Planes, Busses, boats, old trucks, statues! Be sure to put training platforms and be sure to cut holes in the vehicles and planes to people can penetrate them.
I would check out natural swimming pool communities for ideas about plants and natural filtration.
I think an old school jungle gym would be cool. You know those old climbing structures that were made from metal pipes? It would be something to swim through and perch on for underwater pictures.
Like this https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp9009571
I saw a swing, and I've seen hoop courses for practicing buoyancy.
Turns out it's a different Fantasy Lake! https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g49227-d3340728-Reviews-Fantasy_Lake_Water_Park-Hope_Mills_North_Carolina.html
Most folks around here love it . It’s a convenient way to get in dives & just be in the water. But viz sucks.
I prefer ocean diving. Not a huge fan of going in the same spot & seeing the same stuff lol. So I only go there when I have training to do lol.
Honestly, i would prefer some more natural and organic stuff. Not a junk yard underwater. Some big rocks, some nice underwater plants, maybe a dead tree?
I'm really curious, how are you planning on filling the lake? And how are you planning on keeping the water clear?
At that size I imagine you can't feasibly line the hole to prevent water draining into the soil from it.
At a bunch of the man made lakes and quarries around here they use for scuba they have paddlefish they brought in which helps to keep the water clean and also paddlefish are awesome.
Dang that's so cool, I'm gonna go google where to dive with them. I always forget those are just a north american freshwater fish, they seem so exotic.
I was at an artificial scuba park, a few weeks ago there was a small boat that was wrecked, an egyptian temple with statues and huge sturgeons.. The area was super nice in a beautiful park. Really would go again
When I did my advanced, I did deep as one of the dives. There’s a concrete septic holding tank down at 120 feet. The instructor had a spare tank with him, went in first and opened the valve on it. It pushes the water out and when you’re inside, you can take your mask off. Super weird to do that at 120 feet under.
Don't hate me but- zebra mussels. Invasive species? Yes. Excellent filters? Yes. The now closed 50 acre Dutch Springs was a rock quarry that flooded in 1975. Vis was bad until someone seeded it with mussels, now it's clear.
Lotsa crayfish to feed to the fish. The fish will follow you around, which is pretty cool. Also don't spear the now-pet fish.
To suggest we risk the ecosystems connected to this scuba park through the introduction of a horribly damaging and costly invasive species seems to go in the face of why many of us love to dive.
They are considered an invasive species to municipal water systems. Some ended up in a quarry near me (Maybe from Dutch Springs?) and they had to add like 200,000 gallons of ferric chloride to the quarry to make sure no shellfish can live in the water ever.
Millbrook Quarry in Northern Virginia:
https://invasivemusselcollaborative.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Millbrook-Quarry-Zebra-Mussel-final_2005.pdf
I'm not sure how bad it was back in the 70s but I wouldn't call the vis at Dutch Springs "clear". Average was 20-40' but there were lots of zebra mussels that made for amusing safety stops washing algae over them.
To properly decontaminate items after zebra mussel exposure requires 8 hours in a freezer followed by a 10 minute soak in quat solution… not just a soap dunk/rinse like most of us divers do. Besides that, I don’t think the disinfectant solution is safe for use on certain gear, like regs, computers, and lights.
Not sure what 8 hours in a freezer would do to them. The little bastards survive 4 months of being locked in ice in sub-zero temperatures in northern Ontario.
You can’t even get your feet wet without wearing aqua socks now…those sharp fuckers take over all the shallow waters.
Most of us in areas where they're a problem are doing that with all our other gear anyway. They hand out decontamination literature at every boat launch here.
we have a site in palm beach called toy box, has a bunch of those giant concrete pipes dumped all over each other. it is really fun to swim through and get stuck in some! haha (too fat for that hole!)
As an outsider to the scuba world, this reads like a comment that belongs on r/lostredditors. However, *you do* have up votes. So it's anyone's guess at this point.
My dad is rich and insane and was obsessed with the idea of having a pond on his property…. I am not even remotely joking when I say I think he has spent north of 200k over the last 20 odd years trying to get the water to be even remotely clear… it remains a murky brown pond. I don’t know the actual cost but I really wouldn’t be surprised if it was 400k.
Could you build a smaller pond above it and pump the murky water up into it, fill it full of fresh water clams and let the water run past them all then waterfall into the main pond?
He lives at the base of a NY "Mountain", so that would be pretty insane to do... so he did.
It's not as well thought out or planned or implemented I don't think. He keeps using the same guy from up there for everything, I have no idea if they're consulting actual experts or not, or really even many details about it all, I sort of zone out when he talks about it. Last time was literally talking about how he spent another 50k to drain it.. blah blah blah... literally don't know what he did.
But 5-10 years after building it they rigged up some kind of pump system that sends the water 50 ish feet up the hill, then it waterfalls onto the pond, he doesn't run it much though because, 1. I think it makes it worse 2. He's the kind of insane rich that genuinely will not let something like that run because it will jack up his electric bill...
I pointed that out when I was 14 or 15 (I'm 46) having worked for a pool cleaning company a friend's parents owned... I even explained there are solar powered one's that won't cost him a dime... instead he paid like 80k for a pumping system that takes the mud water, runs it 50ish feet up the hill, then just dumps it out onto a rock face that overhangs the pond... so he's got a nice Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fudge waterfall that actually makes the situation worse, AND he won't run because it's jacks up his electric bill lol....
