This video is an extremely important video for me as part of the mantra it’s Water, but you’re going to be meeting a very, very dear friend of mine that recently passed Ernie. He put this pond together as you’ll see stone by stone, by stone. And then over all these years, he’s helped me maintain it. He’s refurbished all of the ponds on my property, even the ones that I built before him. And it is with great sadness that I can tell you that my friend has passed. And I’d like you to look at this as a tribute to him. Because every time I look at my ponds, it’s a tribute to him.
We dedicate this video to Ernie and his family. Ernie, thank you for creating such a beautiful environment that will continue to be enjoyed by many.
*This interview was filmed in September 2020.
📖Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to Ernie
1:10 Swimming Pool to Pond
3:48 Koi Fish
6:46 BOG Filter System
7:35 Waterfall
11:35 Wild Duck Habitat
13:28 Tilapia Pond 20:16 Courtyard Pond
23:15 Air Stone & Oxygen
25:27 Becoming Self Sustainable
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
Lynette Zang:
Today’s video is an extremely important video for me as part of the mantra it’s water, but you’re going to be meeting a very, very dear friend of mine that recently passed Ernie. He put this pond together as you’ll see stone by stone, by stone. And then over all these years, he’s helped me maintain it. He’s refurbished all of the ponds on my property, even the ones that I built before him. And it is with great sadness that I can tell you that my friend has asked. And I’d like you to look at this as a tribute to him. Because every time I look at my ponds, it’s a tribute to him.
Lynette Zang:
If you think that the world is headed in a direction, that makes you a bit concerned for the future, and you’d like to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible, then you come to the right place. My, my name is Lynette Zang. Now it’s time to go Beyond Gold and Silver.
Lynette Zang:
I’m Lynette, Zang, Urban Farmer, and I have with me today, he has become one of my best friends, really. Over the years, this is Ernie from Valley Wide Ponds. He has built all the ponds on this property or rebuilt them the right way either way. And I know a lot of people out there really want to have ponds. I use them for my catchment system. So that’s why the ponds are really important to me because now I have good water that has no chemicals in it. I still have to filter it through the berkey, but I swim in this, etcetera. So thank you so much for coming today. I know I see you all the time it’s fabulous <laugh> and you look very nice today.
Ernie :
Thank you for once! <Laugh>.
Lynette Zang:
Absolutely. But I have to start with, do you do all of this fantastic work?
Ernie :
Well, I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I have a passion for ponds. I’m kind of a water artist. If you can see here, we created a beautiful masterpiece with an existing pool that was made out of concrete. And we now lie the pond. Well, the pool with the lyer, and we have now a beautiful ecosystem where you see the plants that are floating in the pond, which are basically a big habitat for the fish to hide under. And every little island that you see there is actually recycled water bottles. The plants grow through the floating. Basically they’re like little rafts and the root system on ’em are about 2-2.5ft long. They absorbed the waste in the water that the fish produce and in turn clean the water. And essentially what it is, is recycle bottles of water. And they make little rafts out of them. There’s holes in the, in the top of the raft. And we put the plant in there, the plant grows through the the media and goes back into the ground. And they’ve been here for about three years now. Yeah. And you really can’t even tell they’re growing on a raft, but they’re doing a wonderful job of also shading the pond from the sun and protecting the fish from any birds may want to come in here like a heron, which we’ve had in the past, but they’re a wonderful addition to any pond where you don’t have maybe a shelf to put your marginal plants on, these float in the pond. And you can change ’em on output floating. You can put a little solar light on ’em, so they it’s an incredible, I’ve had ’em in the, I’ve been using ’em for over 20 years and they’re still floating. What you see here is basically a big, huge koi pond. You got this 10 feet at the very end, and we have, you can see the center, some oxygenator that bring oxygen from the bottom of the pond to the top, to stir up that bottom water and other than filter system, the plants. We also have some bio beads it’s made by Sacramento Koi it’s, Bio Bead filter, basically water going through these tiny little beads collected debris. And then it comes clear. And on the very bottom of the, pipes here are two huge UV lights that zap the water of any algae that might be produced. Other than that, the water stays pretty clear. It has to be clean a back wash once every two weeks. And you’ll have crystal clear water by the end of the summer. I mean, it’s swimable
Lynette Zang:
Oh, it’s definitely swimable.
