This part of the pond rehab was so awesome—and we learned so much—it deserves its own post. I realize you might be wondering what a fish habitat really is. Water, right? Isn’t a fish habitat just a body of water? Not exactly. Think about a really cool aquarium. Is it an empty glass cube with some water and fish? Probably not. Most likely, it has some sand or gravel on the bottom. It probably also has some larger stones, tunnels, or caves. Maybe it even has some driftwood. And I’m guessing it also has lots of real and/or fake plants. Our pond is like a massive fish tank. We needed some gravel beds on the ground, some larger rocks (boulders), and tons of fake plants. These habitats are basically those fake plants.

A completely barren pond would support fish populations, of course. But as snapping turtles, predatory fish, birds, and other predators move in, the fish low on the totem pole have nowhere to go and are ripe for the picking. Without places to hide, reproduce, and raise fry, fish colonies can become unbalanced. Habitats provide just that: places to hide, spawn, and raise young. Studies show that fish that have habitats have higher survival rates, grow larger, and have better overall heath. Some people throw their Christmas trees in their ponds every year, others dump concrete rubble into the depths, and others make their own habitats out of pallets, buckets, concrete, PVC pipes, and all kinds of other stuff.

As you might imagine, that’s not really our style, so—as always—our scientific minds went to work. We did tons of research, middle of the night reading, and consultations with experts in the field. The owner of the habitat company we chose designed the entire underwater landscape for us with our desires and the fish’s best interests in mind. The southern side of our pond is mostly shaded by trees, so he focused the habitats on the northern bank, because that’s where the sun will warm first in the spring and where the fish can spawn. That bank also happens to be slightly less steep than the others, thank goodness.

The habitats we chose are incredibly cool and a little heavy. They use old, vinyl siding that was headed to landfills and instead create scientifically proven, successful fish habitats. The owner was so excited and couldn’t wait to tell us that the reclaimed vinyl he uses for the habitats doesn’t just come off of houses; he gets a ton of material from hospitals, operating rooms, and medical offices. The rails, bumpers, corner guards, and wall protection paneling sheets are all made out of vinyl and instead of being trashed, he cuts them down into strips and uses it to build these fish habitats. So our fish will call reclaimed hospital decor home; what’s more Healthcare Homesteader than that?!

These structures are totally inert, won’t break down over time, and will last forever. An additional benefit to these habitats is that because they attract fish, they’re perfect fishing spots, and these things are snag free! Win, win. As if they couldn’t get any better, the width of the vinyl pieces and their texture provide a nearly unquantifiable surface area on which periphyton can grow. What is periphyton, you ask? To spare you the scientific jargon, it’s that greenish fuzzy stuff covering things under water. It’s fish food, and it also removes contaminants from the water. I could go on and on about this stuff, but I have a feeling I should just show you what these things look like. Have I built up the suspense long enough? Nah, not quite.

The fishscaping plan also involved two large gravel beds for spawning. We planned for five cubic yards of pea gravel for each bed, which would amount to two areas roughly 34 feet wide by 12 feet tall, about four inches deep. Our banks are steep! I couldn’t help but wonder how on Earth I’d be able to get pea gravel to stay in one spot without migrating down to the depths either immediately or over time. That curiosity awoke the MacGyver in me, and I decided to place some sort of barrier along the bottom of the planned gravel beds. I wanted something heavy, with a low center of gravity, that had a flat base (because something round would also roll down the hill), was relatively inexpensive, and wouldn’t break down over time. What meets all that criteria? Retaining wall blocks. I wanted the kind that has a lip on the back; my hope was that we could press those into the bank to aid in the grip, but I also wanted an insurance policy. I decided to cut small diameter PVC pipe into 8” lengths to serve as stakes that we could hammer into the banks to also anchor those blocks in place.

