Masonry Advice Needed

May 14, 2009 3:18 PM

Is dry stacking suitable for an indoor pond?

After finding out the cost to move our red-eared slider turtle out of his 30 gallon aquarium into a 100+ gallon aquarium I started checking out indoor ponds. I've pretty much decided that the pond is a better route for us to go due to expense and the turtle's comfort. We're looking at a 72"Wx48"Dx48"H pond, which we want to put about 125 gallons in.

Rather than using a wood frame for the pond liner, I've chosen to use 8x8x16 cinder block for the first two rings of the pond's perimeter and 4x8x16 for the top ring of the perimeter.

What I'm stuck on now is the actual construction method I want to use. In particular I am curious if the "dry stacking" method will be suitable for something like this. From what I can gather from the reading I've done this method involves stacking the blocks w/o any mortar in between them, then putting rebar & concrete in some of the channels.

This pond will be in a basement with a floor drain nearby, but I'd rather not test it with a complete failure of the structure. I'd love to hear from anyone who has used this method or others to complete an indoor pond.

Thanks

posted by PerpetualPermutation to Home & Garden (1 answer total)

Best answer: you are describing our turtle set-up. I actually started with the black plastic sheet liner over dry stacked cinder blocks. Hard to clean and lasted less than a year. Then we got a 165 gallon molded plastic tub-type pond and it has been veddy good indeed. When it comes time to do a water change (filthy reptile swine...) i use the pump to pump the water out, pick up the end of the tub and let the pump get all it can, then use a wet vac on the last bit. Scrub the slime, rinse, vac and fill er up again. if you're going to keep him in a basement you may want to consider getting one of those ultra violent healthy turtle lights if there's no direct sunlight. Or if you have the time, give them some quality sunshine exposure. We yhave a red-ear and a firebelly. They were the size of quarters 5 years ago. Red-ear is now 5 inches and firebelly is 8. we had a softshell from same timeline but he grew too massive to keep. Like, size of a big dinner plate big! Anyway, our cinderblock is totally loose laid and has survived kids leaning/climbing on it. Didn't mean to ramble but I wanted to let you know the extent of my experience. Home despot has inexpensive lanscaping blocks that may be slightly more attractive, but my boys could care less.
posted by Redhush at 8:25 PM on May 14, 2009