Lost on waterproofing gunite pond

[nsraja]

I am in Houston, Texas and I had my pool builder build a pond about 20 feet away from my new inground swimming pool. He said he would do the inground gunite just like a pool (with rebar and stuff) without the plaster. All I wanted from him was a concrete tank 8x5x2 foot. It is about 600 gallons. It has drain line and fill line plumbing which I dont think I will use. But I am lost on what to cover the gunite with.

1. Hydroban + porcelain tile (inner side walls and floor) + epoxy grout + final clear epoxy coat on the tiles and grout. The porcelain tile is 24x24 inches, reason for choosing large format tile is, little grout area to worry about.
2. Buy gallons of epoxy and simply coat the gunite with epoxy and be done with it.

Looking at the cost of Hydroban and Epoxy Grout and underwater thinset, tiling gets super expensive.

My question to you all, should I simply dump epoxy on the gunite walls and floor and be done with it? I have epoxied my garage floor myself twice and know how to work with it. I know they last and they are not toxic to fish once cured. I am not sure if Hydroban or Redguard are the right type of product for underwater use. I just dont buy that Hydroban between the gunite wall/floor and thinset is going to give me a better bonding than thinset directly on gunite. Hydroban is going to reduce the bite surface for the thinset. (For the pool waterline tile they have used hydroban FYI)

Please suggest if you have other solutions.

My koi and 4 year old gold fish have outgrown the 75 gallon indoor aquarium, so I need to get the pond started as soon as possible.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome!

Sorry, I can’t help with your question, but I would recommend making that pond larger than 600 gallons. Maybe that would be OK for one koi, but if you ever wanted to add more koi, you want to go larger.

 

[GBBUDD]

why in the world are you trying to reinvent the wheel , plaster is on litteraly millions of pools throughout the years. so you want some thing other than white so use a dye

 

[nsraja]

why in the world are you trying to reinvent the wheel , plaster is on litteraly millions of pools throughout the years. so you want some thing other than white so use a dye

Two reasons..
1. It never occurred to me (how dumb!!), it did cross my mind but I guess mostly because the pebble plaster I am using for my pool is not smooth, it has a very grainy surface and will foster algae growth as well as help dirt to settle on.
2. Cleaning a non-smooth surface would be a nightmare. I guess I want to be able to stick in a brush and lift up all dirt once in a while and let the pond filter do the rest.

It is too late now, my pool build completed last week and I cannot ask them to plaster the pond.

 

[j.w]

and welcome @nsraja