I did some quick calculations and determined 80 blocks—40 blocks per gravel bed—would give me the rough dimensions I wanted. So, I hauled retaining wall blocks to the property after work on the days leading up to the delivery of our habitats. We also scheduled the delivery of A LOT of rock. We needed the pea gravel for the pond, along with a lot of boulders, but we also have quite a few other rock projects coming up, so we saved ourselves on delivery and ordered a bunch of extra rock at the same time. The weather again delayed the finishing of the pond work, so we—in turn—had to also delay the rock delivery more than once.

Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for: next came the delivery of the habitats.

Because they were now sitting in the middle of our driveway, we had to use our pickup—making several trips—to transport all the habitats up to the Morton for preparation. Once unloaded, they were organized by type.

The next day, we started early by unwrapping each habitat and bending the vinyl pieces into intricate shapes and angles. The more nooks and crannies for little fish to hide, the better. Each habitat was random and varied. After bending, the habitats were placed into eight different groups, based on the preplanned fishscape.

Moving the retaining wall block and habitats over to the pond’s edge was momentous. During the pond rehab, excavators and bulldozers were always parked on the dam as it’s the only flat site around. The machines were moved just for us to be able to truck all those habitats over, so it was the first time we had driven on the dam over to the house site. It was a rough ride, but it was totally worth it. I think it took eight or nine trips to get everything over to the northern bank. That capped off day one with the habitats.

Day two focused on installation. The location of the gravel beds really determined the location of all the habitats, so that’s where we started. Prior to execution, I happened to mention my plan for using the retaining wall block to contain the pea gravel beds to our excavator—who generously offered to bucket the gravel over to these beds for us—, and he didn’t seem to think it was too outlandish. He said they do similar things with timber to outline areas for sand if people want beaches around their ponds.

Our pond guy had marked future water depths for us in a few spots along the bank with flags; we needed that, because the location of all the fishscape elements rely on being placed at the proper depths. Right before installation, the owner of the habitat company suggested we slide things a hair deeper just in case we have dry years and drought or even considerable evaporation in the summer months. Our pond is fed solely by runoff, so it’s unrealistic to assume it will be at maximum capacity year-round. Fish habitats don’t do any good above water, so we adjusted our planned depths slightly lower and got to work.

We ran a string across the bank at a set depth and began placing the retaining wall block along that line to hold the pea gravel. The block I purchased had a depression on the underside, so I decided to use that area to conceal a stake. I left a couple inches sticking out of the bank and hung the retaining wall blocks on the stakes like I was hanging pictures on a wall.

Another unforeseen challenge was trying to create enough traction with our bodies to keep ourselves from sliding down the banks as well. We probably expended just as much energy clinging to the walls of the pond basin as it took to set the blocks in place. I really wish I was kidding, but where’s the Spider-Man grip when you need it?!

On the day we bent and shaped the habitats and this first day of installation, temps were in the high nineties, and the humidity was through the roof. Though we started in the mornings, these tasks took us through the entire day. Why we always end up with all the heavy lifting during the hottest summer days is beyond me. We can’t thank our families enough for all the help and for hanging in there with us; we couldn’t have done it without you!

With the gravel bed areas now set, it was time to actually start placing the habitats. We used our fishscape map to lay out the habitats in the preplanned areas, trying to get depth and spacing right. That was hard enough in and of itself. With the clay banks being hard and dry and steeper than all get-out, everything just wanted to slide right down the hill, including us and all our supplies. Directions for installation are to “plant” the weighted habitat bases by pressing them into the bank and kicking some dirt around them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work for us.

Remember how I said our clay was hard? It was trowel-bending hard. We tried to dig in to the high side of the bank to set the habitats in upright, but we had to use our trowels like chisels and hammer them down into the bank to leverage out chunks of clay. Once we got each habitat to stand straight up, we used two stakes in front of the bases to keep them from wanting to tip forward. It worked pretty well! 

Slowly but surely, we moved along, placing one habitat at a time and securing them to the banks in the same fashion. Another interesting thing was that due to the steepness, the distance between depths wasn’t all that great, so we did our best to stagger the habitats so they didn’t all end up clumped together or in too much of a straight line. 

