Now What? Ideas For 32x22x3 +/- Pond

[jskirwin]

Hello
This thread convinced me I can't go bentonite. The EPDM weight scares me more than the cost (600lbs? How am I supposed to move that without ripping it by myself?)
To better see what I'm talking about, here are some pics. Note that I plan to add rock from below the waterline to the grass.
Waterfall in the top pic upper right corner.
Red flags show where buried power cable is (Don't let the tracks fool you, I hand dug this with the shovel you see there, using my front loader to carry out the clay once I've ripped it out of the ground.
I plan to dig so that there 3ft of water underneath the waterfall to allow koi to overwinter.
I haven't terraced yet because I'm worried about the rock. I don't think it's good to have vertical piles of stone, is it? Even if you want a near vertical look?
Bottom pick shows what I imagine that side to look like. About a foot of water, with rock from wall base to a foot or so above the water. Clay moved behind it, trees, grasses and plants all around.

Any ideas/advice is appreciated.

 

[addy1]

Check out the bend tarp and liner, the ppl 24 or 36, a lot lighter than epdm, My pond liner (if I recall right) was around 40 x 54, my husband and I installed it, easy (sort of) to move around I would need to find my notes or the receipt. The pond and bog are one piece of liner.

 

[don't ask]

i don't have the strong knowledge base on this but i would assume vertical is not an issue as long as you don't go too high...my guess is about 4-5 feet..assume you will terrace and then place rock, so you're not actually doing 3 feet of rock? or were to doing rock to the bottom? i see on the shallow end but didn't know if you were only doing it from water level on deep side... or am i totally off base?

 

[addy1]

I tried vertical piles of stone on our bog wall, stacked nice and they slipped right off and fell down, now if you mortar the stone, or stack large flat rocks it might work for you

 

[don't ask]

ummm... didn't think people stacked stone any other way but to secure unless only rising less than a foot or using flat stone

 

[addy1]

lol so i am a blond off and on!

 

[jskirwin]

At the heighest point - the back wall in top pic - I will need about 5ft of rock: 1 below and 4 above. That's a lot of weight on a liner. I know that if I was doing a retaining wall, that's too much of a vertical run and would be considered unstable. I can possibly add terraces as I move up and back to make the wall appear vertical but have it fixed better into the wall.
[*]What about erosion? That's Carolina red clay that would drip down behind the walls and seep into the pond. While the Koi might dig it, the stuff is extremely fine. I have to change my house water filter every couple of weeks due to fine silt in my well. In the other thread Waterbug suggested a type of ditch, but I'm not sure how to incorporate that except by building a french drain behind the 2nd foot of rock above the waterline, then having it drain around the pond.
[*]What about the shallow bottom? Quartz is plentiful on my property, but quartz is also sharp, so while it may look cool in an aquarium, I can't add it to the pond. I used river rock in my last pond, but I'm wondering if there are better options.
[*]Whatever the case, that's a lot of rock to move.
[/list]
Thanks for the ideas!

 

[Sheetmetalman]

Myself, I would deffinitly stair step that 4 foot wall into 4, 1 foot tall x however deep(rock width) steps so none of the rock was more than 1 foot high both for stability as well as to keep all 5 foot of rocks weight spread out over more liner and not all on 1 small cross section of liner. I may have missunderstood your description on that end of the pond but I wouldnt stop the liner just above the water line--if the top of that bank is 4 foot above the waterline then as I stairstepped up that bank for rock ledges like I described first then the liner would stairstep right up that bank also with the rock stacked on each liner covered step and at the top you need some sort of raised collar, ie dirt, concrete , wood or something that goes completely around the top circumferense of the pond--raised high enough to keep yard waste, chemicals etc from being able to wash directly into your pond from the surrounding yard and the liner should go up over this collar too. Just my opinion but that way your water quality and/or fish are not affected by the fine clay particles, grass clippings, chemicals etc that can and will wash into your pond otherwise. good luck, Tim

 

[don't ask]

i like metalman's idea and thought that maybe you could grade the sides and long side of pond away from deck downhill slightly with your back hoe.. that way any substantial rains will flow away and not possibly under your liner if that were a concern...although i think your yard sloped that way anyways so that may be a moot point

 

[jskirwin]

So liner up and over the sides then? Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. I'm afraid of erosion, especially when you're talking about such a wall of rock there. It would be a nightmare to fix.

