Canoe Pond

Hi, I'm new to this form of sharing and would like to start out saying that I've enjoyed reading all the posts on our common interests. It's very helpful to hear of others successes and failures in doing what we want to accomplish.
I'm having a great time with my little project water-feature and hope you will enjoy hearing about it and maybe we can give and receive some good ideas for our continually evolving backyard water environments.

It started a few years ago with a successfully over-wintering lined half whiskey barrel. The plants and mosquito fish survived and flourished for three years.



I then moved up to a 17 foot canoe that we hadn't used in a while.



Stocking and planting it has been a good form of therapy!


We even have a breeding population of Pacific Chorus Frogs!



I made a short movie featuring the canoe and I hope that I can figure out how to share it on this forum.

 

Oh, that is amazing! And what creative ideas! That barrel gives me hope for having water in the backyard (I won't do it in the ground because I have small kids that could fall in). Your backyard is really beautiful and peaceful looking.

 

That's gorgeous! To post the video, if it's uploaded to a site (like youtube) click the movie reel clip button that's next to the button you used to post those pics type in (or copy and paste) the link to the video, then hit OK!

Cant wait to see it! Welcome to fishlore by the way!

 

Love the canoe! What a fantastic idea! Finally, a purpose for a non-wood canoe!

 

I read the thread title and that's not at all what came to mind. but what a cool idea!! I like to canoe and kayak and this seems like a great way to keep in touch with that outdoors feeling even in the off season or when time has other demands. I love it!!

 

All I can say is wow!

 

That is so cool! I love it!

 

Love it! I came across a picture last fall of a recycled canoe into a backyard pond. I just need to find the canoe now! If you have some time give some details, I'd love to get mine looking very similar... and the frogs are great!

 

I'm planning a large in-ground pond in the (hopefully) near future. The idea behind this canoe was that I'd be able to enjoy a temporary pond and work out the bugs on what I want to stock in the big pond. The beauty of it is we can still use the canoe as a canoe when I make the change. In the meantime, I do have a smaller canoe for fishing on day trips. The large canoe is a 17 foot Coleman canoe, teal green. It has an inch to two inches of sandy gravel on the bottom. It is filtered with a Pentair All-In-One Koi Pond System w/UV pump and filter. (Under $200 and well worth it!) In the winter I ran the pump without the fountain pipe so the water flowed from below like an artesian spring. That kept the ice from completely covering the pond. There is one eight inch koi, about 15 white cloud minnows, about 12 rosy minnows and I just caught and relocated most of the mosquito fish. They are hard on the newly hatched tadpoles! I overwinter the tender plants in a tub in my greenhouse but most of the plants remain out. There are some kind of shrimp, clams and snails. Those all came in as hitchhikers in the potted water plants. I feed the fish once a day with a flake food and withhold feeding during winter. There are water bugs and dragonfly nymphs and water striders. I haven't had any problem with mosquito larvae but will see how the minnows do without the mosquito fish. This is really fun and I can't wait to design and build the large pond!


I posted a video. It's in the video section.

 

Definitely beautiful!! and creative.

 

Awesome!! Do you know what kind of plants are in there? Also, how cold are your winters? I live in Rhode Island and the average low in January can be 21 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

its so pretty I am planning to do the same with a johnboat we do not use

 

We live in a valley that can trap the cold air for weeks at a time in December and January. Usually it doesn't get below 10 degrees F but it has gone below zero. The highs in the summer can go over 100.
If you look in the background of the canoe shot you can see banana plants growing in the garden. They come back every year like tulips even when cut back by the freeze.


The plants in the canoe are; cattails, white water lilies, dwarf rush, red stem foxtail, duckweed, cabomba, myriophyllum, water hyacinth, frogbit, variegated iris, and liatris.

 

I love the ponds! How creative!

 

Thanks! I'm having a little raccoon trouble right now, he's really tearing things up to get at the snails and clams.
The pond still looks good though and there are a lot of rosy minnow fry everywhere you look. Ah, summer!

 

Amazing setup! Wish I had a yard to do something like this. About how many gallons do you think this is?

 

This is so cool. Love the whiskey barrel idea. Thanks for sharing

 

Thanks for sharing some of your ideas

 

I think it's around 250-300 gallons. Hard for me to measure with the tapering ends.

 

you gave me a somewhat crazy idea! first off, how much water do you think a "normal"-sized wooden rowboat (wider than a canoe) could carry, around 300-350? How about using this to stock it with natives and creating a aquaponics setup to grow veggies. You could even grow out the fish (say a rainbow trout) and eat them. I have a general idea of a setup, any thoughts?!

 

We're actually starting to do an aquaponics pond type thing at the restaurant where I work! It's going to be part of the greenhouse we're putting in. Anyway, we'll use it to grow veggies and herbs and whatnot and use them at the restaurant I told the boss we should add fish once we get it going, just for something fun to have in the old dead pool where we're housing this thing!

 

I've got a 18 ft skeeter with a evinrude with a blown piston but I don't think a bass boat would look that good lol!

 

Yeah, I had no idea that my canoe would look as good as it does when I started this project. I'm a fan of more natural-looking landscapes and water features, but when you put plants in and around these containers, it gives the impression of natures ability to reclaim what was lost from human intrusion, kind of like the beauty of ruins in a jungle. I can imagine a bass boat with some evergreen bushes overhanging and shading one side, some big rocks outside and inside the bow (to make it look like it crashed) and habitat to support a few bass and bluegill.

 

that's amazing.You have such a brilliant creative mind.It's just awesome