What a pleasure to watch a married couple working together to make life better. And especially nice that a man compliments his wife so enthusiastically. I'm impressed.

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Trish. Mrs CityBilly is the best! She's not thrilled about being on camera too much but I'm wearing her down! Comments like yours will help I'm sure. Thanks for watching and commenting!

When you cut the limbs off of trees, undercut the limb first and then cut from the top. The way the branches broke and tore away part of the wood makes it harder for the tree to heal.

No kidding. This is the best pond video on the KZread.

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Um... Wow! That's high praise! Thanks for the kind words!

Wow!!! What an emotional rollercoaster of a project video. It was like watching a sitcom, a reality show mixed in with an epic dramatic tear jerker of a movie. You really did a great job editing in the funny parts, that were so hilarious, yet not without imparting the knowledge that the many takes would leave about the way a siphon works on a large scale and how to start the suction, which was a genius idea on your part. I'm eager to experiment using your tried and true siphon technology to assist with my 2" Predator water pump, in flooding we've been experiencing with these "Atmospheric River's'" in Belmont CA. What really moved me though was to see how much love for your family you have. It shows how big ideas require being resourceful and that creative solutions to problems, even if they fail not to give up and anything is possible, what a lesson for your boys to experience. The bonding with your family in such a constructive way will always make this a sacred space to gather together and enjoy with the wildlife that will benefit from what your mind, hands and heart created, that which came from you and you are what in nature is truly Sublime. Here is something I can give back, it's just an idea from my background as an Artist. Read this Your pond project when complete I see as being a beautiful place of peace with nature. How awesome to have a pond to escape to and see as it grows and life thrive. It makes me think of the monumental canvases by the Impressionist artist Claude Monet and his pond paintings of "Water Lilies* he did. Nearly blind he made massive paintings that take up entire walls that are displayed in a circular gallery that surround the viewer with a spectacular experience, capturing the water, light and color of his pond and water lilies, that he loved to spend his time painting that are spectacularly exquisite. Take a look at his "Water Lily" Paintings, if you haven't seen them. But even as a Graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute and as a former Docent at SFMOMA, I continue to marvel and learn how impressive a pond can be. Maybe you or your young Monet's might capture the light on your pond on a canvas with paint or a sketchbook There are a ton of videos on KZread to show how to approach painting "Water Lilies " The idea is to have a small look out as a shaded art space with an easel, canvases, paint, sketchbooks pencils brushes and a bucket for some water or whatever art supplies as a place to slow down and observe by drawing and painting the many ways in which to appreciate and capture the beauty of the pond. It can be as simple as a portable easel or a pergola, tree house or some place to explore and create with a big easel with all the supplies ready to go is just another facet to how to interact with the pond. Monet pulled out the greatest works of art from his pond Any activity away from phones and video games and more time interacting and learning from the pond is awesome. Just a thought Some of Monet's painting's being 6' x 14' are about the color, the light captured as movement on the water and loose bold brush work that his paintings are composed of his pond are Masterpiece's Thank you for making this video. Your sense of humor, love and hard work is inspirational and I am grateful to have seen such a positive video to learn from. Happy Holidays to you and your Family Respectfully, Randy Chavez

@CityBillyAdventures

5 ай бұрын

Wow thanks for the kind words! It was a roller coaster of a summer for sure - wasn't too terribly funny in the moment but we had to laugh so we didn't cry haha. Good luck with your project! Hopefully you learned from our mistakes. The pond is a big part of our life. We're always out there doing something. I'm not much of an artist, but the wife and kids are. We'll have to check out that painting.

At 10:19 you nailed it. That statement is 100% true👍.

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Mrs CityBilly is the best!

I’m from Crawford county good to see fellow Ohioans on KZread

@CityBillyAdventures

7 ай бұрын

Ohio against the world!

Awesome when that's filled up and with all that structure man add more bait fish and maybe catch some lunkers and bring them in you have a nice little pond

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

☝ this guy gets it

Great video

Incredibly satisfying seeing all that muck disappear ^^ on my way to part three~

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Seeing the freshly scraped lake bottom was very satisfying for us! Mrs CityBilly laughed at me but I just kept walking around down there haha

I wish we had creeks like that where I live. Here in texas a creek is just a dry dusty bed where water may flow once every 3 years for a day after it rains

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

Ohio gets a bad rap because it gets cold but I'm a big fan overall

the way you pruned those trees made my blood run cold.

All that concrete slab pieces would be great structure for underwater caves and ledges.

Great progress! Nicely done. Looking forward to the next one. We've got a zipline over our private natural lake, lots of fun. Got a couple videos of it on my channel. Cheers.

