Hello everyone!
I'm an off-grid wilderness property caretaker in Northern California mountains and this spring/summer have taken on a pond restoration project. The pond in question is about 25'x30', 4 ft. at deepest in middle, with some shallow shelf areas. It houses a small school of goldfish and newts. It is about 20 years old and had not been cleaned out in possibly that long. So the first thing I did was scoop out mountains of muck (2 ft. deep) over a few weeks time. Next I added new pond plants...
(The full story is that previously the pond was full of duckweed and some other invasive type plant, which the owners had to pull out each summer when it crowded the pond, then last summer deer ate all of the pond plants, and next a heron ate nearly all of the fish... also the year before fires in the area left the pond without incoming water for weeks and nearly emptied it...)
I also added some heron netting on the edges and some over plants to protect from deer. But as I cleaned out the pond and around it I came to discover just how many tears and holes it had. (Which explains why it nearly dried out when without a constant supply of water incoming, which is gravity fed from a spring.) And also noted how quickly the water levels drained during our first dry spell (even with water coming in).
I would LOVE to replace the liner. It seems to be PVC/plastic (some areas left open to sun exposure on the sides have been peeling back layers, which is a good tell) and not super thick (some areas have under-layers of rugs), so not great. But the owners cannot afford to replace it at this juncture. (and/or don't care enough about it to invest, and I can't convince them sadly). So we are stuck trying to patch it. But I am overwhelmed with the varied and contradictory info online. Many products for seam tape for example that say they are fish-safe get reviews of the product killing fish and plants and others seem to just not work. Or patch kits that are very expensive and also don't work for everyone, etc.
So far we've tried one double-sided sticky seam tape and it does not seem to hold and esp. after covered with water. We've also tried epoxy we use for joining PVC water piping and that has not worked. I'm waiting on another brand of seam tape and we bought a heat gun to try welding other pieces on (we do have some extra pieces of similar liner to use for patching) but realized when that didn't work we weren't using the proper attachment (so we are still planning to try this). I've read that silicone can work? But haven't tried this yet.
I'd love to hear from someone who has successfully patched plastic liner and get product recommendations (safe for plants and fish). And please don't just tell me to get a new liner when I'm not in a position to do so! I would really like to restore this pond and do some nice rock landscaping around it with marginal plants etc. (Since undertaking this project, I've got the water gardening bug. Am now totally obsessed by water gardens and want to learn and do as much as I can with ponds and aquatic plants of all kinds... I've now got a couple of small frog ponds going on our part of the property, but am also dedicated to seeing through this large pond project, esp. since the 4 ft. of water goes down to about 2 ft. in summer with constant water coming in, not great! And right now it drains very quickly to less when I let the water flow out, which I am now doing again in order to access and find all of the holes. I am hoping there are none on the very bottom!!)
Thank you!!!!
Shannon
I'm an off-grid wilderness property caretaker in Northern California mountains and this spring/summer have taken on a pond restoration project. The pond in question is about 25'x30', 4 ft. at deepest in middle, with some shallow shelf areas. It houses a small school of goldfish and newts. It is about 20 years old and had not been cleaned out in possibly that long. So the first thing I did was scoop out mountains of muck (2 ft. deep) over a few weeks time. Next I added new pond plants...
(The full story is that previously the pond was full of duckweed and some other invasive type plant, which the owners had to pull out each summer when it crowded the pond, then last summer deer ate all of the pond plants, and next a heron ate nearly all of the fish... also the year before fires in the area left the pond without incoming water for weeks and nearly emptied it...)
I also added some heron netting on the edges and some over plants to protect from deer. But as I cleaned out the pond and around it I came to discover just how many tears and holes it had. (Which explains why it nearly dried out when without a constant supply of water incoming, which is gravity fed from a spring.) And also noted how quickly the water levels drained during our first dry spell (even with water coming in).
I would LOVE to replace the liner. It seems to be PVC/plastic (some areas left open to sun exposure on the sides have been peeling back layers, which is a good tell) and not super thick (some areas have under-layers of rugs), so not great. But the owners cannot afford to replace it at this juncture. (and/or don't care enough about it to invest, and I can't convince them sadly). So we are stuck trying to patch it. But I am overwhelmed with the varied and contradictory info online. Many products for seam tape for example that say they are fish-safe get reviews of the product killing fish and plants and others seem to just not work. Or patch kits that are very expensive and also don't work for everyone, etc.
So far we've tried one double-sided sticky seam tape and it does not seem to hold and esp. after covered with water. We've also tried epoxy we use for joining PVC water piping and that has not worked. I'm waiting on another brand of seam tape and we bought a heat gun to try welding other pieces on (we do have some extra pieces of similar liner to use for patching) but realized when that didn't work we weren't using the proper attachment (so we are still planning to try this). I've read that silicone can work? But haven't tried this yet.
I'd love to hear from someone who has successfully patched plastic liner and get product recommendations (safe for plants and fish). And please don't just tell me to get a new liner when I'm not in a position to do so! I would really like to restore this pond and do some nice rock landscaping around it with marginal plants etc. (Since undertaking this project, I've got the water gardening bug. Am now totally obsessed by water gardens and want to learn and do as much as I can with ponds and aquatic plants of all kinds... I've now got a couple of small frog ponds going on our part of the property, but am also dedicated to seeing through this large pond project, esp. since the 4 ft. of water goes down to about 2 ft. in summer with constant water coming in, not great! And right now it drains very quickly to less when I let the water flow out, which I am now doing again in order to access and find all of the holes. I am hoping there are none on the very bottom!!)
Thank you!!!!
Shannon
(And someone offered us a roll of free 20x100' 4 mil liner, which I assume would really do nothing being so thin... plus there is the issue of it not being wide enough.)