Ernie :
Yeah. Here’s how the system actually works in the pond, essentially this fake rock disguises, our catch basin, which is basically a lid here. Both the pumps are in the bottom collecting water or any debris that falls in a pond. We have a little net that collects it. Okay. And of course, to feed the pond with water, we have a little auto fill. So that’s basically the maintenance of keeping this pond clean. At least the surface area, the pumps are on the bottom. They get checked every two weeks for any debris that might get caught. Get past that little net. We’ve had some problems with some sails, which we don’t have a problem with anymore, but they tend to go down the pump and they slow the flow water down.
Lynette Zang:
Have you done any other pool conversions?
Ernie :
In Chicago I have, here, you’re one of the first ones I’ve done.
Lynette Zang:
But this is a really a growing trend in Europe too. Yes. Because this pool, I needed to do something with this pool and I always knew I wanted to do a pond with it, but it is a growing trend. They use it quite a lot more in Europe. And I’ll tell you the truth. It gives me an opportunity to come out and enjoy this pond regardless of the weather. Right. And I also grow things like Yerba mate on there. So I’m also able to grow some food on here that is nutritionally dense. And last year it didn’t get very cold. Right. So, I mean, the whole pond was like really overgrown, but now we’re keeping it better.
Ernie :
Yes. And by the way, that’s all natural. All the products that you grow here, any tomatoes, lettuce, anything that is grown in a garden can be grown and what we’ll go over here now and see, but this is basically, what’s called the BOG (filter system). Right now there’s nothing in there, but this is a perfect spot to put tomatoes, lettuce. Just add a little bit more gravel so that cause you know, very well, nothing will grow in standing water, but we add a little bit more gravel and that will be weeped up by the rock. And you can put any kind of vegetable in here. Right. And it won’t need any fertilizer because this fish will fertilize it all. That’s what it’s gonna feed on.
Lynette Zang:
Exactly.
Ernie :
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>
Lynette Zang:
And this but you just don’t wanna put any invasive.
Ernie :
Invasive.
Lynette Zang:
Right? Cause we made that mistake with mint, which is, I love the mint, but it’s better captured in one place
Ernie :
Exactly. Or contained in a pot of some sort here is basically a good spot for lettuce, tomato things that don’t have a really big root structure. Here’s another BOG that we created for Lynette. It’s basically you that water from the pond coming up through a series of different types of gravel up to lava rock and this is what filters the water, essentially what you see here is crystal clear water coming out of here. We’ve got, what’s her name again? Aurora. Aurora. We made Aurora spit some water out to add the to the feature she’s been spending water out for the last three years. Yep.
Lynette Zang:
So this is all part of the pool pond. And this is where the waterfall. So you guys saw the waterfall. This is behind the waterfall.
Ernie :
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> this is some of the work that we did for Lynette here. Some of the characters that we embedded into the rocks.
Lynette Zang:
Oh yeah. It’s the watcher of the key right
Ernie :
Here. Yes. This took a lot of time. A lot of man, this is all real rock from start to finish one rock at a time.
Lynette Zang:
And really, I mean, Ernie, you are absolutely an artist because he handpicked, you’ll see in the pictures he hand picked and the bottom of the pond, which you can’t see, that is all scaped down there. So it’s absolutely gorgeous when you’re swimming in the pond with your snorkels and your fins. It’s fantastic.
