Your not lifting it . it will probably come on a 12' roll and you roll it over to the area . if i were you i would get a good plan worked out and bog in one liner maybe two and the pond in an other.
Hamstermann's pond build
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No worries there. with my favorite design, the bog would be 50% or so of my pond size. I'm thinking of getting a 30x40 liner instead though and will need to do the calcs on stretching things 10 feet bigger. I may have to get back to you on that, but the bog will be a good high percentage since I want my family to sit in the pond if they feel the urge, and like you said - I like to garden, so want to experiment with lots of plants.
Access to my backyard is not great - especially now that I've moved the chicken coop since my original pics were posted. I can't get machines back there so everything that I can't physically carry will need to come back on a dolly or in a wheelbarrow. and I would need to lift it into the wheelbarrow or dolly. The gate to get to the back yard is maybe 4 -5 feet wide and then you cross new conccrete that I wouldn't want cracked by construction machines.
I suppose I could ask some neighbors to help with the liner, but the cost of the liner itself is a consideration too. If @combatwombat hasn't had leak issues and the HDRPE is equally strong but cheaper and lighter, that sounds like a win to me.
Yeah, I'm really good at getting ahead of myself and causing myself all kinds of anxiety. I want everything planned to the nth detail in the hopes that nothing goes wrong. And in the event that it does go wrong, I want to have plans B through Z ready.
Better to head off any problems in the planning stage rather than the build stage. But then there's that darn analysis paralysis too. That's a good point about thinning. I want a jungle, but an orderly one.Kind of like folding wrapping paper on the inside of a gift box. How much bigger would you say I should shoot for? 10-15%?
is BTL the full name of the site? What does that stand for? and what makes you say you wouldn't go through American Tilapia again?
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Well, I did have some leak issues. It's possible they were my own fault, though.
I gave myself an extra 5' on all sides. That ended up being just barely enough in a few spots and so much left over in others that I ended up digging the pond bigger. I had some sharp angles close together, though. It really depends on the design. Better to have too much than too little, though.
Bend Tarp & Liner. They have a better selection of liner materials and, while I have limited experience with their customer service, it couldn't possibly be worse than American Tilapia, which basically doesn't exist.
Definitely better to plan now, you are doing it right and you are asking the right questions. Every one here will probably say all the best laid plans.... There will be things during the build that you did not expect and you change on the fly. In the end it all works out and you will be happy. A lot work though, lol.Yeah, I'm really good at getting ahead of myself and causing myself all kinds of anxiety. I want everything planned to the nth detail in the hopes that nothing goes wrong. And in the event that it does go wrong, I want to have plans B through Z ready.
I used justliners.com for my two liners (one for the pond and one for the bog). Others here have also used them. I just checked and they still have their end of summer sale going on, you do not see liners go on sale often. The liner is definitely expensive and on top of that is the delivery charge, not sure if they deliver to your area or if they do it might be too much and you have to look for a more local supplier.
Thanks Pablo.
Thinking about shelves this morning. Do I really need them? Aquascape often says to put your big rocks away from the shelves a bit, then infill behind them and put the next rock behind the first and on the gravel. are carved dirt shelves mainly a money saving feature, or are they better structurally?
Seems like if I just carved the pond walls straight down, then put the underlayment and liner on, then plunked down the big rocks, on the bottom, filled behind them with gravel, and put the next big rock on the gravel, I could worry less about making the height of the carved shelves and the big rocks correspond, but I also know gravel can be really expensive (about $80 per ton where I live) so if it really is only a way to save money I can easily see that.
Thinking about shelves this morning. Do I really need them? Aquascape often says to put your big rocks away from the shelves a bit, then infill behind them and put the next rock behind the first and on the gravel. are carved dirt shelves mainly a money saving feature, or are they better structurally?
