Giant Pond, Waterfall, Stream & Bridge-in just 12 hours ?!? It can be done.

All right, guys. We got a jam-packed show for you today. week cuz we're going to start out by flying over to California where we build a massive water feature, a $35,000 project in one single day, 12 hours. And we're going to show you what it takes to do that. And then we're going to take a pause in the action and revisit it and come back to it 3 months later and talk to the team that did the initial install and ask them what would they do different if they could go backwards and redo this build all over again. What we're doing is all of the excavated material goes from the dig site to build the burm for the waterfall. Nothing gets exported off site. This is a cut and fill. This is a balanced site. Uh Brian, for a pond this size, about how many ton of rock will you be bringing in? I'm guessing I didn't do the calculations, but I'm guessing we have about 15 15 tons. That's it. The pond and probably have another 3 to four. Anywhere from 6 in all the way up to 24 30 in. Okay. stuff you can still comfortably move with wheelbarrows or tree dollies, ball carts. Okay. And then on top of that, what about the river rock? You you bring in river rock. Yeah. So upon this size, you're probably looking about two 2 and 12 river rock. So boulders will cover everything vertical. The river rock can cover everything horizontal. Okay. So we cover every square inch of that rubber liner. So we don't see that rubber liner. 45 mil EPDM fish safe liner. There's no heavy equipment. It's all done by hand. So, zero heavy equipment. [music] We don't even have access for heavy equipment on this site. So, they're forming up [music] the basin wall right there. Evan, what are you building? I'm building aqua blocks right now. Tell me tell me what that actually is. What is that? What these do is create a spot for the water to go through. Use it to support the weight of the slack state that we're putting in. We're going to Ed said we're going to kind of make it flow with that large looking N there into the pond itself. Okay. So, it's called an aqua block. Yes. And the reason you use that versus like a just a plain old plastic container is because it doesn't allow for [music] dead water space beneath it. Is that right or wrong? uh it helps along with it and it also has a lot more stability and strength in its construction than [music] that of say like a milk crate or something along those lines. It can only hold so much. Okay. So this is the liner. This is a 45 mil liner Brian Greg. 45 mil. And so now do you bring this liner up to the spillway? How does that work? So this is just going to be an overhang. So we're going to seam a liner. We're not going to seam a liner. We're just going to overlay it. So we're going to we'll get an extra piece of this. Cut it. put it in here. So, the liner's in place now. They kick in all the corners. They tighten it up. They place the rocks and then begins the cutting. That's if the chief right there says that's what he wants to do. So, where is your fall going to be? Are you placing that rock to be one of the fall rocks? Correct. It's going to be it's going to be on the side of the fall. The fall is going to come in right in between it. So, that's going to kind of frame everything out. We want to get our height above our our existing grade. Our water level is going to be down in here. So, it's not a huge waterfall, but we we it's what I try to do is uh very obviously the the height. So, we going to have a series of steps with this type of stone and everything. It's going to be more not massive giant waterfalls, but it's going to be a lot of action, boulders, little ledges, and things like that. It works. So, is this going to be a se another fall right in here? No, this is the skimmer. This is the skimmer. This is where the pumps for the waterfall and for the um these slate walls are is going to be housed. [music] So, what goes right there? You putting the rock or is the gravel? Going to do a rock is we're forcing all the water through this little travass over here and then we're going to get a big flat one on this side. start tying back towards that waterfall and then we want to either terrace this a little bit or we want to set it up where we can do some plantings. So we want to try to soften some of these things up. Uh we're foaming. So basically we're using the the professional grade foam with a foam gun. And all you're do all I'm doing is this is the BOF falls. I'm just sealing where the water would flow. You always got to think like water. So if you see right here I'm putting a little bead in. Yeah, they're pretty valuable. And then I a little bit heavier where it is fill up the void space. So, I don't need to fill all the way up to here. I just need to put it down and then we'll put some gravel on top of that and then it will just flow. So, we're keeping the water flowing over. And the nice thing about expandable foam is uh you can you can if you don't like it, if you don't like the way the water flows, you can just rip it apart and reo it. All right. I want to talk technical and when I want to talk technical can't go to this. [laughter] All right. So, you're going to help us understand the filtration. Yeah. Of this. Okay. I think what's nice about the Aquacape ecosystem is how simple it actually is. People get intimidated with ponds thinking that they need bottom drains and they need bead filters and all this stuff. This isn't a theory we're going off of. This is a triedand-true method that we've been doing for over 25 years. And if it didn't work, believe me, we would do something different. But really, there's two parts to this system. There's a mechanical filter and a biological filter. The first thing I show you guys is the mechanical filter. All right. This is our skimmer box over here. And if you look right now, you can actually see this debris moving off the surface and all coming into this area here. We've got a fake stone on top, strong enough for anybody to stand on. But it's lightweight, so any homeowner can easily with one finger just pull this off inside and take this out cuz they're just doing something to try to remove some dust off of here. But you have your big basket. It's grabbing all of the all of the surface debris. Everything big that's in on the surface gets collected in this basket. To clean this, we pull this up, take it, shake it out. All the big debris gets caught in here. All the small stuff that gets through, all of these little things gets caught in a filter mat. And if I take this door, I can actually close this shut. And you'll see what I'm talking about. Cuz all that small stuff gets caught in here. You're going to clean