Ernie :
There’s caves down there where she can actually go through a cave and back out. This is the ten foot area here where the fake alligators are. Now we have different fish here. We have the koi. And all these koi that you see in here are strictly butterfly koi. They’re a little bit more elegant than this standard fin. 99% of ’em. Cause I seen one down there that isn’t a butterfly, but 99% of ’em are all elegant. Japanese butterfly koi. We also have eight big Chinese high fin sharks. And then we have some picasimus fish in here. Like eight of those and believe it or not those with stand the winters here. Picasimus fish because the bottom of the pond is always warmer than the top.
Lynette Zang:
and the pond is 10 feet deep too.
Ernie :
Ten feet deep.
Ernie :
So there any, well, not any tropical fish can survive in here, but you can put mali’s in here. You can put picasimus, several other type, guppies you can put in here. As long as we don’t go to 33 degrees or 32 degrees, it will be okay and that doesn’t ever happen. So essentially you could have almost any kinda fishing here, the tilapia each actually surviving here, cause they’ll go to the warm part of the pond. But the tilapia will take over the pond. They’ll have this be an ending…now what’s nice about having a tilapia pond. They love to eat all the string algae.
Lynette Zang:
Oh yeah!
Ernie :
But they multiply like crazy.
Lynette Zang:
But isn’t that what also the high fin sharks do?
Ernie :
Yes. That’s what their staple diet is. And you don’t see any of that in here, right? Every pond go through a phase of string algae, but once it balance itself out, it basically will. It’s an ecosystem. It’s gotta go through a phase every year. And that the older the pond is, and the more established the, the plants are little less time. You’re gonna have green water and string algae, it’s all part of having a pond. String algae is eaten by the fish, including the koi. You don’t even have to feed these fish.
Lynette Zang:
No.
Ernie :
They’ll eat. They’ll sustain your pond they’re like little Hoover vacuums. They’ll clean the bottom of pond. They’ll eat the, whatever’s in this pond, bugs that fall in there are eating by the koi. And of course we have mosquito fishing here that eat any larva that mosquitoes may, may wanna have in here. So this is basically mosquito free. There’s hundreds of yes. Of those of the mosquito fish, which only gets about an inch long. And they usually stand the top surface in the water to eat larva or any mosquitoes or even bugs that fall into there. They’re very ferocious little fish.
Lynette Zang:
<Laugh> they’re almost like little carnivores.
Ernie :
They are.
Lynette Zang:
Yeah, they are.
Ernie :
Yeah. So this is the pool conversion that we did three years ago and we have no problem whatsoever with it. We even have ducks come to visit
Speaker 5:
Yeah wild ducks. Not here at the moment. Yeah. We have lots of pictures of that cause we love them.
Ernie :
They do their part. Hopefully when they go to waste, and then the fish, eat whatever waste isn’t digested, the fish will eat. So it doesn’t hurt a pond to have occasional ducks to come, and visit.
Lynette Zang:
I love, I love those wild ducks, like crazy. I really do. They do not know how much pleasure they give me, but they give me a lot of pleasure, but anybody can really do this.
Ernie :
Do this yes. You don’t have, have to really go all all out. Like we did, we did the pond with a beautiful bottom of nice rock scene, but just a little gravel would be just as good. But remember too most, most pools have an inversion. They, they all kind of create to the center. So you gotta build in some walls, but if you don’t have ledges, the floating islands are ideal for a pond that doesn’t have any ledges any pool can be converted into a pond. And you will get much more, no chemicals like that. Salt any there’s no chemicals in this. This is all natural. Yep. We add bacteria when we do the maintenance, but that bacteria basically is beneficial bacteria that eats the food that’s in the pond is basically nutrients from the fish and so forth. So the bacteria, the natural bacteria that we use, we put in there to keep the water clear. So by having a UV light, which in some cases you don’t really need here. We did because it’s a big pond, right. So we figured we want to keep it crystal clear all the time, but on a normal pond pool, you don’t have to. It’s good to have. I recommend that. Especially if you’re in Arizona, you get a UV light, if you don’t ever want to have green water. Yeah. Yeah. Cause of the heat
Lynette Zang:
And this is the tilapia pond. Now I put the tilapia pond in and we dug it out in 2013, but it wasn’t really done the right way. So my good friend, Ernie at Valley Wide Ponds just redid this tilapia pond. So this is actually a pretty new pond.
