From Stock Tank to Living Room Pond: Caleb’s DIY Bog-Filtered Water Features (Oregon, USA)

Ozponds Community Build

One of the things I love most about sharing pond builds online is seeing how people adapt the ideas to their own spaces, climates, and budgets.

Caleb is based in Baker City, eastern Oregon (USA) — a small, remote town that gets seriously cold in winter. Instead of letting that stop him, he’s built a series of small, creative water features using bog filtration and simple DIY methods.

Here’s Caleb’s story in his own words (lightly edited for clarity):

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A Stock Tank Pond Built for Cold Winters

G’day Kev,

I wanted to share my successful creation of a stock tank pond using your methods.

It’s stocked with a dozen goldfish and as many small native minnows. The plants are a motley crew of whatever I was able to collect from the wild and find at my (very small) local garden center.

I live in Baker City, eastern Oregon, USA. The town is small, remote, and cold in the winter. To avoid the pond freezing solid, I moved it into my workshop for the winter.

The star of the plants is definitely Elodea canadensis, a native stem plant which is growing like mad and both removing nutrients and providing habitat for the fish.

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Turning a Stock Tank into an Ecosystem Pond

The pond itself is 150 gallons, with about 20 gallons in the catchment basin and around 15 gallons in the filter.

Stock tank:
I experimented with the “Father Fish” method in this one and used a thin layer of soil made acidic by a thick sand cap. Plants were planted into it, and some hardscape was placed in haphazardly to break up the look of the bottom. Nothing special — just simple and functional.

Catchment basin:
The pond overflows into a catchment basin made from a plastic storage tote. The tote is full of pea gravel and planted.

The water first flows into a medium-sized bucket with its rim above the water level in the basin. The bucket is lined with pond filter media and has holes drilled in the bottom.

A pump is housed in a smaller bucket of similar design on the opposite side of the basin. It pulls water through the filter media, then through the bottom of the first bucket, through the pea gravel, and then up to the bog filter.

The only maintenance I have to do on this pond (besides trimming plants) is periodically removing the filter media from the bucket and hosing it out.

The only thing I would change about this skimming system is using a different container and a larger pipe diameter for the overflow.

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DIY Upflow Bog Filter

Filter:
Water is pumped from the catchment basin to an upflow bog filter housed in a repurposed plastic planter.

I piped ¾” PVC to the bottom, with a 2” PVC piece horizontally situated at the bottom of the bog, drilled with holes and capped at the end.

I made a simple void space above it using some large rocks and a piece of slate. Then I filled a third of the filter with river rock and the final third with pea gravel.

Again, I probably should have made the overflow larger, but it works just fine as it is.

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Low Power, Low Maintenance

Flow rate is about 75 gallons per hour, costs me about $0.80 a month, and works a treat.

I know the numbers aren’t all perfect — I rounded to the nearest parts I already had lying around.

The water quality tests perfectly and the fish are very happy. I never have to do water changes beyond regular top-offs, which are semi-frequent on a small system like this.

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A Pond… and a Cold Plunge

I’m planning on making a small fish cave from slate that will also double as a seat for cold plunging.

I love cold plunges, and that was actually the original use of this stock tank — I just saw no reason to stop after creating this little ecosystem.

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More DIY Water Features (All Bog-Filtered)

After finishing the stock tank pond, Caleb went on to build several other small water features — all filtered using bogs:

• A small Superior tank pond
• A fountain adaptation
• A “living room pond” built as a present for his fiancé

Each one follows the same core idea: simple circulation, plant-based filtration, and using whatever materials are available locally.

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A Message from Caleb

I created this stock tank pond using knowledge gained through your YouTube channel and website, and I’m very grateful to you for compiling such robust, clear, and valuable information.

I know it’s a lot of work to maintain a site and create YouTube videos, so please accept my heartfelt thank you.

I look forward to updating you on the first in-ground pond I build when my fiancé and I buy a house later this year.

All the best,
Caleb

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Kev’s Afterthought

This is such a good example of what I try to get across with ecosystem ponds:

You don’t need fancy equipment.
You don’t need expensive filters.
You do need a simple plan, good water movement, and plants doing the heavy lifting.

Caleb’s builds show how adaptable these ideas are — from outdoor stock tanks to indoor living room ponds, even in freezing climates. That’s the beauty of working with natural processes instead of fighting them.

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The Ozpond System

If you’re planning a pond of your own and like this kind of simple, ecosystem-style approach, the Pond Formulas Blueprint walks through the same core system I use in my own builds.

It also gives you access to a private community of DIY pond builders who are all following the same framework — which helps cut through the mixed advice and conflicting ideas you often find in open forums.

And if you’d like to share your own pond or water feature, here’s a link where you can submit it to be featured alongside other community builds.

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