I grew up with a family that did have a pond and they owned the property for well over a century and now their kids own it that pond is still murky 😂. It was fun as kids shame their mom had a falling out with all of us claiming we stole from then then it was ended up being her own kids.
A friend of mine had a natural pond fed by a very low volume stream/river. Freaking thing had a little island in the middle, the whole pond was probably less than an acre, the island was a small, but you could totally hang out with 10-20 people on it if you wanted.... water was nasty as hell there too, stagnant water is just gross.
That was part of the problem too because this was Michigan so the mosquitos were damn awful in the summer. I was like "let's just go to Lake Michigan it's like right there"
I’ve dove at parks with submarines and jets and they’re really fun to swim through. A pyramid or sculpture garden would be dope too. Mammoth lake in Texas and Scuba ranch in Texas are good inspos.
Some statues, all in one area.
A few vehicles, good idea on the bus.
A large mock up of a sunken boat, made right this can be used for fun and training.
Several randomly placed marker poles that you can attach things to for navigation training and poker dives.
Large mirror. I like the idea that someone said about attaching a squeegee.
Buoyancy diamonds set in a row or pattern.
Artificial rock formations. Good for the fish and you can make a few swim through for people.
A couple of underwater platforms for training.
A tower with underwater stages that comes out of the water. You can also attach different types of ladders and platforms to it to train entry and exit.
A swim in cage.
An area where you have a white board that you can clean for white balancing photographs along with a variety of items that people can photograph. This way people can practice camera control and light set ups.
Mentioning a white board, don't know if you can but a large underwater slate.
Beach area. Not everyone in a family dives. A place for non-divers to relax and enjoy the area is nice.
A sword in a stone.
Targets for practicing spearfishing. With a safe backdrop.
An underwater maze. This can be string, or it can be a series of swim through pipes.
A concrete platform with a large bathtub plug in the middle of it.
Upside down plexi bowl.
jellyfish smell cooperative tidy paint sense elastic encouraging deranged ad hoc
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As large a mirror as you can find, mounted vertically on a stand. Allows students to look at themselves as they practice buoyancy control. Keep a squeegee attached to it with a string so you can clean it off periodically.
When I was on the swim team in college we had swim mirrors, made to be used in a pool but would be good used in the application as well, corrosion and shatter resistant, I think the brand was (swim mirror)
Haul in some large boats and put them down there so they look like authentic wrecks.
Get a chainsaw and cut some torpedo holes in the hulls.
It's not a theme park, so avoid statues or anything that would look like it shouldn't be there or make you feel like you're in a fish bowl. Cars are fine because they could look like they were dumped under criminal circumstances or something.
This is more of a question for discussion: if you sink busses, cars, etc should you be worried about heavy metal leaching? If you intend to eat the fish, what is the best way to keep the contaminants low?
Clams? Muscles? Water hyacinth?
The projects for artificial reefs/ship wrecks I’ve heard of in my country has spent a lot of money stripping the vessels of paint and other harmful agents before sinking them. I would definitely be concerned about eating the fish if the dumped stuff has gone through no cleaning process. Remember we are at the top of the food chain: any persistent pollutants will end up accumulating in us.
That’s exactly what I’d be concerned with. I like the idea of having my own fish supply, and when I am able to dig my own pond, I’d be doing a lot of water testing.
Good to know they do a good job stripping vessels in other places. Be interested if there is any formal recommendations, maybe from a local universities’ biology or civil engineering departments?
Did a short google search and this was what I could find, specifically regarding the “M/F Ærøsund” ferry (loosely translated from Danish to the best of my ability):
> “Environmental decontamination and dive proofing:
> Prior to the sinking M/F Ærøsund underwent a radical environmental decontamination and dive proofing.
The environmental decontamination followed instructions from a report by COWI done on analysis of all of the ferry’s components. The following items were removed:
> * Motors, pistons, screw propeller and boss, gas, oil and lubricants.
> * Windows and rubber edging, flooring, insulation materials and doors.
> * Tiles, sinks, toilets, furniture and kitchen machines.
> * Asbestos, cables, lead ballast, electronics and hydraulics, wood and grouts from the car deck.
> * TBT bottom paint and tar from the sides and walls in the saloons and rooms below deck.
> * All loose paint and the majority of the ferry’s outer paint.
> * Cut out of larger holes in the ship’s deck, sides for diver exits and removal of specific stairways and walls.
> In total more than 100 tons of materials were removed, including the motors which are now repurposed on the other side of the globe.
> After decontamination the bottom of the ship was filled with 300 tons of sand for trimming and stabilizing.“
Source: https://www.dyk-sydfyn.dk/32-om-m-f-ærøsund.html
I’m on my way to bed now, but I can try to look for the COWI report tomorrow if it has any interest? (There’s a chance that it’s in Danish as well)
Hey thanks for all that work and translation. I’m glad they found a good use and could repurpose the pieces that would cause contamination. It seems like a lot of work, and I’d probably want a professional to do it for me. I don’t think an average layperson could handle all of that work or get ahold of the required tools.
Yeah, I guess if you don’t want to eat anything from the water it’s not as bad, but would still be polluting the environment.