Ernie :
It sure is. It’s probably about a month and a half, maybe two months old. Basically what we did is we put a new liner in it. The depth of the pond is about three feet. This is an existing statue. Well, a water feature that we incorporate into it. It used to be to the right over here. We put it towards the center now. And essentially what we’re doing is draw water from underneath this little blue blue plate piece of slate. There’s a pump inside back there with a little bag of lava rocks so that you don’t have any fogging issues. And it basically sucks water, through a pipe up to the fountain. And then back up to the very top where she grows all her water lettuce.
Lynette Zang:
And this is also water, there’s water lettuce in here. And then there’s also water hyacinth with the little bulbs. And this is what we feed the chickens and the ducks, the domesticated ones. Yes. And the other ones too.
Ernie :
The duck weed is a fabulous nutrient for the animals. It basically grows constantly.
Lynette Zang:
Right!
Ernie :
And then we’ve basically we got water coming from the top and it drips down slowly into each little chamber there. And that sits back into the center there where it’s now cleaning the water in here are a bunch of tilapias. And in the winter, since the pond is only three feet deeps, we have an external heater left locating in the garage that now heats up the water to 55-60 degrees. The tilapia will freeze or they’ll die when it gets cold and Lynette loves the Butterfly bushes.
Lynette Zang:
Yes.
Ernie :
We planted, there was only four to five of these little sprouts here and looking how it’s overtaken everything. This gets all sorts of Monarch butterflies. It’s beautiful.
Lynette Zang:
It is it. But we had a challenge and the, the challenge, because you’re always gonna have challenges and that’s definitely, Ernie is great at resolving those challenges. So the azolla and the duck weed, which are these things in here, that those are really important on the farm because when you’re trying to be self sufficient, then you want to grow the food that you’re feeding the chickens and ducks and have to buy less. So they kept clogging up and as did the snail, and you can see they’ve still got some snails here, but you don’t see any clogs. And it isn’t cause we fixed it just before we started filming it’s because Ernie came up with a solution.
Ernie :
Yes, we used what’s actually also recycled plastic, I don’t know exactly if it’s, if plastic bottles or not, but this is a brand called Matala. Matala filter will last for many, many years. It’s a plastic it’s not made of anything other than this little weave, interweave, little plastic strings. And we’ve now created areas where the, the lettuce, or I’m sorry, the duckweed won’t get clogged in these ports.
Lynette Zang:
Especially the azolla because you can see on the bottom mm-hmm <affirmative>, there’s a duckweed and azolla the azolla is a little teeny weeny green. Yes, yes. Which are loaded with proteins. Really good. But that’s I think between the two of ’em that will was driving us nuts.
Ernie :
Well, everything would overflow and you know, we have leaking problems now we don’t have that. Nope. So everything’s back to normal and it’s a very simple remove I’ll show you what it looks like here. Yeah. Just basically take this, which is really, this could be reused in the garden by shaking it out. And we now take and put it right back over the little hole here And you got yourself a barrier to keep the azolla and the duck weed from going down into those ports and clogging it. So that helped.
Lynette Zang:
Now I’d also like to point out that this is just a really simple aquaponic system and we’re gonna be talking more about aquaponics with Victoria, but you can see, this is just like two by fours and then there’s a plastic here. So once it cools off enough, we’re gonna be planting a lot of lettuce up here. As well, right now we’re using the, the water lettuce as a, you know, as a filter, the roots filter it, but the chickens and ducks just gobble this up like crazy and it’s loaded with protein and even Daisy it’s part of my security. My big dog will come and drink back here where the wild ducks. And then I’ll see ’em with these green around their bills. It’s the cutest thing ever. It’s so cute. But these will attract the butterflies when it’s that season, it’s just phenomenal.
