Koi Pond Coating….a Good Idea?

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I recently bought a house that house a built in pond in the back. There is no water, fish or plants in it, so technically, it is just a hole in the ground and not a pond, but I intend on turning it into a healthy koi pond. I am not sure what the previous owners used it for, since it was a foreclosure and I was unable to ask them or the realtor. It is 10 x 7 x has a built in drain in the bottom.

I have spent some time on the internet with FAQ’s, forums and articles, but have not found much on the pros and cons of coating the pond with a sealer or coating of some kind. The concrete has a couple of small cracks and I think this might be a problem when I go to fill it with water. Another concern of mine is how the concrete will affect the pH of the water and my ability to keep health fish in it if I do not act pro-actively.

I have found quite a few websites that sell “Koi Pond Coating Kits,” but would like to get some feedback before making such a pricey purchase. The questions I have are:

Will a coating seal the concrete and prevent leaks?

Can a coating help the water maintain an acceptable pH since there is no exposure to concrete?

Does a coating expose the fish to any type of toxin or leeching in the beginning or ever?

If anyone has experience using a pond coating then I would greatly appreciate some advice before moving forward with my “pet” project.
 

j.w

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AllAboutKoiFish
Don't know much about concrete ponds but cracks don't sound good. You could throw a liner over it and not worry about cracks.
 

Mmathis

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Welcome!

I don't have experience with concrete ponds, and only know what I read about. But if you already know it has cracks, I don't know if it's worth trying to rehab., IMHO. If your ground is unstable, it could develop more cracks in the future even with a coating.

Would it be possible that you could install a flexible liner (like EPDM)? It sounds like it has a bottom drain (BD), which is a good thing, but can you get to it to see what condition it's in? Where does it come out? I don't have one, so can't help there, either, but lots of members here do, and they can give you more information on what to look for.

How deep is the pond? Where do you live and what is your weather like? Do you get freezes in winter? Do you plan to keep fish and if so, what kind?

Do you have any pictures? Pictures can sometimes help us gain insight into a situation.
 
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Here is a coated pond. 25 years ago I cut up a culvert into 4 foot sections and buried them as shown in the second photo. I put in a cement bottom and used them as fish ponds, as shown in the second photo, for 15 years. There are three of them that I had cascading into one another.
I had them coated with spray "line a bed" material about 7 years ago as depicted in the first photo.
Then finished with rock and stucco in the last photo.

Before I put in the cement bottoms, I used them for years using 5 mil poly material. I used about 4 layers of it. It works fine but rocks can put holes in it, so can kids.:stop:

The spray coat is super tough, non toxic, weatherproof, waterproof and comes in colors. I filled them let them sit a week and have never had problems.
 

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sissy

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welcome and once you get in there and clean it out you will know if it is salvageable or not .Koi get big so many people want them but they get large and rip plants apart and produce lots of waste .I wish someone had told me 10 years ago .:)
 

sissy

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yeh well wish some one did :)they could have smacked me in the head and told me no .Thinking of taking them to the other house as that pond is bigger and if I decide to sell and move on .My dream retirement house has gotten to much for me
 
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Big Koi are amazingly strong. I have to plant new lily plants with rocks on top so they can't get their heads in. Sometimes they flip the whole thing over.
I like where I am enough that in 36 years I'm still here. Went through all the down size ideas. Had an auction, took my largest pond out and kept the 10 small ones. Took out two bedrooms and made it into a snooker room.
All my existing landscape requires little maintenance. My wife had flowers all over the place and after she passed I replaced everything with low or no maintenance. That was seven years ago. She used to water 5 hours a day. I water zero, as everything is watered by the leakage and overflow from the ponds.
 
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Typically cement used for ponds is almost always portland cement. There won't be any problems with your water chemistry with portland cement. It's very inert and won't affect your ph. You may want to line it for other reasons but the cement won't hurt anything.
 
