Indianapolis, IN Pond Build with a Blue Eco RDF #2 (Geist Reservoir)

[Russell Peters]

It was supposed to rain all day today and when it rains here it comes down hard. At about 10am it started to subside to I went over to the site to do what ever I could. I spent a couple of hours, in the drizzle, removing screws from the shoring materials and started to stack some of the forms.

[Russell Peters]

At noon I went over to see the NMZNA Koi Show and pick up some materials for the job. When I got back I started by digging out a trench next to the skimmers. Remember, the skimmers came in late so I was not able to hook up the plumbing for both of them before the concrete pour. I started with the skimmer closest to the filter pit.

[Russell Peters]

Once the first skimmer line was in I buried it and then laid out the second pipe for the other skimmer on top of that one. I did not have enough time to hook it up to the skimmer but I was able to put in most of the pipe.

[Russell Peters]

Today we drained out the rain water, moved the forms and stacked them, did some grinding, patching and made the bottom drain covers. Most of the floor has been lightly ground down and about half of the walls. It was a brutal day.

[Russell Peters]

All of the grinding and major patching has been completed. I have a little bit of fine tuning to do.

[Russell Peters]

We spent some time removing the final forms from the filter pit area. They were stuck in concrete over pour. We also cleaned up the pile of form debris that was stacked next to the filter pit.

[Russell Peters]

The pile of forms has grown.

[Russell Peters]

With this posting my part of the build is complete. The owner is going to be doing quite a bit of work as he wants this to be a natural looking pond. He is going to bring in tons of boulders and rocks and is going to do some extensive landscaping. He is going to extend the deck over the filter pit area and fully enclose it. I am looking forward to getting updates but it is going to take some time.

The pond got painted today. The concrete drain covers are not complete as someone came by and stepped on, or kicked, one of them causing it to break and fall apart.

[Russell Peters]

I am setting up some of the components that can't be finished yet as there is a lot of other work to do first. I installed the valve for the Levolor autofill as well as the sensor but it won't be hooked up until water and electricity can be connected. You'll notice I put in a p-trap for the autofill to keep the bubbles from affecting the sensor.

[Russell Peters]

The final part of my install was to put in the RDF. The RDF only needs to sit 21 1/2" below the water line but there needed to be room to stand under the deck area, after it is installed, so the floor of the filter pit is 48" below the top of the pond. This meant I had to lift the RDF 24". I used concrete blocks for that.