Ernie :
And you can see the waters pretty clear down there with, with no filtration other than natural filters, the plants, there’s nothing in here. There’s no bead filters. There’s just water going through plant. And of course this is shaded by the sun. So therefore we wont have a problem with any string algae. But the shade, the sun, the pond that are shaded are always a little bit cleaner than the ones that are in full sun.
Lynette Zang:
But yeah, I mean, this is crystal clear!
Ernie :
Crystal clear!
Lynette Zang:
No filter at all other than the plants. Yep. And then these, we just scoop up and we give to, and they, and the beauty part about the goal of the duck weed the water hyacinth and the water lettuce is that they all self propagate. So once you get them going, it’s just in the winter, when it gets cold, then we, then we pull them inside too some of ’em so that we then have for the next season, but this water should keep it fine. And when it 55 to 60 degrees that should keep these plants going.
Ernie :
Will be the case.
Lynette Zang:
Yeah.
Ernie :
Yes. As long as it doesn’t get cold, they’ll survive.
Ernie :
The water hyacinth.
Lynette Zang:
Well, we’ve got the heater.
Ernie :
Oh, the heater will keep it to a degree that we set it at, which will be 45-50 degrees.
Lynette Zang:
Perfect.
Lynette Zang:
Yep. So this is the courtyard pond. This is the only pond that was on the property when I bought it. And you know, I didn’t know whether or not it was gonna be able to keep it alive, but they had a pool pump. They had, I mean it was really a mess. And so this is another pond that thankfully Ernie re did for me, and I’m gonna move out of the way so you can see it because it’s really gorgeous. And we also have some pond plans. Ernie recently thinned out the lilies, put some in the big pond and you can see over there by the crystals. This is also my crystal garden area where there’s a bunch of penny wort that is growing and soon we’ll also be able to plant the water crest. Yeah. This is a great place for the water press because the water comes down. So Ernie, can you explain what you did here? Okay.
Ernie :
Basically this pond is a concrete pond and it’s an original concrete pond. And when they make original ones they’re really made well. So we never really had an issue with any kind of leaking other than the fact that it really wasn’t filtered properly. So what we did is we added a skimmer, which is made by a company called Aladin. And in this skims, the water of any debris that might get collected in here, since there are quite a few leaves in this area, you can see that’s where the skimmer is collecting all the debris and a simple,
Lynette Zang:
Yep. Let me get outta the
Ernie :
Way. Once a week of that cleans that debris off. And this now just basically removes the surface tension and any debris that falls in pond ends up in that little basket. As you can see, it’s going back in there. Here, we have an auto flow that fills the conduct with water when need it. And up on top there, that is also a filter the water coming from the top of that little fountain, there basically adds oxygens to the, to the water up there. But underneath that statue is a series of grids. It’s basically looks like a milk… It’s a product made by Aquascapes it’s what’s called the matrix box and water goes through the matrix box. We add gravel on top of that, and that becomes a filter. So we’ve got water coming from the bottom of that top area. And then of course on top adds oxygen to the, to the upper half of the pond where you’ve also got duck weed. And you’ve got all sorts of different papyrus’ in the corner there. And of course you can see all that beauty from, from the inside of the house. You’ve got different colored lilies up here, or cans got the yellow, the red, I think there’s some oranges in there too.
Lynette Zang:
Yeah, there is.
Ernie :
And then you’ve got the fig tree. That’s been here for many, many years and that just makes it all look beautiful and natural.
Lynette Zang:
Now we talked a little bit about the aeration, but we didn’t really talk about how important that is.
Ernie :
An airstone in a pond is very important. I recommend.
Lynette Zang:
I love those air stones, by the way, you guys I’ve tried different ones. So which ones are those?
