For underlayment, one of the best is carpet or carpet pad, and you can
usually get all you want by doing a little dumpster diving behind a carpet
store, with their permission, of course. As for the liner, several on here
have used roof liner, one of my pond club members used roof liner, and I
have never heard anyone say that they had any problems. The need for a
skimmer and bottom drain is one of convenience. With a good skimmer and
bottom drain, there should never be a need to drain and clean a pond, unless
you or one of your fish knock over a plant basket of gravel. For that size
pond, my recommendation would be to have an external pump, such as a
Sequence, since they tend to be more energy efficient at the high flow
rates. Though PondMaster makes some pretty good size submersable pumps, and
they are very good. As for price, there are a few places on the internet
that have really good prices and service, which is generally lacking at the
local fish store.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html

"nortyler" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello all. I am hoping you might be kind enough to give me a little
advice. I just dug a 19'x10'x2.5' hole that I would like to turn into a
pond to house common goldfish and aquatic plants. I have a pond that
was built by someone else and is basically a liner, pump, and hose to
the top of a waterfall. My existing pond seems to maintain good health
and requires a drain and clean aprox. once a year to remove built up
muck. I am interested in how effective a skimmer is in eliminating an
annual drain and clean and if Firestone epdm roof liner (I can buy Pond
Guard liner on line for about $.50 a foot with shipping and the roof
liner for $.37 per including tax locally, Pond guard $.95+9% per
locally) can be used. I was also told roofing felt was a good
underlayment. I would like to save where I can, but also not skimp on
quality if the difference in cost is close. So I guess my questions
are;

1. What type of liner 45mil or 60mil, roof or pond epdm? Roofing felt?

2. Filter such as skimmer effective and or necessary?

3. Pump brand recomendations ( pond is 2500 to 3000 gal. with a 20 ft.
run to a 3 ft. tall waterfall)?

4. Does any one know of a reasonably priced supplier in the New Orleans
area? I've tried the usual suspects and liner is is 100% higher, pumps
50% higher than the internet.

Thanks in advance