Liner thickness and liner tips..

[-Greg-]

I am in the planning stages of re-designing my pond, this time with a pond liner instead of the pre-formed unit. I have found different thickness's of liners, is there a particular thickness that corelates to a particular size of pond, or a rule of thumb to follow? This will be my first time using a liner, any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Greg

[-Greg-]

After some more research, I think I have somewhat of a plan to revise my currently overcrowded pond. The new pond will be approximately 12' x 6' x 3' deep, I will end up with a shorter but steeper stream, and keep my skippy at the top of the stream, I plan on increasing the depth of the stream as well, with deeper "holding" areas. I believe a 15' x 25' 45mil liner will work, along with the liner underlayment. This time I will add a skimmer and a bottom drain, although I will not use the bottom drain now as I have a less than year old pondmaster submersible 1800gph pump, but when it dies, I can do some minor re-plumbing and add an external pump. I found an Atlantic PS 4000 skimmer that should work as well. So, I guess the plan will be to order the liner, underlayment, skimmer, extra plumbing fittings, and a kiddy pool to house my current fish and plants. Once all of this arrives, pump the current pond water into the kiddy pool, put the fish plants, and pump into the pool, remove the pre-formed pond, excavate, install the underlayment, liner, and skimmer. Then put the original pond water, plants and fish back into the new pond (man does this sound like a lot of work!). Attached are the current pond/stream, and my poor photoshop version of the new pond/stream.. If I missed anything, or any comments, please let me know!

Thanks again!

Greg

[Rocmon]

Is this going to be a koi pond, a GF pond, or a water garden?

The liner is best bought after digging, as the size of the pond may get bigger than you planned, it's a bummer to have a liner on its way and decide you want to dig a little more here or there.

The submersible pump can be used with the BD. The BD is gravity fed to a settling chamber and the pump goes in there. You'll probably have to use some mats or some such in it until you get an external pump.

Check out some of the construction threads at koiphen. Research now will pay off tons later.

[-Greg-]

Thanks Rocmon for the advise, I can not believe how much information is at Koiphen! At this point, I plan on only have the fish that I currently have (two 4" koi, three goldfish, and the new additions which I think are goldfish), although this may change which is why I am going for the larger and deeper pond. I will do some more research as far as the settling chamber, but I am somewhat limited to space, good advice on ordering the liner after the excavation, however my only concern would be as to how long the fish and and plants can take the shallow depth of the kiddy pool. Again, thanks for the good advice!

Greg

[Rocmon]

They make some pretty deep kiddie pools, if you think it will take you some time. If you have raccoons you may need to cover or fence the pool to keep them out—I noticed you had a fence around the pond. If your going to keep those koi ask folks over at koiphen about your plans to get some feed back for what you may need to do different. My guess is deeper will be suggested, among other things. Good luck!

[-Greg-]

I plan on asking about my plans at Koiphen, just waiting on the "administrator" approval before I can post. And the fence is for my boxer who thinks the buckets that the plants are in are play toys..bad doggie!! (He almost lost his happy home). I plan on installing a underground electric fence to cure that problem. After some more reading, I am thinking that once I remove the pre-form, I can support the edges with bricks and some 4x4's, and put the plants and fish back in, then I will put the fence back around to keep any critters out, especially the dog!

Thanks again!

Greg