Aquascape AquaGarden Container Water Feature Kit – Indoor & Outdoor Mini Pond with Waterfall Fountain, Pump & Filtration for Home & Patio, Brown

OK. I never do reviews….EVER! You buy a light fixture, it’s a light fixture. You buy some tools, they’re tools. You buy a computer component it is a computer component. All are better or worse for what they do and you learn if they are crap (or not) then you move on in your own elated or disgusted silence.But this item. Well, this item is different. It’s an item that adds to the charm of your own private place. A back porch. A front porch. A deck….heck, even a living room or sun room...or any room if you’d like. It's an incredible purchase!Background: I drive a truck. I’m not home most of the week. I don’t have time to build a back porch pond. (though I could). I don’t have time to create a special outdoor place. (though I could). But I do what I can when I am able. I cut the grass. I fix light switches. I change oil. I do guy stuff on the weekends. So one day, to give my wife a nice area to work at home, I made a quickie outdoor fountain from a large planter to put on our back porch and it was “o k”...(my wife thought so), but it didn’t have the charm I was looking for. It was too deep and I had to make a custom hanger for the water plants. I installed a low pressure fountain but when the fountain was adjusted to attaine the soothing water sound we were looking for, it shot water all over the place. I thought….well, maybe I could make some kind of waterfall thingy. I toyed with ideas to build a wooden box with a liner. I toyed with an elaborate fountain….I toyed with all kinds of ideas….yeah, well….how long will that take to build? How about hiring a…...STOP!…..I’m not going to hire some designer to do what I could do….especially these days. But I was in a quandary. I don’t have the time and I needed something simple. I needed something quick. I needed something I don’t have to build…...I needed something with quality and my wife’s birthday is coming up and I want to give her a place she can chill…. So I shopped and shopped and ( from my phone….on a freight run….somewhere in Indiana)….BEHOLD! Enter this piece of kit!I recently took off work for half a week for other obligations and while I was off work, I ordered this. I selected next day shipping from Amazon and it was delivered post haste. I had it up and running in about 3 hours (before my wife came home from a seminar.) I surprised her with this….(with me grinning like a prom-dance kid)….aw...shucks!She loves it!I am content.Silly simple to install. Just follow the printed directions.I would imagine that if you have a level surface….(a concrete porch or slab or a level deck surface, you will be alright). But I wanted to elevate this a bit. In my case, I had a couple of oak tree trunk cross sections cut into 2-4 inch thickness and I used one as a base for the pond. I placed several 2×4 weather rated scraps under the oak cross section and used a ¼ plywood section on top of the oak slab to make a uniform base and shimmed where needed. The results are impeccable!I rinsed off the included stones then added them to the pond, then filled it a few inches and swirled the water around to stir up any sediment and debris, then used a scoop to throw out any water that looked cloudy. Refilled a few inches and repeat. Note: This is particularly important if you are adding water plants to the upper shelf! After placing the clay/growing media into the upper shelf, rinse the root balls of your plants until most, if not all, of the potting soil/growing media is gone. Then place them into the clay media that is provided and add the stones on top and run the pump. Scoop out any floating debris or dirty water that spills into the main basin, watch for more debris, scoop out, then fill to the level you feel best.I did buy the overhead LED lamp that is advertised in addition to this item. Frankly, my wife and I prefer it to the under waterfall LED that comes with the kit. To us, it adds an ambiance and effect that the provided led (under the fall) cannot provide...your experience may differ. Experiment!You can create a variety of environments with this wonderful piece of decor. I’ve seen everything from far-east mystic to quaint garden gnome hoopla to some pretty avaunt-garde stuff.….It’s yours to explore. But don’t go piling a bunch of rocks and crap on the waterfall shelf….it is plastic after all and will probably distort with too much weight. Experiment with it. A few creative and tasteful accents can bring this item to life. My wife and I dug out a couple decorations lying around in the basement and created our own simple scene. Frogs and turtles: Quaint. Country. Gods gift.BTW….Note how clean the water!… I ran this system for 24 hours before I took this picture The water level is actually just to the lower edge of the turtles shell...all of the legs are under water. Clean and clear!Buy this if you don’t have the the time to build the most awesome porch pond to impress your wife…..she'll love you , she'll give you kisses. She'll say you're wonderful and you'll then have more time to fix the light switch that broke 2 days ago.....

The media could not be loaded. I love my little porch pond. I added some water plants and figurines to dress it up and noticed I had to place some larger sized river rocks to the ledge of the fountain to make more flowing water sound. It’s the perfect size for the corner of my porch. And the light at night time is a nice addition. Great product so far and easy assembly of the pump. The pump and filter will need to be cleaned from time to time but that is standard with any pump. :)

So sweet and peaceful. Added basil, lavender, Russian Heather and some ivy. Now we need fish. Remember to put the black rocks on top of the clay before turning on.

Had a very large pond at our old home and missed the sound of the waterfall. This little basin does the job. Easy to set up and sounds great. Would have preferred different medium in the back as the medium balls keep floating up and down into the main basin. Otherwise, very pleased.

The media could not be loaded. I’ve had my pound about three months, conditioned my water and do regular water changes. The fish are thriving and happy. I’d recommend cleaning your filter no less that once a month or it’ll sound loud and your water won’t be clear. I also added plants that look nice and help with filtration but I don’t use the grow media balls, as they continuously float all over the place and aren’t necessary, just use plant baskets and/pots with rocks in them.

Looks like some people had good luck with this. My pump did not work from day one and thew bowl was warped from the packaging. I should have returned it ASAP. Looks like I'm SOL on this one by the other customers comments that had issues. I'm going to see if I can get a different pump from another company and see if I can "make it work". or toss it in the trash and start over and build a pond with a real fountain.

Looks and worked beautifully in my space

This is an update from my original posting.I had a problem with the pump. It was making noise.I had put some Java moss on a piece of driftwood in bowl to provide my Shubinka goldfish some where to hide. Some small pieces of that moss had broken off and were sucked into the pump impeller.I was able to clean it out and the pump works fine.Our water garden is located in our den, indoors.We enjoy this water garden so much. We purchased the stand and the plant light.The plants like this environment. We have 3 gold fish in the basin. Goldfish do not require a heater. Like our Koi, they like cold water and adapt to very cold water. They can survive winter's snow and ice on their water. The water temperature is not a concern with these fish.Since we have aquariums, I prepared the water by adding dichlorination to tap water in the bowel and purchased black small river rocks and some finer black aquarium rocks and added that to the bottom pond and covered them with the black stones that came with the kit.We rinsed the planting media, all the rocks, drift wood and plants before adding them to the water garden.The goldfish are small Shubunkin. They are doing great. As they mature and grow larger, they will join our Koi pond outside. They are fast moving fish. They almost eat out of my hand.Overall, this is a great purchase. We recommend this product.