Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The basic concept is to divert some water from a river or lake and use that water to have a small pond.

What are the pros/cons of doing this?

would recycling water be necessary still, could i just use my pond water to water garden beds? seems like having it simple is nice.

You shouldn't divert water from natural sources and then pollute the water.

>> You shouldn't divert water from natural sources and then pollute the water.

removing the water is OK (provided that is allowed under local regulations) but you must not send it back to the creek as EB says. OK to go the route you suggest and use the pond water away from the creek - ie. on your garden beds.

>> What are the pros/cons of doing this?
>> would recycling water be necessary still, could i just use my pond water to water garden beds? seems like having it simple is nice.

A feed from creek to pond to garden will be fine, it is basically adding a small benefit from being in the pond to collect a bit of nutrient and the creek water has the added benefit of flushing the pond.

The con is that this is a one use approach - an AP setup recycles water.
But if water extraction is not an issue (presumably Seattle is pretty wet and it is legal to irrigate from a stream) then watering the garden via pond water is not much different to irrigating direct from the creek.

With a big pond you probably wont pick up a lot of nutrient, so will still be reliant on manures etc.

From a green perspective you are probably wasting water, but if you water the garden from a natural water source anyway it doesn't make much difference unless your endeavour increases the amount of water consumed.