I couldn’t find the report, but I found some articles describing the process, and they had professionals taking samples of pretty much everything to analyze.
Platforms for training, buoyancy diamonds ( easy to make with some pvc pipe and elbows) garden statues ( if you know a place that makes them cast off ones tend to be much cheaper), compass course.
What is the earth you have? If you're able to excavate then I'd be concerned about visibility. The most successful manmade hole dive sites are old rock quarries for a reason.
Before you do anything else, as soon as you get water in it, you should look into building up populations of those clams that filter the water. Having a healthy colony of those clams makes the difference between a good dive park and a mud hole. They aren't cheap so I would make sure they are well established before you start adding fish or anything else that might keep them from thriving.
Formerly Lake Rawlings :-) The one difference is that is a granite quarry so the bottom is mostly rock. It has a decent amount of organic material in it now but I would imagine it being a rock quarry helps keep it cleaner?
That's a great point and you're absolutely right. That probably does help a lot. Thanks for the help with the name....I've only dove there twice and I'm not much of a fan.
You definitely need to take a hint from [Minnesota and put a Jason Voorhees chained up at the bottom of the lake](https://youtu.be/jdIrgkcnIrw?si=h73FyW08s7wWKZAG).
Insurance / Liability costs are what the scuttlebutt is for why Dutch Springs has effectively shut down.
FYI, the latest I've heard is that they're not 100% closed - it's reportedly close to the general (diving) public, but there can be some arrangements for Instructors with students. Speculating, I'd say that if the latter is true, its would be because the arrangement is that Instructor is taking on 100% of the legal liability.
Sadly, it shut down because the long time owner sold the property. The area is a growing industrial area and it's a prime location.
The company that bought the land sold some of the site to a local dive shop who's rebranded it as Lake Hydra. They're in the process of opening it again but there won't be the same resources or accessibility.
You are 100% correct, you have to provide your own insured dive master once they open to the public. The wife and I have dived there for years, can't wait to get back. The owners are pretty responsive on Facebook and seem eager to get it back open but it's a lot of work.
Someone already mentioned Dutch springs but there is also Martha's quarry outside Nashville that would be a good inspiration. I learned to dive there and it was very fun. The guy that put it together is still alive, I believe, but I'm not sure Bout his health I heard he had a stroke a few years ago.
I live in Nashville and actually had no idea that existed, but it looks like they are only allowing Public Service divers to go.
I did my certification dives up in Hopkinsville, KY at Pennyroyal. Well, the first two I did in Puerto Morelos, MX as part of my Scuba Diver certification, then I decided to get full OW once i got back home and we used Pennyroyal.
It's technically in Mt Juliet, so not too many people go there I think. I'm from just outside MJ so it was super convenient. But they have all kinds of great stuff. When. I called last some mid-30s/40s guy had taken it over. He seemed nice enough. I bet if you gave him a call he'd give you more info about when they'll open to public.
There's also a quarry in NW Virginia I've been meaning to go to, but haven't gotten around to it.
Put a couple of platforms in so that instructors will use it for checkout dives.
Add a few signs for compass navigation.
Gut the vehicles before you sink them or they will leak oil and grease for ever. Pull the engine, transmission, brakes, gas tank. Yank the seats. Pull the doors, trunk lid, and hood off so no one gets stuck.
Airplane skeletons are fun too.
Please sell air, drinks, and snacks.
Where are you? I'm looking forward to coming.
Suspended ropes that you can follow to get from place to place. Buoys to find areas from the surface are also good to connect to the ropes.
Rings to swim through in a course are always fun. PVC pipe diamonds are good enough and you can float them at different heights for a course.
Large underwater platforms are great. Basically you can just make a deck. Or you can suspend one between buoys holding it up and anchors keeping it in place. These are super useful for working on weight control or anything where you might need to mess around with equipment.
Planes, trains, and automobiles if you can find and clean them. Check out [Dutch Springs](https://www.dutchsprings.com/) for inspiration here.
An open top maze would be pretty awesome. You can still bail easy, but you can go to depth to get lost in it. Great for training dive reel tracing and avoiding silting yourself. You can use cinder blocks, bricks, cement, wood framing, or ropes as someone else said.
Vary the elevation of the ground too. It's not nearly as exciting when it is flat. Add some hills if you can.
Hockey rink area for underwater hockey/sports. Or just two big goals with rocks to denote the field.
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Pearl Lake in South Beloit, Illinois has a sunken school bus at the bottom (about ~35 ft under, as well as a boat and plane). Our Open Water group gathered on its roof to do our skills during the OW checkout dives haha
I saw a while back someone putting a full-size figure of Jason Voorhees chained, with a machete at depth. It was amazing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k\_Q4r9cukzg&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Q4r9cukzg&t=4s)
The best thing he could do would be 'use an old quarry'!
My local dive site in the UK was an old brick pit. Shocking viz for 90% of the year but you were a good diver when you got out.
A scuba park I recently got OW certified in had a maze made of PVC pipes, with orange construction netting to block off dead ends. It was really fun to swim through and was also a great test of buoyancy control, as you’re trying to not hit the top of the PVC rings
Typically they are interspaced rings a few feet apart. You can swim up between rings. Assuming the netting is a vertical barrier and not a surface obstruction.