Addy1, thanks for the BTLliners link. Like I said, it's not just the cost that scares me, it's the weight. I'm thinking 30x40 liner right now. I'll measure with a flexible tape measure tomorrow to get a better idea of size.

Don'tAsk, The natural grade is away from the deck, and towards the shallow end of the pond. In fact I'm having to build that end up a bit because the shallow end is almost at ground level now.

 

[addy1]

jskirwin
check out the whole house filters they have at lowes, there is one that back flushes its self on the schedule you set. We have that fine red dirt clay stuff, and small black rocks. It is nice to not need to change out the filter all of the time. If you are interested I could go downstairs and find the name on it.

We did leave the whole house canister filter in line to help catch the dirt

 

[taherrmann4]

My liner was 25x50 and was very heavy but I rigged up something to make it easier to roll out. I am assuming that is your concern once you get it back there. As you can see in the attached pic I put the liner through a piece of 2"pvc then strapped that down to the blocks so it would not move. Once it was all secured my father in law and I each took a side and pulled it down through and back up the other side of the pond. Then just unfolded it. Was not easy but sure made the job a lot easier than doing it any other way.

 

[Waterbug]

You've gone from 40x30X3 to 32x22x3, so that's a lighter liner. Still takes some planning. Here's as example of a guy who has his thinking cap on. He laid a 40x60 liner in under an hour with 7 guys. He was off on his calculation, actual weight would be 720 lbs, not 900. That's confirmed by 7 guys. 100 lbs per person is about max since weight is never distributed evenly.

If I'm following the rock issue correctly it sounds like you don't want rock much below the water surface. That's the goal? Some simple cross section drawings would help convey your plan.

If no rock below water is the plan the thread link I gave would also be a good source of info as he had the same design. In your case I think you would have a lot more weight at least on the high sides. I would consider a concrete collar to be required. Soil steps tend to erode under the liner over time starting with the sharp edge, becoming more round, rocks start sliding into the pond, not good. A concrete collar greatly reduces the problem. Without a collar you really need to have the rocks go all the way to the bottom or you need the shelf to extend further out into the pond.

The ditch drainage deal...With ponds on flat ground a short soil berm is built around the edge of the pond to act as a dam to keep water from getting under the liner. When building on a slope it's a bit silly to add a berm, so instead you remove a bit of soil up hill creating a shallow ditch and the berm appears. The ditch does not have to be deep or wide, just enough so runoff doesn't overflow the "berm" and get under the liner. The ditch normally just follows the contour of the slope, runoff stays in the ditch and flows around the pond and down hill. Of course on the down hill slopes no berm or ditch is needed.

Keeping runoff out of the pond is of course good, but keeping water from getting under the liner is a good idea too. It can cause liners to float. It's worth taking the time to have a smart design up front to stop future problems which are hard to fix.

 

[Waterbug]

A design suggestion...On the uphill side, to the right as you'd be standing on the deck looking out over the pond, consider adding a huge stream. Maybe not so much stream but more of a riparian zone. That would allow the terracing to be spread out over a much wider area, much more natural look. Solves a lot of grading issues. You can use a ton of plants in there so it could also be a veggie filter. Possibly even wrap the riparian zone around the house so from the deck it would look very natural. You could also have a small outlet stream to fill a pump basin. It could look very natural.

Also, if you brought the stream out into where the pond is you could reduce the size of the pond yet still have as larger, or larger, total pond area. It would look like a bigger pond. This would also allow you to have 2 smaller liners instead of 1 large liner. The stream liner can just over lap the pond liner.

Plants are a great way to reduce rock cost and rock issues.

In front of the deck you really need a retaining wall, at least that's how it looks to me. Not sure how far down the pier footers are, but it seems like you could lose the deck at some point down the road. A retaining wall could be just dry stacked concrete block filled with concrete and rebar. You could terrace the wall. Any effort there could save you big problems later. The area in front of the deck looks to be the tallest wall above water. With the concrete block the entire wall could be hidden with plants. I think it would look great if some Canna here planted there, right against the deck. The flowers would come right up to the rail which would look great.

You have a nice site. Lots of interesting options. Perfect setup for a bottom drain too.

 

[brandonsdad02]

I have never had a problem with water getting under the liner and causing problems. I have rock starting from the waters edge and going up to the top of my waterfall. I just dug out a shelf at the water line and started stacking rocks from there.