.....currently completed 14 of 16 modules and last 2 are blockwork/brickwork and water features...hence i'm killing 2 birds(or fish) with one stone... We also have problems with ground level ponds and cane toads up here in Nth Qld so I think I will make it 2 blocks high with another block set under ground level and it will be located near the front entry to our home so it will be modern and clean looking and about 2.4 x 1.0 m outside diameter..with some sort of fountain,pier etc so the sounds of running gurgling water can be heard as well.. Sounds like a bit of a drag if the morter cracks..anything I can do to lessen the chances of this happening? Scott Re: Sealing a concrete pond 7May 22, 2010 12:11 pm Oops I forgot the link Yes it was a huge day yesterday... http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=5504 Is there anything you can do to stop the mortar cracking? Have everything go your way during installation. - Mild day, use an acrylic modifier instead of water, uniform mortar thickness, pre-wet bricks, compacted full mortar lines.. that is a start. Oh BTW I am C1 over there. Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Sealing a concrete pond 8May 26, 2010 9:20 am Pretty impressive setup there...mucho dinero indeed.. Though I'm not too jealous of the trout eggs...lol Ok when you say to pre-wet the blocks do I just hose them down or actually sit them in a trough of water and soak them. Scott Re: Sealing a concrete pond 9May 30, 2010 10:14 am A hose off is fine. that set up cost about 10K and this year will produce about 1000kg of trout...( about $10K) But the veggie production is enormous and I expect will exceed $10K in value. Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Sealing a concrete pond 10Jun 02, 2010 7:56 am Thanks for that. And its an interesting system...had no idea that trout grew so fast. Scott Hi, planning on using the attached stone pieces in my bathroom. I want to remove stains and gloss seal. Can I get some advice on best way to remove stains and best… 0 6678 To my understanding early saw cuts are to control shrinkage cracks, so doing them now would be pointless. Control joints may reduce ugly cracking during periods of soil… 3 9796 |