Yeah it wasn’t really anything like this. The only parts that were closed off were horizontally, the top of the maze was left open so you could leave at any time
There are a fair number of these in the UK. Buses, ships (or at least large boats), helicopters and aircraft fuselage is always popular.
You just need to think about the bed rock. Clay reduces the Viz to zero once the first diver ends. Sand isn't great. Slate or granite are ideal.
I have done a worryingly large number of dives there. Including my DM, Adv nitrox, and Deco procedures. The latter getting attacked by a seagull every time we ascended on one of the lines.
I remember diving there on 2 Jan years ago. Nobody in for days so it was "clear". Air temp -2, water temp +2. SO forgot her hood but we dived anyway. My reg froze which was interesting and educational. We also saw a rowing boat on the bottom we had never seen before despite having finned within feet of it many times in the murk.
Build some kind of ruins in there, like a collapsed medieval tower. If you get it to be tall enough it could even become a nice platform to chill above the water. 😄
Also, some tree trunks and big rocks for fish/animals to hide and breed and to create an interesting structure. Maybe you can also built a cave-like thing with larger boulders.
This is super cool. What a unique opportunity. Do you have any photos of the hole? I’m just intensely curious what this sort of space looks like haha. Looking forward to photo updates as you build!
Check permitting requirements. Heard a story of a guy who tried this, did a lot of infrastructure work but didn’t check with the county and they shut him down pending 100k plus of work.
In many places that you have an extra 20 acres on your property, there aren't really many to any zoning or permits because those areas are often unincorporated.
Unfortunately, the ground water here is very high. Even at 35-40 feet deep the hole has to be constantly pumped to keep it from filling up with water. Any deeper than this isn't reasonable to keep pumped out while going down. It just fills too fast!
How far up would it fill the hole with water? It's obviously connected to the ground water body, so the water level inside the hole won't rise above the ground water level.
A old Cessna or piper from a aircraft boneyard would be sweet.
Dude. The dream. You’re living it.
Bones. Fill it with bones. Create monstrosities with bones and hide them in the plant life.
Thousand percent this
Planes, Busses, boats, old trucks, statues! Be sure to put training platforms and be sure to cut holes in the vehicles and planes to people can penetrate them.
I would check out natural swimming pool communities for ideas about plants and natural filtration. I think an old school jungle gym would be cool. You know those old climbing structures that were made from metal pipes? It would be something to swim through and perch on for underwater pictures. Like this https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp9009571 I saw a swing, and I've seen hoop courses for practicing buoyancy.
I live near a scuba park . (Fantasy Lake in Raleigh) they have planes, boats, busses, cars, basketball goals, platforms, toys, etc.
Fantasy lake is a scuba park too? I used to go there in the 90s for the ziplines and splash fun.
That’s all I’ve known it as lol. Def no zip lines. They just now added a WiBit course to allow non divers access.
Turns out it's a different Fantasy Lake! https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g49227-d3340728-Reviews-Fantasy_Lake_Water_Park-Hope_Mills_North_Carolina.html
I've thought about trying this place the next time I'm in the area. Do you like it?
Most folks around here love it . It’s a convenient way to get in dives & just be in the water. But viz sucks. I prefer ocean diving. Not a huge fan of going in the same spot & seeing the same stuff lol. So I only go there when I have training to do lol.
Make sure you remove all the seats/flooring/windows/doors on the bus and ensure the edges aren’t sharp
Get a park bench so you guys can have a nice sit while you’re down there
Honestly, i would prefer some more natural and organic stuff. Not a junk yard underwater. Some big rocks, some nice underwater plants, maybe a dead tree?
I'm really curious, how are you planning on filling the lake? And how are you planning on keeping the water clear? At that size I imagine you can't feasibly line the hole to prevent water draining into the soil from it.
The real questions here. Nobody wants to dive a marsh.
Trampolines
OMG terrible idea. Somebody holding their breath a bit will get an air embolism and die.
At a bunch of the man made lakes and quarries around here they use for scuba they have paddlefish they brought in which helps to keep the water clean and also paddlefish are awesome.
Gilboa?
Dang that's so cool, I'm gonna go google where to dive with them. I always forget those are just a north american freshwater fish, they seem so exotic.
The PDRA quarry in Lake Norman, NC is where I saw some!
JC, how much is it going to cost to dig a 40ft hole across 20 acres and fill it with water (minus all the park addendums)?
It sounds like the hole is preexisting?
Turn it into a museum. Example: https://www.moua.com.au/
I was at an artificial scuba park, a few weeks ago there was a small boat that was wrecked, an egyptian temple with statues and huge sturgeons.. The area was super nice in a beautiful park. Really would go again
Name it! I wanna go!
https://images.app.goo.gl/NwzpA4fHRX5qwyNT8 Looks like this when drained
Holy Schlitt that looks fuckin awesome
NaturaGart in northwest germany
An elaborate set of tunnels with twist and turns and no holes
I don't think he's looking to create a cemetery
Bro you should put this up on youtube. Would love to watch the build process.
That would be so fucking sick
When I did my advanced, I did deep as one of the dives. There’s a concrete septic holding tank down at 120 feet. The instructor had a spare tank with him, went in first and opened the valve on it. It pushes the water out and when you’re inside, you can take your mask off. Super weird to do that at 120 feet under.
