My first Pond

[thopper]

Hello all, I am looking for some advice on my first pond. I wish I had found this place sooner. I am building a pond and at the top(east side) is going to be a small waterfall. It is a 150gal water tank stuck in the ground half way with a dirt(sandy loam) burm around it . It will go into a small stream 2ft wide by 8ft long 1ft @ deepest portion into a completely sunken 180 gal stock tank. I would like at least 1 ft. of pond size wider and 6 inches higher than the stock tank.
I have already dug the utilities and the form is really how I want it.

LINERS! I have to be one of the most foolish people to have done this. Top tank 150gal has a liner from HD. Bottom tank has a liner from HD, and 2 Liners from HD in between the two. " I'll figure it out". Well, no, I cant. Seeming is horrible.
So after all that I ask this. Do I remove the HD liners and just start over with EDPM or HDRPE liner? Can/should I use the HD liner as underlayment?
also if someone could check my calculations, pond is
21x11

21( 1ft over each end already in measurement)
+2 down bottom tank
+2 up Bottom tank
+2 down top tank
+2 Up top tank.
=29ft length.
Same method for width gives me
15ft wide
Just for safety, I will get 30x16.

Any help or advice will be appreciated.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome!

 

[mrsclem]

Did you line your stock tanks? If so, why?

 

[poconojoe]

I'm not quite grasping what you are doing there.
Is it all one big pond? The middle section looks pretty deep to be just a river. Just fill the whole thing with water and enjoy one big cool pond.

I'm just sincerely trying to help, so I hope you don't take my questions the wrong way. This is a great forum with a friendly bunch of helpful people.

What are those blocks for?

I'm wondering why you would need a liner in the stock tanks? Or why would you even need the stock tanks? Just cover the whole thing with a liner.

Not sure if I'm understanding the liner dilemma. Is there 4 liners?

Does the middle section have two liners that are not seamed, just overlapped? If so, that's not good.

Are the liners PVC? I personally had a couple bad experiences with PVC liners I bought at Lowe's. They didn't last long.

Looking forward to helping you...

 

[j.w]

@thopper

 

[GBBUDD]

Your 100% correct pvc is a horrible liner material. The most popular is epdm rubber

 

[poconojoe]

When I was a noob, I used a PVC liner from Lowe's. It was very inexpensive, but turned out to be a waste of money, time and effort. The pond blew a hole in the dead of Winter. There was no way to redo the liner in that weather. I put on waders and tried to patch it, but that didn't work. I had to add 300 gallons per week until it got warm enough to change it out. When I did change it, some of the liner was brittle and fell apart. It was only about 4-5 months old!
To make matters worse, I had to capture all my fish and house them in temporary containers. I lost my favorite one in the process. When I put him in the container, he immediately jumped out. I scooped him right up, but he never recovered.

 

[thopper]

Did you line your stock tanks? If so, why?

Because I have no idea what im doing......

 

[IPA]

Welcome. If your plan is to redo it with a single 45 mil EPDM liner I see currently they go for between $300-350 for the size you mentioned though a lot of people just greatly overlap or seam EPDM so one giant liner isn’t necessary. You will also need underlayment to protect the liner which can be old carpet or the textile stuff they sell as underlayment.
What is your goal? You have some nice items to work with, if you are happy just to keep a few goldfish or minnows and some plants than just tweaking your design will do.
How difficult is digging? I wanted to expand my pond this year but the wife put the brakes on me doing a lot of digging, we have nice soil but I have sciatica and every year just doing things that should be easy gets harder and harder. If digging isn’t and issue for you the number one thing new pond owners complain about is wishing they had made it bigger.
you could use both stock tanks as bog style filters, have them empty into the stream and then into a larger 8’x10’ , 10’x10’, etc. round, kidney or any shape pond. You’d only need narrow EPDM liner for the stream and another one for whatever size is for the main pond.

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

Because I have no idea what im doing......

Hang around with us we will help you get a good pond going. A lot of real helpful experienced ponders here.

 

[poconojoe]

Don't give up and don't put yourself down. There's a lot to learn and a lot of knowledge here.

Sometimes it's hard to type up what your thoughts are. I get that all the time.

So far, what you have done has a lot of potential. The digging is usually the hardest part. The shape you have looks really nice. As I said before, I would just make it one big pond. That middle section looks deep enough to be more than a river.

You should start looking around here for ideas.

 

[thopper]

Welcome. If your plan is to redo it with a single 45 mil EPDM liner I see currently they go for between $300-350 for the size you mentioned though a lot of people just greatly overlap or seam EPDM so one giant liner isn’t necessary. You will also need underlayment to protect the liner which can be old carpet or the textile stuff they sell as underlayment.
What is your goal? You have some nice items to work with, if you are happy just to keep a few goldfish or minnows and some plants than just tweaking your design will do.
How difficult is digging? I wanted to expand my pond this year but the wife put the brakes on me doing a lot of digging, we have nice soil but I have sciatica and every year just doing things that should be easy gets harder and harder. If digging isn’t and issue for you the number one thing new pond owners complain about is wishing they had made it bigger.
you could use both stock tanks as bog style filters, have them empty into the stream and then into a larger 8’x10’ , 10’x10’, etc. round, kidney or any shape pond. You’d only need narrow EPDM liner for the stream and another one for whatever size is for the main pond.

my goal is just a small pond with waterfall. I love the sound of running water. I will have plants and just a few goldfish.
My end goal is to have several ponds around my property eventually. I have 4 acres around my house and I want to have different styles of ponds in different areas. The one im working on now will just be a grassy sitting area surrounded by flowers, plants and a small pond.
Digging is not a problem, I have a small backhoe and a 19 year old son.

 

[Mmathis]

“A small backhoe and a 19 y/o son!” I love it!

 

[IPA]

my goal is just a small pond with waterfall. I love the sound of running water. I will have plants and just a few goldfish.
My end goal is to have several ponds around my property eventually. I have 4 acres around my house and I want to have different styles of ponds in different areas. The one im working on now will just be a grassy sitting area surrounded by flowers, plants and a small pond.
Digging is not a problem, I have a small backhoe and a 19 year old son.

Nice. Sounds like a solid plan. Look at as many of the ponds here as you can, sometimes they are hard to find deep in the subs. I think the one feature you will notice in many is the rock work around the edging and waterfalls. I don’t think a lot of us, or at least for me, I didn’t have any idea how much rock I was going to actually need. My point is, I think you could basically do what you want to do with either: 1 large EPDM liner, 2 tubs and a small piece of liner to join them, or 2 or 3 separate liner sections. Personally I’d go with the larger liner, save the preformed tubs for when you do something with fish (or return them if possible, I know they are expensive) they make great isolation bins and have become very popular using them as either self contained bogs or addition bog filtration. Just make sure whatever you build is high enough that runoff won’t get into it from the yard and remember, it’s all going to be rocked in even if you use bricks or pavers (or wood). They never look done until the liner is hidden and unless you have a gigantic pond, building it at grade to hide the liner will generally cause water quality issues and headaches.

 

[snoozer]

Because I have no idea what im doing......

Welcome! There are so many helpful folks here that you will learn from. So much information is available on this site. My first little pond was, well, lets call it interesting. I learned from my mistakes and the second big pond is much better.