Seems like if I just carved the pond walls straight down, then put the underlayment and liner on, then plunked down the big rocks, on the bottom, filled behind them with gravel, and put the next big rock on the gravel, I could worry less about making the height of the carved shelves and the big rocks correspond, but I also know gravel can be really expensive (about $80 per ton where I live) so if it really is only a way to save money I can easily see that.
What were the issues and what caused them? I think I remember seeing a video where you had some diy plumbing issues, but I don't remember anything to do with the liner.
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I had a million little seeping leaks around my edge. Little spots where water would slowly seep out of the liner.
I patched many of them with an adhesive sealant but couldn’t realistically get all of them.
These were mostly in areas where I had extra liner flopping around for over a year and then decided to use it to expand the pond. It wasn’t well protected and my sandy soil had a lot of small, grainy gravel in it so a year+ of it flopping around and getting stepped on could have been the primary issue.
In any case, I eventually discovered that most of my water loss was within evaporation expectations, so the seeping leaks were not significant.
I dug out the shelves, I do think it adds more interest to the pond. The area to view the pond from, I went straight down to allow fish to come up to you. You do want the shelves to vary in width and depth. Structurally I think it is safer to carve the shelves, especially where I think you mentioned that you might have kids around, never know if they accidentally fall in. I was not sure what you saying as far as the gravel. I added the gravel at the end once I had all the stones in, gravel on the bottom and then gravel around the stones on the shelves. Your stone is cheaper, I think my gravel was $110 a ton. Here are some pics of what I did.
Attachments
Here's the current plan
It's much like my original plan, but about 10 feet wider. The bog wraps around the pond on 2 sides with the intake bay in that bottom-right corner. Stairs will likely go into the Bottom-left corner with a water fall in the middle of the wall between the bog and pond. Or maybe in the top-left corner of the pond to encourage flow toward the intake. Or both.
I'm thinking a 3k or 6k pump for the bog so it turns over 1-2 times an hour and a 6k pump for the pond, running jets just below water level and on the pond floor, under the gravel (or level with it), all aimed at the intake to reduce the need to vacuum the pond. I'll have to figure out the best way to use a ball valve or similar so that I can turn off the lower jets in winter to keep the water down there warm and make more surface movement to keep the ice open. I'll worry about that when the liner is in and the pumps are purchased though. How many jets do you think I can get on a 6k pump and still have them strong enough to direct flow?
Also started digging today. This process is likely to take months with just me, a shovel, and occasional help from my boys, but that's to be expected.
The white pipe is the end of the run for some gutters on my house. The current thought is still to have it empty into my intake bay, with water level just below the pipe. I haven't measured, but I'm guessing it's about 6 inches from there to the top of the concrete patio so that can be my 6 inches of freeboard.
I'm having to be creative with digging down to the flexible sprinkler pipe. The controller wires are wrapped around it helically so I can't go straight down with the shovel for fear of cutting them. I've been sliding my shovel along the top of them and then angling the end up to pull out some dirt, making a small cave, them carefully cut down through the sod at an angle until I get to the cave to remove the grass. It mostly works but I've still sliced through the plastic sheathing in a couple of places. Thankfully not through the wires inside the sheathing though.
The sprinkler line and wire seem to be making their way further into the yard but my wife remembers them being straight. If they stay where they are, maybe I'll just dig around them and make them part of a shelf. If the do go further into the yard, I'll have to move them and I'm not too excited about that since they go under a rock divider wall between the lawn and garden before daylighting near the vinyl fence on the west.
I looked into the suggestion some of you made that smaller liners may be cheaper and then I'd just seam them. At least in the case of EPDM liners at justpindliners.com and halfoffponds.com, it seems that it's still cheaper to go with one whole liner. And I like that idea better anyway because I had a hard time making bike tube patch kits work as a kid. I'd hate to see what I'd do with hundreds or thousands of dollars of liner.
That's all the update I have for now.