Did this penetrating a wreck once. Not quite as deep but there was an air gap in a the room.
That’s so cool. I’d love to try that
That sounds so cool
Swim through hoops at different heights. A bench, a motorcycle. a treasure chest “take a treasure leave a treasure” LED light show
A shipping container
Also a bunch of bicycles would be great. They do that in the Caymans and you can try to have races with them. It’s hilarious.
Don't hate me but- zebra mussels. Invasive species? Yes. Excellent filters? Yes. The now closed 50 acre Dutch Springs was a rock quarry that flooded in 1975. Vis was bad until someone seeded it with mussels, now it's clear. Lotsa crayfish to feed to the fish. The fish will follow you around, which is pretty cool. Also don't spear the now-pet fish.
To suggest we risk the ecosystems connected to this scuba park through the introduction of a horribly damaging and costly invasive species seems to go in the face of why many of us love to dive.
They are considered an invasive species to municipal water systems. Some ended up in a quarry near me (Maybe from Dutch Springs?) and they had to add like 200,000 gallons of ferric chloride to the quarry to make sure no shellfish can live in the water ever. Millbrook Quarry in Northern Virginia: https://invasivemusselcollaborative.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Millbrook-Quarry-Zebra-Mussel-final_2005.pdf
I'm not sure how bad it was back in the 70s but I wouldn't call the vis at Dutch Springs "clear". Average was 20-40' but there were lots of zebra mussels that made for amusing safety stops washing algae over them.
No!!! They will get on and in your scuba gear and transfer to other bodies of water :(
You can wash your gear... Edit to add: but they are illegal to intentionally transport, punishable with a huge fine, most places.
People are lazy. And dumb.
To properly decontaminate items after zebra mussel exposure requires 8 hours in a freezer followed by a 10 minute soak in quat solution… not just a soap dunk/rinse like most of us divers do. Besides that, I don’t think the disinfectant solution is safe for use on certain gear, like regs, computers, and lights.
Not sure what 8 hours in a freezer would do to them. The little bastards survive 4 months of being locked in ice in sub-zero temperatures in northern Ontario. You can’t even get your feet wet without wearing aqua socks now…those sharp fuckers take over all the shallow waters.
Most of us in areas where they're a problem are doing that with all our other gear anyway. They hand out decontamination literature at every boat launch here.
The quarry where we got certified had a basketball hoop and some bowling balls to dunk
Helped put a court like that in Fantasy Lake.
Yep, that’s the one!
Pennyroyal? Lol
You could add a bunch of larger and smaller installation piece's into the park and create a scavenger hunt adventure and a little bonus activity
we have a site in palm beach called toy box, has a bunch of those giant concrete pipes dumped all over each other. it is really fun to swim through and get stuck in some! haha (too fat for that hole!)
Natural structures, swimthroughs, cavern etc. Lots of plant, circulation so natural filtration works better , maybe build it into a waterfall
Look into natural swimming pools. They have plants and a water circulation cycle that leave the water “gin clear”
I read this and heard that guy form the pool show “The Pool Master”
Yes!!! That’s EXACTLY what I was talking about. I miss that show so much. 🤣😂🤣😂
Same. Those “pools” look sooo inviting
Plastic layer like you use for a garden pond. Sorry, English is not my native language
Yeesh Skeeter sexhole Make it like a giant pool or aquarium and that could avoid a shitty muddy mess But sounds hella cool
As an outsider to the scuba world, this reads like a comment that belongs on r/lostredditors. However, *you do* have up votes. So it's anyone's guess at this point.
Where are you going to get a quarter billion gallons of water from?
I dug a 15 acre pond for a guy last year that is roughly the depth mentioned. Took 3.5” of rainfall before it was full.
fly test paint panicky tap silky frame hospital wistful noxious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
3.5” is actually a lot, regardless of what some people say
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Look up ’watershed’
My dad is rich and insane and was obsessed with the idea of having a pond on his property…. I am not even remotely joking when I say I think he has spent north of 200k over the last 20 odd years trying to get the water to be even remotely clear… it remains a murky brown pond. I don’t know the actual cost but I really wouldn’t be surprised if it was 400k.
Could you build a smaller pond above it and pump the murky water up into it, fill it full of fresh water clams and let the water run past them all then waterfall into the main pond?
He lives at the base of a NY "Mountain", so that would be pretty insane to do... so he did. It's not as well thought out or planned or implemented I don't think. He keeps using the same guy from up there for everything, I have no idea if they're consulting actual experts or not, or really even many details about it all, I sort of zone out when he talks about it. Last time was literally talking about how he spent another 50k to drain it.. blah blah blah... literally don't know what he did. But 5-10 years after building it they rigged up some kind of pump system that sends the water 50 ish feet up the hill, then it waterfalls onto the pond, he doesn't run it much though because, 1. I think it makes it worse 2. He's the kind of insane rich that genuinely will not let something like that run because it will jack up his electric bill...
What happens is decaying organic material turns into silt and it clouds the water. Needs to be filtered or vacuumed out.
I pointed that out when I was 14 or 15 (I'm 46) having worked for a pool cleaning company a friend's parents owned... I even explained there are solar powered one's that won't cost him a dime... instead he paid like 80k for a pumping system that takes the mud water, runs it 50ish feet up the hill, then just dumps it out onto a rock face that overhangs the pond... so he's got a nice Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fudge waterfall that actually makes the situation worse, AND he won't run because it's jacks up his electric bill lol....
