Hi all, I've been lurking here for a while since I recently bought a
house that has a pond. It looked like green soup and it hadn't been
taken care of. It is about 22 feet long and average width is about 6
feet. It's irregularly shaped. Has a bridge, waterfall and some nice
plants around it. But I noticed the liner had holes in it all around
the waterline. So I tried to remedy that by draining, adding dirt
behind the liner to move the holes up above the waterline.Worked for a
while, but one day last week went outside and the pond was EMPTY!!!.
Dont know what happened, but my wife and I decided to redo the whole
pond. By the way, I've heard people say Little Giant Pumps are not
good quality, but this sucker had been running dry for no telling how
long and still works great.
I decided to try Permalon for a liner since I went to Home Depot and
they wanted $12.88 per linear foot of 15" wide EPDM. I called Ken at
http://Kencofish.com and got a 30x15 liner for 180 bucks plus 15 bucks
shipping.
By the way Ken if you read this it didnt take 2 weeks like you feared,
I had the liner on my doorstep in 3 days. The whole liner weighed less
than 40 pounds.
I tested its puncture resistance, it punctured pretty easily with a 6d
finishing nail, but my 250 pounds walking on it with gravel beneath
didnt hurt it a bit. I put down the underlay they sell at Home Depot,
even though my wife only got home with half what she paid for. But
since its an hour round trip and I wanted to get this done we just
lined the bottom. We have very nice sandy soil, so its easy digging
and no rocks. Thats the good part of sand, the bad part is its hard
to make the sides stay put. Thats another reason I tried Permalon,
it's supposed to be self supporting, I hope this will help the sides
stay upright.
The pond was only about 14 inches deep and had no sump for the pump.
This made it a pain to drain, so I deepened up the big end to 2 feet
and dug a channel the length of the pond, so I can put the pump in the
deep end if I ever need to drain it. I also radiused the corner where
the sides meet the bottom, because I had heard the Permalon was stiff.
The liner was easy to work with, but it was hard to get the wrinkles
out around the outside curves, the inside curves were no problem. I
finally said, " no ones going to see the wrinkles once I get the rocks
and water in" and went on with the project.
I trenched around the pond about 6 inches deep and laid the liner in
that and backfilled, then installed the rocks, tons of them it felt
like. I didnt want to dismantle the waterfall, so I left the old
liner in place about 3 foot out from the waterfall. I was able to
work out the big flat bottom ledge rock from the waterfall, and pushed
the new liner way up underneath. I put the big rock back and used
exanding foam to seal it. Thanks to everyone who recommended the
foam, it was a lifesaver.
I had one really tricky spot on the edge, and I'm afraid I just used a
little Southern engineering to get past it. I hope it works. It was a
huge old Pampas Grass clump right on the edge, and the roots had grown
over the old liner into the water. I trimmed it back some, not much,
trimmed the liner to fit around it with enought to double it over, ran
a piece of nylon rope around the whole thing and cinched the liner in
place about 2 inches above the water line. If anyone has any ideas of
a better way, let me know.
There was on old small filter that didnt seem to work very well. I
made my own, thanks to all you guys. I used an old plastic container I
had. Its about 25 gallon capacity. I filled it with 120 pounds of
lavarock, put some hailscreen across that and put quilt batting above
that. The water comes out crystal clear.
So right now I'm looking out my window at clear water cascading down
my waterfall. You guys are all great and I want to tell all of you
thanks for all the information.
My next move will be finishing lining the bottom with river rock, I
ran out today.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated
Roger in Teas

Excellent words! How about pictures? Pictures my dear friend!