It's much like my original plan, but about 10 feet wider. The bog wraps around the pond on 2 sides with the intake bay in that bottom-right corner. Stairs will likely go into the Bottom-left corner with a water fall in the middle of the wall between the bog and pond. Or maybe in the top-left corner of the pond to encourage flow toward the intake. Or both.
I'm thinking a 3k or 6k pump for the bog so it turns over 1-2 times an hour and a 6k pump for the pond, running jets just below water level and on the pond floor, under the gravel (or level with it), all aimed at the intake to reduce the need to vacuum the pond. I'll have to figure out the best way to use a ball valve or similar so that I can turn off the lower jets in winter to keep the water down there warm and make more surface movement to keep the ice open. I'll worry about that when the liner is in and the pumps are purchased though. How many jets do you think I can get on a 6k pump and still have them strong enough to direct flow?
Also started digging today. This process is likely to take months with just me, a shovel, and occasional help from my boys, but that's to be expected.
The white pipe is the end of the run for some gutters on my house. The current thought is still to have it empty into my intake bay, with water level just below the pipe. I haven't measured, but I'm guessing it's about 6 inches from there to the top of the concrete patio so that can be my 6 inches of freeboard.
I'm having to be creative with digging down to the flexible sprinkler pipe. The controller wires are wrapped around it helically so I can't go straight down with the shovel for fear of cutting them. I've been sliding my shovel along the top of them and then angling the end up to pull out some dirt, making a small cave, them carefully cut down through the sod at an angle until I get to the cave to remove the grass. It mostly works but I've still sliced through the plastic sheathing in a couple of places. Thankfully not through the wires inside the sheathing though.
The sprinkler line and wire seem to be making their way further into the yard but my wife remembers them being straight. If they stay where they are, maybe I'll just dig around them and make them part of a shelf. If the do go further into the yard, I'll have to move them and I'm not too excited about that since they go under a rock divider wall between the lawn and garden before daylighting near the vinyl fence on the west.
I looked into the suggestion some of you made that smaller liners may be cheaper and then I'd just seam them. At least in the case of EPDM liners at justpindliners.com and halfoffponds.com, it seems that it's still cheaper to go with one whole liner. And I like that idea better anyway because I had a hard time making bike tube patch kits work as a kid. I'd hate to see what I'd do with hundreds or thousands of dollars of liner.
That's all the update I have for now.
unfortunately he had many leaks he had to battle with . but it may have been due to taking 2 years to build, or just leaving the liner exposed to the winds and sun for so long. or who knows maybe it was a weak area . my issue with hdpe is its's a weave and thousands of potential spots to leak.
But is the go to for farm ponds
There is no stretch to them at all like EPDM. While epdm does have the ability to stretch you never want to do so .
That trick is to remove air gaps behind the rocks where the liner could stretch or leave large voids for sludge to bud up behind the rocks but your not going to have large rocks you have one maybe two man rocks they are a lot smaller than you may think.
no you don't want straight up and down walls unless the vertical wall is smaller than your boulders and they can not fall / roll onto someone in the pond. The BOULDERS WE SEE IN THE VIDEOS WITH THE PROS are 800 to 5000 pound boulders stuff your not going to pull over in a pond . if they are set right then there's no issues . set them on a weak shelf that compacted and they could fall in and maybe ever holding someone under .
you are going to probably have 1 1/2" boulders or at best 2 to 3 foot flat rocks. These you'll want to lay on a slope not a vertical wall. if you have a 4 foot deep pond you don't want 24 inches of straight up wall where you'll need two boulders stacked on one another to get at least 6" higher than the vertical wall to hold back the gravel. the answer is to slope the wall back so the upper boulder can sit on the lower rocks but is cradled. and the upper boulder is not going to fall in when someone applies pressure hanging or stepping on it . If you do get flat rocks , my preference you lay the rocks on the slope like a mosaic . then when your done blast in-between with waterfall foam to seal the gaps and lock the stones together sorta speak . is it like mortar no is it 10000% faster yup would i use it if kids were going in the pond no id mortar them.
you better have very stable soil light rains to go no shelves
You have been busy, lol. Hope things work out with the underground stuff, I forget if you mentioned in the beginning if you had digsafe come out to mark the yard. I dont envy you with that digging, that is a lot of work, hope you get some help with that. I noticed you had the liner prices in the margin, dont forget the delivery charges can be pretty harsh, usually do not know them until you start the checkout process.