Ernie :
This is all made by Aquascape design. Okay. Aquascape is a leader in the industry of ponds. If you Google ’em, they’re the first ones that come up on Google. So if you’re gonna get a good aeriator, I’d get something from Aquascape. They’re inexpensive. And by having a airstone in any pond, let’s just say your pump goes out well, here in Arizona, if your pump goes out at 110 degrees and you’re not home, you’ll probably come home to dead fish because they need oxygen. So by having an external airstone in your pond, if your pump breaks, the fish can hang out by the airstone and survive until you get your pump fixed. So having an airstone also brings the bottom of the water the pond up to the top and it agitates it, which means you’ll have less algae. A airstone is a pro air 60. I typically would put two air stones in a pond, a bigger pond. This one is one.
Lynette Zang:
Well, we have the two in the big pond.
Ernie :
Yeah, those now those are, of course it depends on what size pond. You have a little small pond like this, that airs going be more than enough, but generally speaking, the bigger the pump, the bigger water, the more, more air you’re gonna get. And this, we had to go with a bigger pump it’s made by Alita. And that pumps out a lot of CFM, which creates more oxygen and more current to the top. So each one is separate different, but recommendations in a pond always have a skimer of some sort to collect all the debris. Otherwise it ends up in the bottom of the pond decomposing and becoming food for the algae. So by skimming the top of the water, you removed all the debris. And by adding a oxygenator of some sort you’re adding oxygen, to the water, the more plants in the pond, the merrier most ponds should be covered in about 60% of plants of the, maybe whatever you want to put in there. But if your plant’s covered in 60, 60% of plants, you should be in good shape with very few problems.
Lynette Zang:
This is a way to secure your water, cause what’s the mantra? Food, Water, Energy, Security, Barterability, Wealth Preservation, Community, and Shelter. This kind of fits the Community piece because I actually met Ernie on a pond tour on, in my neighborhood. So, so that’s a great resource center when they have the pond tours or things like that, the garden tours, it’s great to go on them because everybody’s really friendly. We were talking, I met him in July and I said, I am planning on doing, converting my swimming pool to a swimming pond. And I said, I will call you. He didn’t believe me did you?
Ernie :
No, I didn’t. <Laugh> I hear a lot of things throughout of being a business. And honestly, I’m glad you did because it’s been a wonderful adventure to work with you and do all the beautiful things. You know? I mean, you’re truly the only one in Arizona here, at least in this neighborhood that has something so unique in your backyard where you’ve been enjoying it.
Lynette Zang:
Absolutely.
Ernie :
This actually brings value to a home.
Lynette Zang:
Yeah, it does.
Ernie :
It brings value to a home, having a pond well built by a professional. Even you can do it yourself, there’s kits online that you can buy. But just do it right. Build the biggest pond you can with the area, preferably by your patio. So when you come home from sitting, when you come home from working, you sit by your patio and you can enjoy the pond.
Lynette Zang:
Absolutely.
Ernie :
It really is a beautiful thing to have. If you have the proper ingredients, every pond, should have fish in it, go on vacation for a couple weeks. Don’t worry about the fish. They’ll be, they’re self sustainable. They’ll eat the debris that’s in the pond and you don’t have to worry about having the neighbor come and treat them cause they won’t die.
Lynette Zang:
Right. And I, and honestly those goldfish that are in there, they were 18 cents a piece. When I, because I figured I’m not gonna spend a lot of money. Cause I don’t need to know if I could do this. Yes. And here we are, that was 2010. And here we are 10 years later and they’re still there and I, of course I’ve added to it. Sure. But it, it is a great and beautiful way to make sure that you can have food and water and pretty, I mean food for the stomach food for the eyes.You know, everything.
Ernie :
and every pond is different. This one’s different than the one that we just looked at. Every waterfall looks different, but by having a pond, I can guarantee you, you will enjoy your backyard more than a patch of grass or a bunch of gravel.
Lynette Zang:
Right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and it, and it’s pretty easy to maintain too. Yes. So, you know, this is not, and, and you can do like pond inexpensively.
Ernie :
You can,
Lynette Zang:
Can you?