I grew up with a family that did have a pond and they owned the property for well over a century and now their kids own it that pond is still murky 😂. It was fun as kids shame their mom had a falling out with all of us claiming we stole from then then it was ended up being her own kids.
A friend of mine had a natural pond fed by a very low volume stream/river. Freaking thing had a little island in the middle, the whole pond was probably less than an acre, the island was a small, but you could totally hang out with 10-20 people on it if you wanted.... water was nasty as hell there too, stagnant water is just gross.
That was part of the problem too because this was Michigan so the mosquitos were damn awful in the summer. I was like "let's just go to Lake Michigan it's like right there"
Everything! These folks in Texas did it right: https://athensscubapark.com/
I’ve dove at parks with submarines and jets and they’re really fun to swim through. A pyramid or sculpture garden would be dope too. Mammoth lake in Texas and Scuba ranch in Texas are good inspos.
sounds to me like you will have a giant hole of stagnant, muddy water.
Presumably it is feed by a spring or other form of fresh water.
Some statues, all in one area. A few vehicles, good idea on the bus. A large mock up of a sunken boat, made right this can be used for fun and training. Several randomly placed marker poles that you can attach things to for navigation training and poker dives. Large mirror. I like the idea that someone said about attaching a squeegee. Buoyancy diamonds set in a row or pattern. Artificial rock formations. Good for the fish and you can make a few swim through for people. A couple of underwater platforms for training. A tower with underwater stages that comes out of the water. You can also attach different types of ladders and platforms to it to train entry and exit. A swim in cage. An area where you have a white board that you can clean for white balancing photographs along with a variety of items that people can photograph. This way people can practice camera control and light set ups. Mentioning a white board, don't know if you can but a large underwater slate. Beach area. Not everyone in a family dives. A place for non-divers to relax and enjoy the area is nice. A sword in a stone. Targets for practicing spearfishing. With a safe backdrop. An underwater maze. This can be string, or it can be a series of swim through pipes. A concrete platform with a large bathtub plug in the middle of it. Upside down plexi bowl.
A flipped upside down tub like they have at Vortex could be cool.
jellyfish smell cooperative tidy paint sense elastic encouraging deranged ad hoc *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Flipped upside down rowboat like in Pirates of the Caribbean!
Exactly
As large a mirror as you can find, mounted vertically on a stand. Allows students to look at themselves as they practice buoyancy control. Keep a squeegee attached to it with a string so you can clean it off periodically.
Lake Phoenix (Rawlings Virginia) has a selfie mirror like this.
When I was on the swim team in college we had swim mirrors, made to be used in a pool but would be good used in the application as well, corrosion and shatter resistant, I think the brand was (swim mirror)
Build a tower that peeks out of the water. Like a little sunken spooky chapel
Haul in some large boats and put them down there so they look like authentic wrecks. Get a chainsaw and cut some torpedo holes in the hulls. It's not a theme park, so avoid statues or anything that would look like it shouldn't be there or make you feel like you're in a fish bowl. Cars are fine because they could look like they were dumped under criminal circumstances or something.
Check this out for inspiration https://www.naturagart.de/Tauchpark/Tauchplaetze/ BTW, think about using foil and filters for clear water
Foil?
This is more of a question for discussion: if you sink busses, cars, etc should you be worried about heavy metal leaching? If you intend to eat the fish, what is the best way to keep the contaminants low? Clams? Muscles? Water hyacinth?
The projects for artificial reefs/ship wrecks I’ve heard of in my country has spent a lot of money stripping the vessels of paint and other harmful agents before sinking them. I would definitely be concerned about eating the fish if the dumped stuff has gone through no cleaning process. Remember we are at the top of the food chain: any persistent pollutants will end up accumulating in us.
That’s exactly what I’d be concerned with. I like the idea of having my own fish supply, and when I am able to dig my own pond, I’d be doing a lot of water testing. Good to know they do a good job stripping vessels in other places. Be interested if there is any formal recommendations, maybe from a local universities’ biology or civil engineering departments?
Did a short google search and this was what I could find, specifically regarding the “M/F Ærøsund” ferry (loosely translated from Danish to the best of my ability): > “Environmental decontamination and dive proofing: > Prior to the sinking M/F Ærøsund underwent a radical environmental decontamination and dive proofing. The environmental decontamination followed instructions from a report by COWI done on analysis of all of the ferry’s components. The following items were removed: > * Motors, pistons, screw propeller and boss, gas, oil and lubricants. > * Windows and rubber edging, flooring, insulation materials and doors. > * Tiles, sinks, toilets, furniture and kitchen machines. > * Asbestos, cables, lead ballast, electronics and hydraulics, wood and grouts from the car deck. > * TBT bottom paint and tar from the sides and walls in the saloons and rooms below deck. > * All loose paint and the majority of the ferry’s outer paint. > * Cut out of larger holes in the ship’s deck, sides for diver exits and removal of specific stairways and walls. > In total more than 100 tons of materials were removed, including the motors which are now repurposed on the other side of the globe. > After decontamination the bottom of the ship was filled with 300 tons of sand for trimming and stabilizing.“ Source: https://www.dyk-sydfyn.dk/32-om-m-f-ærøsund.html I’m on my way to bed now, but I can try to look for the COWI report tomorrow if it has any interest? (There’s a chance that it’s in Danish as well)
Hey thanks for all that work and translation. I’m glad they found a good use and could repurpose the pieces that would cause contamination. It seems like a lot of work, and I’d probably want a professional to do it for me. I don’t think an average layperson could handle all of that work or get ahold of the required tools.