Looking at your plan i would strongly suggest the following. if i remember correctly you didn't want to have much of a drop from the bog to the pond. A waterfall is so much more to the project then you can imagine. With that said here's how you could incorporating water fall a larger waterfall now i''m only talking foot and a half maybe two.
When you go to place your liner with your design it is going to be a battle. think about it . if you start at the patio roll down the vertical edge that drops 6 inches to the shelf that will hold the first course of rock that will both hide and hold the liner in place. allowing the rocks to stick up out of the water and not the liner.
You'll then drop down to the next shelf a foot and a half to two feet down now when you get into the corners where these meet up is where epdm thrives over hdpe the rubber can fold over on its self. forcing hdpe into such shapes stresses the weave and the coating of hdpe. It does not bend like epdm, it can not make sharp corners without stressing, NOW BRING THIS INTO YOUR CORNER BOTTOM RIGHT. where the end is folded yet has to come up the bog wall while the rest of the sheet want to drop to the bottom of your pond and flow across. This design will require extra footage of liner. Then your going to come up the bog wall up over the top and then down inside the bog and across this too will need folds demanding more liner. Then come up the back side.
I STRONGLY SUGGEST you make a miniature of what your thinking and use a cloth something that is even easier to work with than is either liner. and see how much fun it is trying to bend in all these directions while wanting to continue in another.
And your not even at the second hardest area where the two bogs meet in the corner.
my suggestion is to build two separate bogs and the bog on the right will actually sit on a very large shelf where your liner for the pond will run under that part of the bog. once you get the liner in for the pond and other bog then place a second liner inside to make the other bog , Now you could do similar to @combatwombat build a retaining wall in the pond but use that for the bog wall . i would line it with epdm so it forces the water up and not allow it to leach out the sides.
Which brings up another question what is going to separate the pond from the bog. i think you said you were thinking the bogs would be deeper than a foot? you will need more than a few inches of soil. Your photos don't show what you have for sub soils yet.
You do have an issue with your down spout or is that a down spout ? is that a sump pump ? coming into the side of the pond. YOU DO NOT WANT TO PUSH WATER AT THE BACK SIDE OF YOUR LINER. IF WILL HAVE TO BE ABOVE THE WATER LINE. or you could cut a bulked fitting in through the liner and let the pine will the pond but remember water can flow both directions. if there is no pitch/ or lastly add onto the pipe and push the water else where.
Another question is what to do with water run off from the patio your patio appears to shed water toward the pond.?
In short your current plan if you go with the horrid and all your lengths then add a foot you will be wayyyyyyyyyyyy short.
Just a little more for you to analyze.
When you go to place your liner with your design it is going to be a battle. think about it . if you start at the patio roll down the vertical edge that drops 6 inches to the shelf that will hold the first course of rock that will both hide and hold the liner in place. allowing the rocks to stick up out of the water and not the liner.
You'll then drop down to the next shelf a foot and a half to two feet down now when you get into the corners where these meet up is where epdm thrives over hdpe the rubber can fold over on its self. forcing hdpe into such shapes stresses the weave and the coating of hdpe. It does not bend like epdm, it can not make sharp corners without stressing, NOW BRING THIS INTO YOUR CORNER BOTTOM RIGHT. where the end is folded yet has to come up the bog wall while the rest of the sheet want to drop to the bottom of your pond and flow across. This design will require extra footage of liner. Then your going to come up the bog wall up over the top and then down inside the bog and across this too will need folds demanding more liner. Then come up the back side.