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the kind words! I'll check out the zipline videos!

You are truly blessed :)

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Indeed we are! Trying to not take our circumstances for granted!

Very good video keep uploading more love from india

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Part 3 will be up in a couple days!

@abhishekshaw1159

2 жыл бұрын

@@CityBillyAdventures Thanks. subscribed your channel

Great video hope to see more videos like this.

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Part 3 (adding structure) is coming soon!

AWESOME VIDEO, I just subscribed 👍

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! Welcome aboard! Lake Restoration Parts 4 (dock build) & 5 (fish stocking) coming soon!

Looks like you might want to consider building some sort of a retaining wall on your ‘new backyard’ lest it might ‘slip’….. just an idea… if you’ve already considered such…. Sorry I ‘butted in’….looks like a lot of fun and a beautiful property!

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Yes we've discussed a retaining wall a lot. We got a quote in the ballpark of $50k 🤢 The only area we've had issues with is the left side (looking at the back of the house) - it's collapsed twice. We had a catch basin installed in that area to prevent rain water from going over the edge of the cliff and washing it out. We are still bringing in fill dirt on that side. Once it's finished, hopefully vegetation roots will help hold it all together. The other areas that are done haven't had any problems, and I attribute that to it having vegetation. If I win the lottery though you can expect a video on our giant retaining wall haha

Our situations are very similar. We bought a country home with a 1 1/2 acre pond out back. Our pond was originally dug in 1963, and was 12 ft deep. Over that 50+ years our pond has filled with "muck" also, and is in much worse condition than your pond. We don't have the option to drain our pond because it is fed by 10 farm tiles and is flowing most of the year. We also have significant trees around the pond that we don't want to do away with. Like you, we have wrangled truckloads of filimentous algae and hydrilla from the pond every year., We no longer have any valuable fish in out pond. It is currently home to bullfrogs and a host of turtles.. I am considering two options: 1) bubblers and muck eating tablets over the next 5 years or 2) renting a Dino6 floating dredge and pumping the muck into dewatering bags. Both methods will cost upwards of $50k. You had a significant advantage -- you and your wife are still young. My wife and I are 67. Thanks much for the videos. What did you do about the muck in the area you didn't drain? Also, can you give me a ballpark of what the excavator costs were, please?

@CityBillyAdventures

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for reaching out! Your situation does sound similar but more challenging. We saved a significant amount of money by doing as much of the work ourselves as we could. We also saved a bunch of money by not trucking the muck off-site. If I were you, I'd focus on the muck first and then tackle the algae and weeds. Add bubblers at the end. Bubblers are mostly for the fish and less about reducing muck, but they do help with muck a little bit. I imagine with all the trees, muck tablets can't work fast enough to overcome the new leaves every year. And nobody wants to wait 5 years for results. So I'd look into dredging options. Draining the lake so the muck can dry out is by far the easiest route if there's any way you can make that work. If your pond has a dam, is it an option to bust the dam and basically let the farm tiles drain right into wherever your overflow goes while the rest of the pond dries out? Or the floating dredge is a good idea. I'm surprised it would cost $50k for that but I'm sure you've done more research into that than I have. As far as the muck that we couldn't dredge, we were satisfied with getting the majority of the lake scraped out, and hope the bubblers will help the remaining 10% go away over time. Plus that area was already the deepest part of the lake, so we were content to leave it alone to save the fish population. To pay three guys for two full days of work, plus their two excavators, one dozer, and one dump truck cost us about $7,500 which I found very reasonable. We got quotes up to $20k. Good luck with your project! Feel free to reach out if you think I can answer any other questions

@ClinttheGreat

7 ай бұрын

Hire someone w/ a long reach excavator and they can sit on the shore and dredge out the silt. Depending on the shape of the pond, it may not be able to reach every part of the pond, but it should be able to get a lot of it. The Letsdig18 channel on youtube has a lot of good examples of pond dredging w/ and w/o a long reach.

@CityBillyAdventures

7 ай бұрын

Big fan of LetsDig18

Awesome videos man, the music throughout was a little repetitive lol. How do those geothermal coils work? Would love to see a video on those. Best of luck on your adventures 💪

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks! My music library is limited to royalty free trash at the moment haha. The basic idea of geothermal heating and cooling is that water gets pumped from the furnace through the coils, either underground or in my case at the bottom of the pond. The temperature underground is more stable , around 50° more/less all year long. So instead of heating 30° air in the winter or cooling 80° air in the summer, the unit is working with roughly 50° water and doesn't have to work as hard to get to the desired temperature. It's more efficient. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm definitely not a furnace expert!