--
_______________________________________
"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is
like an eggs-and-ham breakfast:
The chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."

http://community.webshots.com/user/godwino

"bighead" wrote in message
om...
Hi all, I've been lurking here for a while since I recently bought a
house that has a pond. It looked like green soup and it hadn't been
taken care of. It is about 22 feet long and average width is about 6
feet. It's irregularly shaped. Has a bridge, waterfall and some nice
plants around it. But I noticed the liner had holes in it all around
the waterline. So I tried to remedy that by draining, adding dirt
behind the liner to move the holes up above the waterline.Worked for a
while, but one day last week went outside and the pond was EMPTY!!!.
Dont know what happened, but my wife and I decided to redo the whole
pond. By the way, I've heard people say Little Giant Pumps are not
good quality, but this sucker had been running dry for no telling how
long and still works great.
I decided to try Permalon for a liner since I went to Home Depot and
they wanted $12.88 per linear foot of 15" wide EPDM. I called Ken at
http://Kencofish.com and got a 30x15 liner for 180 bucks plus 15 bucks
shipping.
By the way Ken if you read this it didnt take 2 weeks like you feared,
I had the liner on my doorstep in 3 days. The whole liner weighed less
than 40 pounds.
I tested its puncture resistance, it punctured pretty easily with a 6d
finishing nail, but my 250 pounds walking on it with gravel beneath
didnt hurt it a bit. I put down the underlay they sell at Home Depot,
even though my wife only got home with half what she paid for. But
since its an hour round trip and I wanted to get this done we just
lined the bottom. We have very nice sandy soil, so its easy digging
and no rocks. Thats the good part of sand, the bad part is its hard
to make the sides stay put. Thats another reason I tried Permalon,
it's supposed to be self supporting, I hope this will help the sides
stay upright.
The pond was only about 14 inches deep and had no sump for the pump.
This made it a pain to drain, so I deepened up the big end to 2 feet
and dug a channel the length of the pond, so I can put the pump in the
deep end if I ever need to drain it. I also radiused the corner where
the sides meet the bottom, because I had heard the Permalon was stiff.
The liner was easy to work with, but it was hard to get the wrinkles
out around the outside curves, the inside curves were no problem. I
finally said, " no ones going to see the wrinkles once I get the rocks
and water in" and went on with the project.
I trenched around the pond about 6 inches deep and laid the liner in
that and backfilled, then installed the rocks, tons of them it felt
like. I didnt want to dismantle the waterfall, so I left the old
liner in place about 3 foot out from the waterfall. I was able to
work out the big flat bottom ledge rock from the waterfall, and pushed
the new liner way up underneath. I put the big rock back and used
exanding foam to seal it. Thanks to everyone who recommended the
foam, it was a lifesaver.
I had one really tricky spot on the edge, and I'm afraid I just used a
little Southern engineering to get past it. I hope it works. It was a
huge old Pampas Grass clump right on the edge, and the roots had grown
over the old liner into the water. I trimmed it back some, not much,
trimmed the liner to fit around it with enought to double it over, ran
a piece of nylon rope around the whole thing and cinched the liner in
place about 2 inches above the water line. If anyone has any ideas of
a better way, let me know.
There was on old small filter that didnt seem to work very well. I
made my own, thanks to all you guys. I used an old plastic container I
had. Its about 25 gallon capacity. I filled it with 120 pounds of
lavarock, put some hailscreen across that and put quilt batting above
that. The water comes out crystal clear.
So right now I'm looking out my window at clear water cascading down
my waterfall. You guys are all great and I want to tell all of you
thanks for all the information.
My next move will be finishing lining the bottom with river rock, I
ran out today.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated
Roger in Teas

"Just Me \"Koi\"" wrote in message .. .
Excellent words! How about pictures? Pictures my dear friend!

--
_______________________________________
"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is
like an eggs-and-ham breakfast:
The chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."

http://community.webshots.com/user/godwino

I dont a digital camera yet, but I have relatives coming over this wekend who do, so I'll see about posting some then.

Roger

On 26 May 2003 17:22:01 -0700, (bighead) wrote:

My next move will be finishing lining the bottom with river rock, I
ran out today.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated
Roger in Teas

Only one, forget the river rock, or am I too late with that advice? ~ jan

See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

why leave out the rock? should I use gravel instead? I like the look of the rock

Roger

why leave out the rock? should I use gravel instead? I like the look of the rock
Roger

You can never get all the crud out that rock collects, if you must have it,
only have one layer, imo. ~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
why leave out the rock? should I use gravel instead? I like the look of
the rock
Roger

You can never get all the crud out that rock collects, if you must have
it,
only have one layer, imo. ~ jan

I decided to break this rule this weekend. My VF bottom is not totally flat,
so I used some handfuls of pebbles to make areas where I could shimmy a put
in place to hold them upright. *runs and hides*

BV.