I STRONGLY SUGGEST you make a miniature of what your thinking and use a cloth something that is even easier to work with than is either liner. and see how much fun it is trying to bend in all these directions while wanting to continue in another.
And your not even at the second hardest area where the two bogs meet in the corner.
my suggestion is to build two separate bogs and the bog on the right will actually sit on a very large shelf where your liner for the pond will run under that part of the bog. once you get the liner in for the pond and other bog then place a second liner inside to make the other bog , Now you could do similar to @combatwombat build a retaining wall in the pond but use that for the bog wall . i would line it with epdm so it forces the water up and not allow it to leach out the sides.
Which brings up another question what is going to separate the pond from the bog. i think you said you were thinking the bogs would be deeper than a foot? you will need more than a few inches of soil. Your photos don't show what you have for sub soils yet.
You do have an issue with your down spout or is that a down spout ? is that a sump pump ? coming into the side of the pond. YOU DO NOT WANT TO PUSH WATER AT THE BACK SIDE OF YOUR LINER. IF WILL HAVE TO BE ABOVE THE WATER LINE. or you could cut a bulked fitting in through the liner and let the pine will the pond but remember water can flow both directions. if there is no pitch/ or lastly add onto the pipe and push the water else where.
Another question is what to do with water run off from the patio your patio appears to shed water toward the pond.?
In short your current plan if you go with the horrid and all your lengths then add a foot you will be wayyyyyyyyyyyy short.
Just a little more for you to analyze.
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I have a pit/trench in my yard with water. I just read in some of the early pages of @combatwombat's build that that counts as a pond, so from here out anything that I do is just improving it. 
Subsoils are heavy clay from what I've seen while digging elsewhere. They should hold their shape well during excavation as long as we don't get too many pounding rains and since this is a desert, we're not likely to.
If I go with a retaining wall near the patio, I'll put the liner up tight against the back of the blocks and leave a dirt area behind it where I'll plant creeping thyme to soften the wall edge. The water can run into that dirt/planted area.
If I do shelves and rock up to the patio, the runoff can just go into the pond. We don't use a lot of chemicals on the patio and the intake bay and bog should be able to handle any mechanical or biological filtering that needs to be done.
I was thinking a foot on each side (so two extra feet in length and two extra in width) not a single foot extra in length and one extra foot in width. How much extra would you say I need? 5 feet in every direction like CW had sounds like it was too much in a lot of places.
That makes sense to me. I'd be interested to see if anyone that completely covered their liner sooner had the same issues. Are you the only one with hdrpe liner on the board? Liner that is strong, lighter, and cheaper sure sounds tempting.
Do they care less about minor leaks? I would think they'd want to be just as water tight as we do. Still, different pond for a different purpose, I guess.
We've had them out in the past so I know generally where the utilities are - they're in the perimeter of the yard, mostly along the south and west vinyl fences. I won't be going deep enough in those areas to disturb them.
Three of my sons and my wife came to help yesterday afternoon. It sure made things go faster!
That's definitely something to double-check. I'm pretty sure the two sites I checked had free shipping but will make sure that's right before ordering
If you never want to utilize EPDM's ability to stretch, why pay for it?
I get that a deep gravel base isn't as firm as a carved, packed shelf. Wouldn't the aquascapes trick still work with smaller boulders though? Like if I have 12 to 18 inch rocks, make the shelves at 10-16 inches so there's 2 inches or so of gravel on the shelves behind the top of the rocks, then stack the next rock on the shelf and gravel above and behind the first rock. I'd just need 3 shelves for a 3 foot deep pond if I make all shelves 1 foot tall. The gravel behind the rocks gives them support and if they're leaning back, they're not as likely to roll forward. Essentially they're still at an angle like the slope you were suggesting but they're sitting on hard, flat ground and gravel rather than another rock on the same slope. Too many rocks on a sloped base rather than a flat base could roll and slide too. Especially at steep angles. Or am I not understanding something correctly?