After completing areas 1, 2, and 3 of our fishscaping plan, we really wanted to finish one more area before calling it a day.

Area 8 contained four habitats set in the deep waters to still provide fish some cover in case of severely low water levels; they’re 12-foot tall trees. For “fun,” we had tried standing one up in the water the day before, but it definitely didn’t want to stay standing on the pond’s uneven bottom, so we had to devise a new plan. On installation day, we came prepared with longer PVC pipe sections to stake around the trees and zip ties to secure the stakes around the trees’ trunks for stability.

We started by trying to set one of the trees in the bank just above the current water level to see if our new plan would work, but instead, something better happened. When we dug a hole to put the base of the tree into, the most wonderful, malleable clay came out. After setting the tree in place, we packed all that clay back in around it, and it was so stable, it didn’t budge with a good shake. So we ditched the fancy stake and zip tie plan and planted all four habitats above the waterline like they were real trees. What we thought would be the most difficult grouping turned out to be the easiest one, and it was the perfect way to end day one of installation.

With a wealth of trial-and-error and learning along the way under our belts, we looked ahead to the following weekend in order to complete areas 4-7. For those groupings, I had a slightly more daring plan. I decided to use more of the vertical space (shallow to deep). I didn’t want to get too crazy, but for the times when our pond is completely full, I wanted the fish to have a little bit more of shallows over on the east side. That area is less in view from the future house, so if we are in significant drought, and a few of the habitats peek out above the waterline, it won’t bother us much, and our fish can move down or over to the west side we completed the first day.

Next, it was time to place the rock. Our excavator bucketed over the 10 cubic yards of pea gravel for us, which we spread around the habitats within our containment areas by hand and with rakes.

Finally, it was time to set the three boulder piles outlined in our fishscaping plan. We wanted to create lots of caverns, caves, and hidey-holes to house shy, vulnerable, and spawning fish. On the day we went out to build those piles, we were met with a bit of a surprise. The rainstorms from the previous week had left our tall fish habitat trees looking like this:

So out came that fancy stake and zip tie plan again. We hammered four, four-foot sections of PVC pipe into the ground around each of the habitat tree bases. Then, we drilled holes through the top ends of those pipes, threaded zip ties through those holes, and secured them around the “trunks” of the habitat trees.

The water had risen about two feet since we had originally set the habitats, so the lower two trees were now partially submerged, but we stabilized them in the same fashion. Finally, we were able to focus on those boulder piles. We started with the one on the center of the bank and offset rows to make the first layer—think, how you’d set up bowling pins. We left spaces between each boulder and staked the front edges, just like the habitats, to keep them from rolling or sliding down the bank. Then we set a second layer on top of the first and added a few more to cap off the pile. In all, our first boulder pile had 27 good-sized boulders. We estimate the total weight to be more than 1,000 pounds; therefore, that was more than enough for one day.

We eventually completed the other two boulder piles—with about 30 boulders each—and could officially call that project done. We had an incredible feeling of accomplishment with this one. While we always have projects up on the docket, there aren’t many that are a literal race against time. We had to set and secure these habitats in place before the banks were submerged under water forever, and (un)luckily, we were getting some much needed rain during the process. This was the one chance we had to get it all done perfectly, exactly the way we had envisioned. It ended up looking aesthetically great too; what fish wouldn’t want to live there?!

The pea gravel, boulder piles, and even the retaining wall block will help hold the early spring warmth and aid in spawning. As soon as our water level rises above those habitats, we can start stocking the pond. Hopefully, that’s as soon as next spring, but it could also take much longer; only time will tell. Our current plan is to leave out the predatory fish (like bass and catfish) altogether and just stock fathead minnows, bluegill, redear sunfish, and yellow perch. This will supply us with an abundance of panfish from the occasional weekend fishing “trip” without the need to artificially feed them or keep populations in check by regularly culling predatory fish; it’s a more natural, self-sustaining, relaxed pond management strategy.

Check back in for updates. We’ll post pics as the water level continues to rise, and we’ll be sure to let you know when we can introduce our scaley friends!