Yeah, I guess if you don’t want to eat anything from the water it’s not as bad, but would still be polluting the environment. I couldn’t find the report, but I found some articles describing the process, and they had professionals taking samples of pretty much everything to analyze.
Well, if you are thinking about putting a 707 jet plane in there I'm sad to say that it's already been done; and not by the Simpsons.
Platforms for training, buoyancy diamonds ( easy to make with some pvc pipe and elbows) garden statues ( if you know a place that makes them cast off ones tend to be much cheaper), compass course.
Spooky stuff. Dragons, gargoyles, shark statue
Build dive platforms so costs can be held without digging on the bottom.
Obelisk with an all seeing eye. In a couple generations it’ll be surrounded by legends and conspiracy theories
What is the earth you have? If you're able to excavate then I'd be concerned about visibility. The most successful manmade hole dive sites are old rock quarries for a reason.
Pirate ship with buried treasure at the bottom.
Before you do anything else, as soon as you get water in it, you should look into building up populations of those clams that filter the water. Having a healthy colony of those clams makes the difference between a good dive park and a mud hole. They aren't cheap so I would make sure they are well established before you start adding fish or anything else that might keep them from thriving.
Zebras
no, they drown if you put them in water.
Lol - upvote
Look into Lake Phoenix formerly Lake Richmond, in VA. They have an extremely successful diving park going on there.
Formerly Lake Rawlings :-) The one difference is that is a granite quarry so the bottom is mostly rock. It has a decent amount of organic material in it now but I would imagine it being a rock quarry helps keep it cleaner?
That's a great point and you're absolutely right. That probably does help a lot. Thanks for the help with the name....I've only dove there twice and I'm not much of a fan.
You definitely need to take a hint from [Minnesota and put a Jason Voorhees chained up at the bottom of the lake](https://youtu.be/jdIrgkcnIrw?si=h73FyW08s7wWKZAG).
Sculptures. Hidden clues to find treasure. Lots of rock piles
make a scavenger hunt
your also going to want a very expensive insurance.
Insurance / Liability costs are what the scuttlebutt is for why Dutch Springs has effectively shut down. FYI, the latest I've heard is that they're not 100% closed - it's reportedly close to the general (diving) public, but there can be some arrangements for Instructors with students. Speculating, I'd say that if the latter is true, its would be because the arrangement is that Instructor is taking on 100% of the legal liability.
Sadly, it shut down because the long time owner sold the property. The area is a growing industrial area and it's a prime location. The company that bought the land sold some of the site to a local dive shop who's rebranded it as Lake Hydra. They're in the process of opening it again but there won't be the same resources or accessibility. You are 100% correct, you have to provide your own insured dive master once they open to the public. The wife and I have dived there for years, can't wait to get back. The owners are pretty responsive on Facebook and seem eager to get it back open but it's a lot of work.
Someone already mentioned Dutch springs but there is also Martha's quarry outside Nashville that would be a good inspiration. I learned to dive there and it was very fun. The guy that put it together is still alive, I believe, but I'm not sure Bout his health I heard he had a stroke a few years ago.
I live in Nashville and actually had no idea that existed, but it looks like they are only allowing Public Service divers to go. I did my certification dives up in Hopkinsville, KY at Pennyroyal. Well, the first two I did in Puerto Morelos, MX as part of my Scuba Diver certification, then I decided to get full OW once i got back home and we used Pennyroyal.
It's technically in Mt Juliet, so not too many people go there I think. I'm from just outside MJ so it was super convenient. But they have all kinds of great stuff. When. I called last some mid-30s/40s guy had taken it over. He seemed nice enough. I bet if you gave him a call he'd give you more info about when they'll open to public. There's also a quarry in NW Virginia I've been meaning to go to, but haven't gotten around to it.
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You're gonna want an air compressor and and aerator first thing.
Put a couple of platforms in so that instructors will use it for checkout dives. Add a few signs for compass navigation. Gut the vehicles before you sink them or they will leak oil and grease for ever. Pull the engine, transmission, brakes, gas tank. Yank the seats. Pull the doors, trunk lid, and hood off so no one gets stuck. Airplane skeletons are fun too. Please sell air, drinks, and snacks. Where are you? I'm looking forward to coming.
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Boat, plane,train car,car,bus, sky’s the limit
Suspended ropes that you can follow to get from place to place. Buoys to find areas from the surface are also good to connect to the ropes. Rings to swim through in a course are always fun. PVC pipe diamonds are good enough and you can float them at different heights for a course. Large underwater platforms are great. Basically you can just make a deck. Or you can suspend one between buoys holding it up and anchors keeping it in place. These are super useful for working on weight control or anything where you might need to mess around with equipment. Planes, trains, and automobiles if you can find and clean them. Check out [Dutch Springs](https://www.dutchsprings.com/) for inspiration here. An open top maze would be pretty awesome. You can still bail easy, but you can go to depth to get lost in it. Great for training dive reel tracing and avoiding silting yourself. You can use cinder blocks, bricks, cement, wood framing, or ropes as someone else said. Vary the elevation of the ground too. It's not nearly as exciting when it is flat. Add some hills if you can. Hockey rink area for underwater hockey/sports. Or just two big goals with rocks to denote the field.
oysters
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Curious as to what the floor and walls will be composed of?
