11-16-2006, 02:59 AM
When Connie and I moved into our house eight years ago we thought a waterfall would be wonderful in the south corner of the backyard.
There was a natural small hillside with a Japanese twisted black pine growing sideways out of the hillside and a waterfall would be just perfect. Well, the time had come so we contacted Eric from Exotic Aquatics to give us a bid.
Now I was thinking a melodic waterfall with a small catch pond to collect and re-circulate the water would be nice, right. Wrong, Eric said a larger pond would be necessary as he would create a natural ecosystem complete with marginal and aquatic plants, fish, and biofalls; an outdoor aquarium.
I never even had gold fish much less an aquarium, but OK I’m game, lets do it!! I told Eric I envisioned a waterfall just like Alger Creek in Forest Falls where we used to camp out years ago when I was in Boy Scouts. No problem he says. It turns out one of his guys owns land in Forest Falls so instead of purchasing White Water boulders, as they usually do, they drove up to Forest Falls and loaded up actual Forest Falls boulders. We actually have a piece of Forest Falls in our backyard. Way too cool!!
I’ll tell you the guys from Exotic Aquatics are artists. They transformed a pile of boulders, a pickup truck load of gravel, a sheet of E.P.D.M liner, which are an inner tube type rubber and the pond equipment into a beautiful waterfall and pond in only five hours. I’m not kidding, they came out at 9:00 am and left at 2:00 pm. The waterfall was splashing, the pond was full, the plants were planted and the Koi were swimming. These folks are incredible.
Ok, now we have an ecosystem, this is too cool. Every morning the first two days after installation, I notice the local opossum is dropping a half eaten plum, which he takes from the neighbor’s plum tree and drops it into the waterfall. This really is an ecosystem, talk about getting back to nature. I love it!! Until….the third morning. I walk out and take a look at the pond and it looks like a bomb has gone off! All the plants are ripped out, the flowers are gone and there are huge bite marks in the lily pads and water hyacinths. Great!!! I replant everything and clean out the skimmer. So much for nature I’m going to trap the darn thing!!!
A phone call to Eric and he tells me the marauding critter was probably a raccoon, oh great, and, if I tell Animal Control I’m trying to trap a opossum and I come up with a raccoon I will have to put it back, wonderful. Eric tells me the best way to discourage the critters is to install a water scarecrow. A what? This contraption consists of a motion sensor with a rain bird sprinkler, instead of a light, that jumps to life and sprays water for about four seconds and then reactivates itself, sweet. I didn’t want to become a trapper anyways.
Let me say if you ever want a pond or waterfall these are the guys to install it or you can install one yourself. Ours has been in ground for about a month and it’s worth every penny. Stop by and see me if you want to chat or look at some pictures.
Oh, by the way, I still get a half eaten plum in my waterfall almost every day but have not been attacked since the scarecrow has been on duty. Hehe.
Charlie
Redlands, California
There was a natural small hillside with a Japanese twisted black pine growing sideways out of the hillside and a waterfall would be just perfect. Well, the time had come so we contacted Eric from Exotic Aquatics to give us a bid.
Now I was thinking a melodic waterfall with a small catch pond to collect and re-circulate the water would be nice, right. Wrong, Eric said a larger pond would be necessary as he would create a natural ecosystem complete with marginal and aquatic plants, fish, and biofalls; an outdoor aquarium.
I never even had gold fish much less an aquarium, but OK I’m game, lets do it!! I told Eric I envisioned a waterfall just like Alger Creek in Forest Falls where we used to camp out years ago when I was in Boy Scouts. No problem he says. It turns out one of his guys owns land in Forest Falls so instead of purchasing White Water boulders, as they usually do, they drove up to Forest Falls and loaded up actual Forest Falls boulders. We actually have a piece of Forest Falls in our backyard. Way too cool!!
I’ll tell you the guys from Exotic Aquatics are artists. They transformed a pile of boulders, a pickup truck load of gravel, a sheet of E.P.D.M liner, which are an inner tube type rubber and the pond equipment into a beautiful waterfall and pond in only five hours. I’m not kidding, they came out at 9:00 am and left at 2:00 pm. The waterfall was splashing, the pond was full, the plants were planted and the Koi were swimming. These folks are incredible.
Ok, now we have an ecosystem, this is too cool. Every morning the first two days after installation, I notice the local opossum is dropping a half eaten plum, which he takes from the neighbor’s plum tree and drops it into the waterfall. This really is an ecosystem, talk about getting back to nature. I love it!! Until….the third morning. I walk out and take a look at the pond and it looks like a bomb has gone off! All the plants are ripped out, the flowers are gone and there are huge bite marks in the lily pads and water hyacinths. Great!!! I replant everything and clean out the skimmer. So much for nature I’m going to trap the darn thing!!!
A phone call to Eric and he tells me the marauding critter was probably a raccoon, oh great, and, if I tell Animal Control I’m trying to trap a opossum and I come up with a raccoon I will have to put it back, wonderful. Eric tells me the best way to discourage the critters is to install a water scarecrow. A what? This contraption consists of a motion sensor with a rain bird sprinkler, instead of a light, that jumps to life and sprays water for about four seconds and then reactivates itself, sweet. I didn’t want to become a trapper anyways.
Let me say if you ever want a pond or waterfall these are the guys to install it or you can install one yourself. Ours has been in ground for about a month and it’s worth every penny. Stop by and see me if you want to chat or look at some pictures.
Oh, by the way, I still get a half eaten plum in my waterfall almost every day but have not been attacked since the scarecrow has been on duty. Hehe.
Charlie
Redlands, California