Ernie :
Yes. Yes. You can. The rock here in Arizona is cheap. You can find it on Craigslist giving it away. We use basically what we used in a big pond, a pool was granite, which is very inexpensive. It’s $30 a ton. And if you get on Craigslist you can get up for free all day long. So the material is cheap, the liner, the kit and everything. If you get a liner rock escape, you’re looking at probably about a thousand bucks to build a little eight by 11 foot ton with a skimer and the waterfall.
Lynette Zang:
That’s pretty cheap. It’s cheap because you can grow tilapia in there. So now you have your protein, you can grow again. I’ve got right here, I’ve got penny wort that is edible and as well will, it’s soon be putting in the water crest, which is like, it’s histamine, reducing. It’s a fantastic super food, you know? So there’s a lot of things that you can grow on here that are edible too. So you’ve got two pieces covered, plus, I mean, I love coming out here and sitting here or going by the big pond and sitting or buy the tilapia pond. I mean, I don’t sit too much. I grow, I create these spaces and go someday. I’m really gonna just meditate here. But I do get to spend, it is something that with all of the ugly work that I do as an economist and all the yucky stuff that I really see all the time, you know, you can’t live in that space forever or it is just not a good space. So when I need to, I mean, this calms me right down. It takes me to a completely different place, especially when I feed all the fish and the animals and things like that. And when I swim with them, you know, they follow me. Oh yeah. So they’re, they’re like dogs really. They’re like puppy dogs.
Ernie :
They imprint on you because you feed ’em and they know your face and they’ll come every time. And there’s many circumstances if you spend a lot of time with your, but you could physically feed them hand by hand. Yeah.
Lynette Zang:
We saw that one time when we went to Hawaii and I thought that’s the coolest thing ever, so cool.
Ernie :
You can also have a pond of any pond. You could also have red-eared sliders, which if you get ’em small enough, they’ll stay in the pond, never get a wild turtle from a lake or a pond because they’ll usually leave, but you can have turtles in your pond and of course your fish. So yeah, it’s a beautiful thing. And everybody should have a pond.
Lynette Zang:
Ernie. I wanna thank you so much. Not, not just for coming today, but for all of the work that you’ve done with me over the years. I was a little nervous in the beginning.
Ernie :
I remember, I remember it’s a big job.
Lynette Zang:
But I knew that he knew, what he was doing. I knew that you knew, then when I saw him put the stones together, I knew that he was an artist. And you know, and you guys now see that we do actually even have more ponds, but we’ll save that for another day. And is there anything that you would like to say that we haven’t covered today?
Ernie :
Well as you know, I’m a contractor, pond contractor and believe it or not, I’m a very busy contractor, there’s very few of us in Arizona. So if you supply a link to the folks on watching this..
Lynette Zang:
Absolutely
Ernie :
You want to go to aquascapedesign.com. They’re outta Chicago. They’ve got wonderful assortment of different pond products that you can use. And in all reality, they are the best I’ve used them forever. I don’t sell any parts or any of that material. I’m just basically an installer. So if you want parts and pond kits, your best bet is to go to aquascape.com and they can send you one right to your front door and very simple to install. In fact, all the dirt that comes outta the hole is left on site. So it’s not like you have to take the dirt away. We take that dirt. When the hole is dug to create a burm around the side that avoid any excess water coming from the yard, back into the pond. And then we use it to cover the box, the box, which is where the waterfall it’s gonna be. So you’re not taking away. You’re reusing everything.
Lynette Zang:
Well, thank you so much.
Ernie :
Thank you
Lynette Zang:
For all of this. And for future, I knew I could put you on the spot because he’s such a nice guy. Thank you. I mean, truly one of, one of the nicest human beings that I know, he gets it. He smiles all the way through it. You have to, here he is. You have to. So that’s it for today. And we will see you guys soon and remember Food, Water, Energy, Security, Barterability, Wealth Preservation, Community, and Shelter, please, guys, get it done. And until next we meet, bye bye.