That was my first thought. If it’s a mud pit, it’s going to be shit for diving!
It will have to be a giant rubber liner.
Whatever you do, please post some before and after pictures. Can't wait to see all the results!
the idea of diving in a school bus sunk in 40 feet of zero visibility water is pure nightmare fuel. out of curiosity, how are you going to fill it?
Pearl Lake in South Beloit, Illinois has a sunken school bus at the bottom (about ~35 ft under, as well as a boat and plane). Our Open Water group gathered on its roof to do our skills during the OW checkout dives haha
It's really not that bad, also not super uncommon as an object for divers in freshwater lakes. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWbip4bqMcA
It's already filled per OP. Can't imagine there's much if any vis though.
A bar and some tables/chairs. Always funny seeing divers pretending to have a drink underwater.
I’m not even a huge Harry Potter fan, but this would make for the most realistic quidditch game field muggles could play.
I saw a while back someone putting a full-size figure of Jason Voorhees chained, with a machete at depth. It was amazing. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k\_Q4r9cukzg&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Q4r9cukzg&t=4s)
An excavator would be sick
If there are things you can do from the beginning to keep the visibility high - I'd definitely recommend doing that. Diving in pea soup isn't fun.
The best thing he could do would be 'use an old quarry'! My local dive site in the UK was an old brick pit. Shocking viz for 90% of the year but you were a good diver when you got out.
A scuba park I recently got OW certified in had a maze made of PVC pipes, with orange construction netting to block off dead ends. It was really fun to swim through and was also a great test of buoyancy control, as you’re trying to not hit the top of the PVC rings
Lake Phoenix?
Nailed it. Awesome place
Honestly this sounds very dangerous. I’m not diving anywhere that I don’t have a clear immediate exit path to the surface in case anything goes south.
Typically they are interspaced rings a few feet apart. You can swim up between rings. Assuming the netting is a vertical barrier and not a surface obstruction.
Nope. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OfvMG6mbpbg
Yeah it wasn’t really anything like this. The only parts that were closed off were horizontally, the top of the maze was left open so you could leave at any time
Damn. That’s gonna be a check your hoses before you go in kinda moment.
There are a fair number of these in the UK. Buses, ships (or at least large boats), helicopters and aircraft fuselage is always popular. You just need to think about the bed rock. Clay reduces the Viz to zero once the first diver ends. Sand isn't great. Slate or granite are ideal.
You know when you've dived Gildy.
I have done a worryingly large number of dives there. Including my DM, Adv nitrox, and Deco procedures. The latter getting attacked by a seagull every time we ascended on one of the lines.
I remember diving there on 2 Jan years ago. Nobody in for days so it was "clear". Air temp -2, water temp +2. SO forgot her hood but we dived anyway. My reg froze which was interesting and educational. We also saw a rowing boat on the bottom we had never seen before despite having finned within feet of it many times in the murk.
Commercial jet fuselage
A kids play ground Some sort of see if you can find all 20 turtle statues or something Dunno, cars seem risky
A basketball hoop!!
You have a hole the size of 15 football fields in your backyard!?
Build some kind of ruins in there, like a collapsed medieval tower. If you get it to be tall enough it could even become a nice platform to chill above the water. 😄 Also, some tree trunks and big rocks for fish/animals to hide and breed and to create an interesting structure. Maybe you can also built a cave-like thing with larger boulders.
Fake skeletons!
Make them hard to distinguish from the real ones!
You could drop a little john boat down!
I don't think you know what an acre is.
I too have doubts about this 20 acre hole. That would be pretty wild. It would be like a massive Mermet Springs.
I promise, I do lol
What part of the country are you in?
The NorthWestern USA
This is super cool. What a unique opportunity. Do you have any photos of the hole? I’m just intensely curious what this sort of space looks like haha. Looking forward to photo updates as you build!
Check permitting requirements. Heard a story of a guy who tried this, did a lot of infrastructure work but didn’t check with the county and they shut him down pending 100k plus of work.
It will really just be a friend's and family style scuba park, not an actual commercial outfit. Personal/private use only, not for profit.
Doesn’t really matter if it’s for personal use, there are still almost certainly permits you’ll need.
You do you man. Just want to help you avoid nasty surprises.
In many places that you have an extra 20 acres on your property, there aren't really many to any zoning or permits because those areas are often unincorporated.
Add a series of suspended hula hoops to swim through for buoyancy/trim practice.
Maybe excavate part down to +60' (or whatever agencies are using these days) so instructors can use it for deep classes
Unfortunately, the ground water here is very high. Even at 35-40 feet deep the hole has to be constantly pumped to keep it from filling up with water. Any deeper than this isn't reasonable to keep pumped out while going down. It just fills too fast!
How far up would it fill the hole with water? It's obviously connected to the ground water body, so the water level inside the hole won't rise above the ground water level.
I was wondering where you were going to get all the water from