BV, The BIG problem with the gravel is that you will have to scoop
it out to clean the Veggie Filter properly. I speak from experience -
I will never again put rock or gravel in the VF.
But it is really up to you ;-)

Nedra
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/4836
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118

"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...
"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
why leave out the rock? should I use gravel instead? I like the look
of
the rock
Roger

You can never get all the crud out that rock collects, if you must have
it,
only have one layer, imo. ~ jan

I decided to break this rule this weekend. My VF bottom is not totally
flat,
so I used some handfuls of pebbles to make areas where I could shimmy a
put
in place to hold them upright. *runs and hides*

BV.

"Nedra" wrote in message
thlink.net...
BV, The BIG problem with the gravel is that you will have to scoop
it out to clean the Veggie Filter properly. I speak from experience -
I will never again put rock or gravel in the VF.
But it is really up to you ;-)

Hopefully...the very small amount I used won't be too big of an issue. I am
talking about very small piles, that are placed only where I could not get a
pot to stand up straight. I have not coated the entire bottom with a layer.
I am hoping this does not cause problems. I'll let ya'll know, next season.
*laugh*

BV.

~ jan JJsPond.us writes:

why leave out the rock? should I use gravel instead? I like the look of the rock
Roger

You can never get all the crud out that rock collects, if you must have it,
only have one layer, imo. ~ jan

Since koi like to root around I added black aquarium gravel to my pond when
I built it. Nothing collects in it because it is scrubbed in each koi's
mouth at least daily :-)

I used black because I didn't want to see it. If you like the look you
can use regular aquarium gravel. If you do, you will save
much $$ by purchasing at a home supply store. You can get 100#
sacks for $15. All sorts of grades are available.

"Andrew Burgess" wrote in message
...
~ jan JJsPond.us writes:

why leave out the rock? should I use gravel instead? I like the look
of the rock
Roger

You can never get all the crud out that rock collects, if you must have
it,
only have one layer, imo. ~ jan

Since koi like to root around I added black aquarium gravel to my pond
when
I built it. Nothing collects in it because it is scrubbed in each koi's
mouth at least daily :-)
snip

How deep is your layer of rock? What you are saying seems to fly in the face
of what a lot of PORG'ers preach. I am curious about your results.

BV.

~Im talking about the larger river rock, 3 to 5 inches. I figure i
can wash the crud to the deep end during spring cleaning. The plain
black bottom just doesnt do it for me. But I guess maybe once some
algea and stuff get growing on it it wont look too bad. We put our
fish in this week, Standard aquarium gold fish I guess. One koi, one
black moor and one plecostomous and 9 assorted goldfish. We arent
fanatics about our fish we just know what we like

and those plecos will be sucking the slime coat off the other fish soon enough. look
for round wounds. Ingrid

~Im talking about the larger river rock, 3 to 5 inches. I figure i
can wash the crud to the deep end during spring cleaning. The plain
black bottom just doesnt do it for me. But I guess maybe once some
algea and stuff get growing on it it wont look too bad. We put our
fish in this week, Standard aquarium gold fish I guess. One koi, one
black moor and one plecostomous and 9 assorted goldfish. We arent
fanatics about our fish we just know what we like

wrote in message
...
and those plecos will be sucking the slime coat off the other fish soon
enough. look
for round wounds. Ingrid
snip

Why? The pleco's in my fresh water tanks...never bother anyone. Are they
different in a pond?

BV.

Look at http://www.koivet.com/ and do a search for pleco. Good article.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html


"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...

wrote in message
...
and those plecos will be sucking the slime coat off the other fish soon
enough. look
for round wounds. Ingrid
snip

Why? The pleco's in my fresh water tanks...never bother anyone. Are they
different in a pond?

BV.