Dave's Creek Photos

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How the Creek was Built

I had limited area to build creek in as I wanted it to sit underneath a verandah I had built, and I wanted it to run beside paving that was already laid down, plus I had a blue pacific tree that I did not want to disturb thus requiring a detour, and there was a really nice tree fern I also would like to keep so......and there also was a small fibreglass pond that had been there for years but every Christmas killed all the fish because of the blue pacific flowers falling into it.

I went up to the local nursery/garden centres to see what they had on offer and what they could suggest. I basically had two choices...a long thin pool or a large round/square one, if I wanted to make it any respectable size.

My Choice

My particular situation called for a long thin pool as I had to fit between verandah supports, but I didn't particularly want a box structure like they had at the nurseries. I wanted a meandering stream I guess, or a creek with little billabongs every now and then. So that's what I did! I dug a long trench roughly where I wanted it but moved the walls a bit skewiff every now and then and widened it first on one side, then the other at uneven intervals so it was a sort of creekette with billabongs

Instructions on How to Build

I guess this where I went wrong a bit, because it wasn't until I had dug my hole that I got Margaret to go up to the local library and photocopy the relevant two pages from a Readers Digest magazine that showed how to build a pond using plastic liners. Best 40 cents we ever invested. I had intended lining my hole with sand to take out any rough bits, protruding roots etc but the article said that old carpet or carpet underlay was good to use. Well we were just about to replace carpet in one of our bedrooms, so I kept the underlay for the creek. The article mentioned that the top of any pond should have a recess built all around it (about 3 cms deep from the top and 9 cms wide) to hold the black plastic sheeting in place, and to put mossy rocks onto the plastic to hold it in place. This seemed like a pretty good idea, so up to the garden centre to buy a ton of mossy rocks.

Anyway with the bed of the creek dug about 4 inches deeper than necessary to accommodate the carpet underlay I was in business and laid the black plastic sheeting the length of my meandering creek. Several of the large mossy rocks (about 30 cms by 40 cms) placed strategically around the creek to hold the plastic in place and I was ready to put water in. I only put a few as I expected the sheeting to need moving slightly as water filled it, which it did a bit. It took about four hours to fill up with the hose going full tilt and I was ready to position the next thing...

The Pump/Filter System

I purchased a 24 volt pump with a 3000 litre per hour capacity on the Garden Centre's recommendation, and had this go into a filter box about the size of an esky. If you don't know what an esky is then  you aren't Australian so imagine a box a foot and a half by about eight inches by about a foot. Bugger where was I going to put the hose to the filter as I had put all the rocks around the edges? Simple..once the hose came out of the water, I put it behind the rocks where it would be covered by soil. The filter box was a biological one which sounded like bullshit but actually works really well and keeps the creek crystal clear.

The Waterfall

Well I built up the creek at one end with a mound of dirt and used rocks to shape it so I could place the fibreglass pond on top of it. The filter box emptied into this pond which then went onto rocks I had cemented below this so it trickled into the creek. Hmm not happy with that, so built a shute for the water to flow into another small pond about eight inches by fourteen which then made a waterfall onto a rock ledge and hence into the creek, making a beautiful babbling brook type of sound. (I will expand this section at a later date)

After two years I replaced this pool with a fibreglass rock feature waterfall as the top pond was too shallow and kept getting clogged up with algae.  Here is a video clip of the waterfall waterfall.mpg

The Fish

I let the whole system settle down for about three weeks, got some plants, and then after a further two weeks a dozen comets and two speckled goldfish to see how stable the system is. I had two fish in top pond and the rest below. There are now eleven fish below and one in the top pond as I bought two more as two have died since setting up, and one went over the falls with the cats' assistance.

I had fun building my creek, and making many mistakes along the way. It really was quite easy in the end to achieve a very good looking result. With a bit more knowledge I could have made it look even better, but then it now has its own uniqueness. Perhaps I will get the opportunity to help others build theirs.

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I hope you enjoyed the creek - Dave

Last Revised: 28/3/06