Doesn't mortar just break up and eventually become jagged shards? Given that, I think I'd rather just foam them. Foam shouldn't get sharp and would only be needed where directing water flow. If I foam between all the rocks on a slope, the water seeps through the foam and then gets anaerobic which could also be bad.
Surely it's not THAT fragile that you can't fold it without breaking it? I know it's rigid but it can't really be as brittle as dry firewood, can it?
That could be fun if I could think of a way to keep everything to scale. Hmm...I'll have to think about that and good similar materials...
I'm having a hard time picturing this. What separates the two bogs and how do I get plumbing to both?
A dirt wall that will be a foot wide, at least at the top. With the bog full of gravel, and rocks on shelves in the pond side I won't have to worry about the wall toppling or caving in.
Yep, bog will be 3 feet deep, same as the pond, and will have rock in it that gradually gets smaller near the top so can flush it out if needed. I still haven't decided whether or not to use culvert pipe for void space but I won't be using matrix blocks. Probably will slope the bottom toward 4 inch drainage pipe which will bring water from the pump. Will also connect a clean out pipe to the top of the bog that I can attach a shop vac to. And, of course, a breather pipe on the intake to break the siphon when the pump shuts off.
Subsoils are heavy clay from what I've seen while digging elsewhere. They should hold their shape well during excavation as long as we don't get too many pounding rains and since this is a desert, we're not likely to.
Yep, it's a downspout. And having it above the waterline is the plan. Might slip a bulkhead over it, but will definitely position the pond overflow pipe below the downspouts's level so that extra water is funneled into a dry we'll or french drain elsewhere, effectively preventing water from going up the downspout and breaking up my patio.
If I go with a retaining wall near the patio, I'll put the liner up tight against the back of the blocks and leave a dirt area behind it where I'll plant creeping thyme to soften the wall edge. The water can run into that dirt/planted area.
If I do shelves and rock up to the patio, the runoff can just go into the pond. We don't use a lot of chemicals on the patio and the intake bay and bog should be able to handle any mechanical or biological filtering that needs to be done.
The horrid what? Was that autocorrect changing HDRPE?
I was thinking a foot on each side (so two extra feet in length and two extra in width) not a single foot extra in length and one extra foot in width. How much extra would you say I need? 5 feet in every direction like CW had sounds like it was too much in a lot of places.
farm pponds have usualy no angles a slight even pitch to the bottom from all sides . hdpe is not easy to mold into shape
its ability to fold TIGHTLY you have already been lured to the price and weight. you will find out the hard way.
will it work sure but it's no pick nick to pull back liner , especially with as many angles as you are looking at
you have no rock in front of the boulders on the shelves. What i hear is you'll have boulders holding back boulders hard to cover the liner without shelves in front of the boulders and when you do this it fills in behind the boulders removing the need to peal back the liner and fill in from outside.
when it is to thin yes ... but when it is between rocks a half inch will not break appart . mortar that is a half inch on one end and tapered to nothing yes 100% will break up and become sharp shards
a second pump. look at it as you built the pond with one straight bog then build a second bog inside the pond.
what else it will hold is any water that gets under your liner a under liner path to the surface with pipe is more than recommended its probably a must
NOT advisable it will probably work its way behind the liner and create a hipo down the road. A hippo will ruin your day .
do the test you will see measure out the test you make with shelves and a bog make it out of plywood take the measurement add your foot to each side ":" this is where the internet has advice from every clown out there " the extra foot only works for a simple design . this is not you ... make your cloth or what ever you use a foot longer by scale. you will see it is not advisable
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Maybe not, but they also aren’t putting many tons of boulders and gravel over their liners. When they leak too much, they just replace the liner.
It was too much in a few places, just right in most places and barely enough in a few others.
You can’t order a liner based on where it might be too much. The controlling factor is where it will be barely enough.