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DIY Easy Backyard Pond Design Idea

Well, my eight year old has convinced me to build her a pond in our backyard.  She was pretty persistent too!  I did agree with her though.  The sound of running water in the backyard did have a nice ring to it.  We had the perfect spot too.

Here is the beginning of our DIY Easy Backyard Pond project.  I say beginning because it’s not done yet.  We still need a bit more rock to make it look beautiful and to make the waterfall go a bit higher.  So be sure to stay tuned for the final project!

This project was fairly simple to do.  We had this pond up within 2 hours tops!

Here’s what we needed for our pond:

Pond Pump (our pond is about 3 feet by 4 ft so we needed a small pond pump that pushes 210 gallons per hour (GPH)  I found the prices are WAY CHEAPER on Amazon.  (cheaper by almost 50%)

Pond Pump tubing (make sure it’s the size your pump requires)  this was used to make our waterfall.  The length depends on the design and how far your waterfall is from the pump.  I purchased 20 feet.

Pond Liner  You can get away with using a thick 22 Mil liner too.  Depending on your budget for your pond.  If you want it to last a long time I highly suggest a pond liner made of PVC rubber as seen here.

Filter:  Filters can get really expensive.  This is a small project that I didn’t want to put a lot of money into so my local pond experts helped me with a frugal tip in this area.  If you have a big area I highly suggest putting money into a good quality filter.  However, if you have a tight budget or have a small pond like mine, here’s what you can do:  1.  get a bucket that is big enough to hold your pump.  Purchase a pond filter media that fits snug onto the top of that bucket.  Place the bucket inside your pond, filling it with water.  Add your pump (with the hose sticking out of it) and cover it with the Pond Media Filter.  You can cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket for your hose or you can have it come out the top.  The Pond Filter media is thick but bendable.  You can make a cut in a side of it if you have trouble getting the tube to fit out the top of it.

Here is a photo of the pond filter media I used on top of my small bucket.

Rock – We did end up purchasing our borders rocks at our local hardware store but we plan to find more rock in the area where we live.  We have beautiful rock around here and we just need to find some.  (this is why are project isn’t complete yet).

Finish it off with some mulch to help hide the liner and greenery or flowers to decorate it up a bit.  (we have plans for flowers later too).

Directions for an DIY Easy Backyard Pond design:

Start with planning.  Find a place in your yard and determine the size and how deep your pond will be.  You have to start here to know how big your pump needs to be and the sizes of the supplies you will need.

When determining the size of your liner, always over estimate.  Your liner will need to go up and over the hole so you don’t get leaks within your pond.  (see photos above)  I over estimated by about a foot on each side.

Lay your liner, add water and then start adding your rock.  This process will determine if you have any leaks.  You don’t want one side of your pond lower than the other.

Last step, we added our goldfish after we added a TetraPond Water Clarifier  to make sure it would safe for our fish to live in the pond.  (Talk to the experts at the pet store to determine what is needed for you).

HELP NEEDED:  Naming the fish is still in progress.  We came up with Ren & Stimpy, Finn & Jake, Ben & Jerry, Blue & Bell and Dom & Perignon but so far my daughter doesn’t like any of those names.  If you have a name suggestion for those two beautiful Goldfish, please leave a comment below and help us out with a suggestion!  We need some!

Pro Tip:  We have a very soft ground (almost sandy) where we placed our pond so we didn’t require anything under our liner.  However, if you have a rocky area I would highly suggest putting some old carpet or towels that you won’t ever use again underneath the pond bed before laying the liner.  It will protect it from tears from the sharp edges of the rock.  I’m sure they make something to protect it but I am big on recycling items and old rugs work perfectly!

DIY Backyard Waterfall Project Design Idea

Here is a waterfall we did at our old house.  It’s a three tier layered waterfall.  Our yard had a slight hill on the left side of our huge outdoor patio so it was very easy to convert that eye sore and unusable space to something beautiful and serene!  I think it turned out beautifully, don’t you?