this out probably once to every four or five times to shake this stuff out. The main reason for a mechanical filter is to remove all of the solids out of here. So the idea is by the time the water has moved through this basket, through the filter pad, and gotten to the pump, there's no more debris. So now it's moving clear debris free water. It sends the water then up to our biological filter. There's just a big container. Inside that container, which is also the starting point of our waterfall, is a series of filter mats and bio balls. So the water comes into the bottom, moves around in a swirl chamber, which allows the water to evenly move up through the filter mats. As it moves up through the filter mats, more and more bacteria gets seated in the filter mats and then moves up into the layer of bio balls where more and more bacteria can grow. The idea of a biological filter is just a giant area for biological bacteria to grow. Brian. Hey. Hey. Got a question. Last time that I seen you, we were in California together, weren't we? Oh, yeah. Now, you got to be the master builder on that. You and Ed, right? Oh, that's nice of you. But thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Myself amongst I think 30, 40, 50 other people. Okay. So, accomplished it in a single day, which is something that nobody can really expect to do. I don't even remember thinking I could do that, right? Or or we could do that. But it was a Yeah, it was a huge undertaking with a bunch of people. Um, everybody coming together. I think uh the inspiration really came from Greg and Greg saying, "Hey, I think this is possible." And if you uh see the light at the end of the tunnel, then you go you go for it, right? So, looking back, if there's anything you could change, would you do anything different on that field? Add your stream. Ryan. Yeah. Right. Um, you know what? I think that's a it's a great question. What What would you do different with the water feature? And I would say the um what I would do different with that feature is no different than I would do with any feature. Never ever is it uh good enough. Right? There's a thousand things you'd want to do different. And so I could look at that pond and just like we feature with our own personal crew, we sit back and we analyze every single part of it. What's one thing we could do better? What's one thing we could do more efficient? The thing that sticks out to me the most um would have been maybe making it slightly deeper and uh and what would have really taken it to another level is utilizing that huge slope that he had coming down from his house all the way down to that lower area where his workout center was. How cool would it have been to put a big giant long meandering stream with a bridge or something? Did Greg tell you to say that? No, I told Greg that you taught me right here in this factory, right in this warehouse. And I think it was It was over there. Yes, right down there. Not to suffer from analysis paralysis. You told me not to look at a rock and give it more than how many flips? Two to three. Two flips. And if you haven't got it, get rid of it. Get rid of it. So now what are you doing? Are you breaking your own rule, Brian? No, I don't think I'm I'm saying I would change any rock placements. I'm [laughter] just I'm just saying if you were to rebuild it, you could do it this way or that way. I think sometimes I also look at a pond um more so nowadays than I did maybe when I first started building ponds. I look at a ponds a lot like kitchens. And sometimes they just need a facelift. They need a makeover. I need to stop you right there, Brian, because I want to add in here. You're the only person that I've ever met in real life that's built 48 ponds in 50 days. [laughter] Yeah. In how many different states? 48. In 48 states. Uh-huh. Wow. This is a fact, guys. 48 ponds in 50 days. Say 48 cities. Maybe not states. Was it cities or states? Cities. That's a big difference. Yeah, there is. [laughter] Okay. So, he's not that cool. No, he's still pretty cool. So if we were in Texas for example, we might go to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, you know, all all of all of Texas using no power equipment except the only time on two jobs he used a powered jackhammer electric jackhammer San Antonio and Miami to chip rock, coral and and ledge rock. Okay, so it can be done. It can be done. And these weren't waterless water features. I mean, these weren't pondless water. Pondless water features. These were ecosystem ponds. 11 by 16 ponds. 11 by 16. Yep. Well, how big was the pond you did out in California? Gosh, that thing was uh I think it was 30 38x 16 at the widest, 2 ft deep with urns, much much larger waterfall. Um bridge that was on there. Um the bridge had concrete footings. It's like there was some there was some engineering that went into that one, right? And 12 hours later it was done and you were tired. [laughter] Oh. So, are you going to play volleyball with us? Yeah. You want to try this? Oh, yeah. All right, guys. We got a full night ahead. Look, we got superstar Brian Bartek out. Yeah. See you. Make sure you guys check out his channel because we're going to have a lot of fun with Brian and uh May. We're going out to your house. That's right. Baby foxes. We're We're bringing out You guys know my foxes. Brian and I are getting together. One thing you don't know about me is I've loved animals, reptiles my whole life. Entire life. Entire life. And this guy is the king of that. We're going to have a great time. And I promise we're not going to get him killed. Maybe hurt a little bit, but not killed. We're going to take care of him. Don't you worry. Awesome. Awesome. Looking forward to it. Make sure you check him out. Make sure you check out Jay Prehistoric Pets. I'll be seeing you in a in a week. I hope in a week or two. I hope you make it over there. Yes, you're certainly invited. Well, we'll have to play with some big big big big big snakes. [laughter] I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And now I'm going to go in there and play Wally Ball with these guys. [music] I'm just going to share something with you. He's got dorm rooms over here, an indoor gym. This is a guy that started out with nothing. Just building ponds. Nothing, guys. He started with nothing and he just built ponds. And he stuck with it and he built pond after pond after pond. You guys, if he can do it and he trains contractors how to do it, you can do it. So, make sure you go check out his channel. Make sure you subscribe to him. Let me know if this video's helped you guys out. Um, if it has, give me a big thumbs up or give me a comment down below things you'd like to see. God bless you guys.