Derek,
yeah, I remember the big epdm debate. I wasn't telling people they
should go put their fish in a tank with the spray in liner. I was just
saying that the few fish we have in ours, which we are watching very
closely, seem to be doing fine.
As for the money, DH absolutely will not ever buy a flexible liner for a
pond if he can help it. He's convinced that every one of them will puncture
eventually. I can tell him anything I want to, and quote hundreds of
ponders who use them and it just P---s him off. It doesn't help that our
big pond with the permalon liner has a hole in it, that has defied detection
with all the tried and true methods, and as far as we know, nothing
different happened between the day before we started losing water, and the
day that we knew we had a leak. The bad thing is that we wanted a decent
sized pond, and they are very hard to come by in a rigid form. By using a
coated metal tank, he feels like he is buying longevity. Since he is the
major hole-digger around here, I can't just blow off his desires of how to
do things. I'm just happy that I'm finally getting my bog filter.


"Derek Broughton" wrote in message
...
Janet wrote:

Ann there has been alot of talk about spray in bed liners on most of the
major koi forums. The spec sheets have been posted and the manufacturers
don't recommend it and explicitly say it's not fish safe. On the other
hand there is now a spray in pond liner that is fish safe. Do a google
for
GatorGuard and DragonKote. All the info is there.. )

Note, there is an important difference between "not fish safe" and "unsafe
for fish". The former merely means that the manufacturer has no interest
in testing and certifying that the product is fish safe. Especially since
they can create a "certified" product that they can sell at a premium.

The old-timers here will remember that, at the time I started into
ponding,
sometime in the mid-90s, one of the hottest debates was over the use of
pond-safe EPDM and EPDM roofing liner. Firestone, the major manufacturer
of both, insisted that the roofing liner was not fish-safe, but many
people
used it without trouble. I know of one DIY study that claimed it killed
test fish, but I also know of dozens of respected ponders who never had a
problem.

What it really comes down to, is if you are starting off with a water
garden
with a few cheap fish, don't waste your money. If you're starting a koi
pond, and planning to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on fish,
don't _risk_ your money.

otoh, either kind of spray-in bed liner seems like a ridiculously
expensive
way to build a pond.
--
derek