@timmartinez1225

2 жыл бұрын

@@CityBillyAdventures Thanks for the explanation, sounds pretty cool and makes sense. Idk if you've seen the youtuber BamaBass but he has a recent series on building a pond. He has some good ideas you might be able to take from but he's also "figurin' it out" like you lol. Edit: Nevermind, just watching your latest video and saw you mentiones him lol.

In my County (SE Minnesota) it is illegal to pump any standing water into a river or stream. You would face a heafty fine for doing what you've done. The logic behind this is to protect our waterways from being contaminated.

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

My thought process was since our pond overflow pipe drains into our creek, artificially draining the same water into the same creek didn't appear to be a problem. An agent from the DNR actually assisted us with setting up our siphon. Glad we weren't restricted in that regard

@WKYLRadioGaslands

5 ай бұрын

​@@CityBillyAdventuresevery biome has its specific needs :]

After many years, a lot of bottom sediments accumulate at the bottom of the reservoir and the lake becomes shallow and overgrown with algae. To prevent this from happening, you can clean the lake with a motor pump for dirty water and a suction nozzle Bagermaster

Your going to be walking trough your yard one day and think to yourself “why are there so many fishing hooks in my yard “ and you’ll remember this moment

So just removing that layer of muck is all that was needed to clean up the pond? - not that it was easy, but that was it? What about the shallow area that you didn't get drained and dredged? DIdn't that just keep muck in the pond?

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Taking 90% of the muck off the bottom made a significant difference. It's now deeper, less nutrients to grow weeds, and there's a firm bottom around the perimeter. Yes there's still some muck in the area we didn't drain but 90% better is a win for us. The aerators help the muck dissolve naturally over time, but before dredging it was just too much muck for the aerators to make a difference. It's not a swimming pool - always dealing with fish/bird waste, leaves, sticks, etc and ponds need to be drained/dredged every 50 years or so but next time it will be my kids' problem haha. There's also routine maintenance like treating for algae (copper sulfate), rogue cat tails, fish management, etc so no its not like dredging was the cure-all but it was a big step

Ad what pray tell did this little endeavor cost ?

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

We got several quotes that said it would cost $10-20k. These guys did it for $7k. We saved a bunch of money by not trucking away the sludge and leaving it on our own property.

What made you decide not to use a barrier?

@CityBillyAdventures

4 күн бұрын

Not sure what you mean

How did you handle the DNR? did you need a permit? What was that process like? Obviously you increased the health and safety of the habitat for nature, but fish and game wardens sometimes seemed to know little about what they try to enforce. I have had to deal with them on my river home.

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

My original plan was to just do the project without contacting the DNR. The lake overflow goes into the creek anyway, and I figured a little more water wasn't gonna change anything or require any permits. As we were getting the pipes set up, just by chance DNR showed up at my door to inquire about hydrilla infestation because some of the park ponds in the area had it. Apparently there is a state program in Ohio to manage hydrilla and the DNR began treating my pond on the state's dime. I told them about my project and they actually helped me set it up. Permits never came up with them so I think I was correct (for once) in my assumption that draining a little extra water where it already goes didn't require a permit.

@chadjansen9097

Жыл бұрын

@@CityBillyAdventures Wow, Thats awesome! Plus having a healthy pond.Lake, promotes so much more wildlife and less bugs. I like your vids' very helpful and I appreciate it Sir. Thank you

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoy them! I appreciate the kind words

Any chance fish got sucked out the siphon

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

I guess it's possible, none that I saw. If we lost any it was an insignificant amount. Better than draining the lake completely and losing everything at least

You should’ve usd limbs as cover in the lake for crappie

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

We thought about adding crappie but we decided against it because they compete with the bass for food. Our goal for our lake was to make it the best bass lake possible, so our food chain is frogs/minnows/crayfish/bluegill -> largemouth. We did add some fish structure, including downed trees, in part 3 of this series 🤙

Think you may have killed the 3 mature trees you piled soil on top of their roots

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Hopefully not, but we knew that was a possibility. Two years later and they're still alive but we'll see. Unfortunately all of our other black locust trees are infested with large black ants so it seems inevitable that we'll lose them anyway

so you are aware that hooking fish stresses them. because it causes them pain.

You have a good woman .

@CityBillyAdventures

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! It's definately not lost on me, Mrs CityBilly is the best!

Should you really be handling chainsaws and cutting down trees???? LOL

@CityBillyAdventures

2 жыл бұрын

As long as I'm not on a ladder I'm allowed haha