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You haven't found much online comparing concrete sealers / coatings? hmmmm... I am by no means an expert. I do know this much. Cracks are never good. But concrete cracks naturally. So, how is it that concrete has been the primary building material for water containment over like the last x000 years? Because it's coated with something. This leads me into the questions:

- Something that seals and prevents leaks? Just to get it straight, sealing keeps chemicals from leaching into the water source by making the top layer of concrete too dense for water to permeate through. So, a sealer can be a coating that prevents leaks due to composition. But, it may not prevent from structural leaks. This is where things like polyurea/polyhybrids come in versus epoxy sealers. What I mean is a sealer will NOT prevent leaking when the concrete cracks. here are also cement additives and cementitous coatings, but I don't know too much about that.
So, assuming your concrete is cured well, patching the existing cracks is necessary and then the right coating will prevent future small cracks from causing leaks. That doesn't mean all cracks, I mean small hairline cracks.

Can a coating help the water maintain an acceptable pH since there is no exposure to concrete? Uhmmmm, yes.


Does a coating expose the fish to any type of toxin or leeching in the beginning or ever? YES. If you use a solvent based or water based coating that is NOT 100% solids, you may have permeation VOCs until whenever they are all gone. It is said the solvent based coatings only lose 50% of VOC's during initial set. So, it is important what TYPE of coating you use.,,, Make sure it is safe. With that said, it is still unlikely that many coatings will kill fish.. You may just have cloudy water that leads to other negative situations, which may kill a fish (or all). So, just be careful.
 
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Oh btw - even portland cement leaches, but not quite as much and if you read, it really comes down to the hydration during cure process that effects leaching. At least I think that's what I read.
 
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The explanation above (First one from ALL ABOUT KOI 75) is pretty informative. Thanks. But, to bring it back to answering the questions:

- coatings act as a sealer in function. The big difference is that the sealer is not expected to be very thick, whereas a coating penetrates into the concrete as well as providing a thick coating on top that protects the underlying surface.
- sealers are just that, a sealer - with no "stretch" factor or impact resistance benefit.
- A coating will keep pH from fluctuating because of leaching
- Some coatings have VOCs and should not be used underwater because they constantly let off small amounts of not healthy chemicals

Hope this is helpful.

My recommendation is either Seal Tite or RubberizeIt! for different reasons. RubberizeIT! goes on best as done by the RubberizeIt! dealers. Not so much DIY, even though it sounds easy. Seal Tite has really good support for DIY enthusiasts and for larger jobs.
 
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I recently bought a house that house a built in pond in the back. There is no water, fish or plants in it, so technically, it is just a hole in the ground and not a pond, but I intend on turning it into a healthy koi pond. I am not sure what the previous owners used it for, since it was a foreclosure and I was unable to ask them or the realtor. It is 10 x 7 x has a built in drain in the bottom.

I have spent some time on the internet with FAQ’s, forums and articles, but have not found much on the pros and cons of coating the pond with a sealer or coating of some kind. The concrete has a couple of small cracks and I think this might be a problem when I go to fill it with water. Another concern of mine is how the concrete will affect the pH of the water and my ability to keep health fish in it if I do not act pro-actively.

I have found quite a few websites that sell “Koi Pond Coating Kits,” but would like to get some feedback before making such a pricey purchase. The questions I have are:

Will a coating seal the concrete and prevent leaks?

Can a coating help the water maintain an acceptable pH since there is no exposure to concrete?

Does a coating expose the fish to any type of toxin or leeching in the beginning or ever?

If anyone has experience using a pond coating then I would greatly appreciate some advice before moving forward with my “pet” project.

I can help I think: See this guy?
With Mystic Koi & Water Garden, Shawn McHenry uses my son's Seal Tite, the Spray-Lining & Coating "service". He even reviewed it here: http://www.manta.com/p/6qm202h8z2c9ky_/jedd-luppino... That's expensive but this guy Randy Lontz as Spray-lining & Coatings has these little show its for DIY Pond Coatings for Koi and any life... I cannot afford my son but Randy said to post 972-996-7326 ext 311 and (e-mail address removed). As for UV Coating in ponds just ask him- I think they have it but I never asked. Check out this - another winner at Nishikigoi of the World!
 

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when i was child my 1st pond was concrete one , you can easily repair it with cement plaster too , just need to fill it with water for a week or more then drain it , fresh cement can kill fish , after some time its perfectly fine . if it still leaks then try spray coating , i have no experience about it
 

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