pond leak and gravel

[JerryO]

Hello,
Our 4-year-old pond has developed a leak. A large hole in the liner was found and patched, but the pond continued to leak. I have now emptied the pond of the water, koi and gravel. I have found the other leak and will patch today. My question is regarding the gravel. The stones are smooth river stones approximately 1 centimeter in size. Is there a general rule about how much gravel should be at the bottom of this pond? The dimensions are 12 feet by 12 feet, 3 feet deep. The bottom of the pond is closer to 7 x 7'. The liner is EPDM. There is an in-pond pump leading to a pressurized biologic filter with UV light and then a waterfall. There is also an aerator. There are about 15 koi, some of them are monsters. All was well with the pond prior to the leak. The koi spent the night in an inflatable pool and are doing well this morning. Hope to have the leak fixed today and back in the pond by this evening. I was just looking for excuse not to shovel all of the gravel back into the pond. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Lisak1]

There will be folks here who will tell you to leave the gravel out. But we have a gravel bottom pond and love both the look and the function of the gravel. We have just enough gravel on the bottom to cover the liner. I can easily expose the liner with one or two swishes of my foot when I am in the pond, if that helps.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Gravel should ideally not be more than a couple of inches deep.

 

[sissy]

I would find out first what caused the holes before you put gravel back .i had moles chew through my liner last year 6 holes to be exact and had to seal up the tunnels and put down milky spore to get rid of grubs that they were after .If you have the same problem it may need to be addressed before you go through all the work of putting every thing back .I agree I have no rocks and no gravel but if you like the look of gravel then you would want it your way .When I had my leak I pumped as much of the pond water into there temporary home as I could and then pumped it back into the pond from the tanks .If you have bigger koi why not go bigger while you have the chance because your fish are not going to get any smaller

 

[JerryO]

Hello,
Thanks for your reply. 2 obvious holes patched, these look like they were caused by something inside the pond. There is a longer story. I used Firestone products to patch the holes. How long do you recommend before I refill the pond?

 

[Lisak1]

It should tell you on the packaging how long it would take to dry, right? The only thing I might suggest is if you aren't SURE those were the only two holes, that you test the pond before you put anything back. Fill it with water and see if it holds. I don't know how long your fish can last in the inflatable pool - not sure how big of a pool we're talking about, but you have a lot of big fish! So that may determine how long you can wait.

Question - do you have a net or cover over the temporary pond? Koi will sometimes jump, especially in unfamiliar surroundings, and I'd hate to see you lose a fish in this whole process.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Ideally, you should let the patch cure for 48 hours. This may not be possible in your circumstances.

 

[JerryO]

So,
The koi are in a 400 gallon inflatable pool with aeration. I do have netting over the top, just checked on them and they appear happy. I do not recall detailed instructions coming with the patch material. I relied on youtube for instructions. One of the videos implied that water could be placed immediately after repair but that seems to good to be true. The sealant is still slightly tacky and is now about 3 hours old. We are in Tucson, current temperature about 93°, I believe that will hasten the curing. Fish seem fine for now but was hoping to get them back into the pond this evening.

Here is the longer story of the holes. We noticed a leak approximately 3 weeks ago. I found an obvious hole in the liner below the waterfall. This was a jagged tear with a flap being pushed out of the pond . I patched this hole but the pond continued to leak at a relatively rapid rate. After draining the pond completely last night and removing the pump I found a second hole nearly identical to the first. This hole was under the tubing of the in-pond pump and still had a rock wedged in it. It was pretty clear the rock was used to make the hole. This follows on the heels of us firing a pond guy approximately 1 month ago. I'd like to think it is some sort of coincidence but I really don't have any other explanation for these 2 holes appearing. While the pond was drained I also reinforced a previous seam. I am pretty confident these are the only areas. The rest of the liner looks good.

Thanks again

 

[sissy]

That is what my holes looked like and I was going to repair them but then thought better about it and bought another liner and since the fish were out and water was gone I looked at the liner when i took it out and was glad i had decided to remove it .I then dug bigger finding lots of tunnels that had to be filled in the dirt .I added lots of milky spore that would take care of the grubs that what ever was eating them would not have a source of food .The grubs were huge and removed as many as I could before adding the milky spore .I found grubs will live there because it is warm and moist .I put down roofing felt i had left here from my builder 15lb and 30lb felt and then put down the underlayment .I have never had gravel or stone in my pond .It is just to much of a hassle .It is easier to use a pool net to pull up fish waste with out rocks .How old is the liner .I factored that inc also and then decided my koi needed more room to roam they are over 2 ft now .

 

[Tula]

Oh no, how terrible he might have vandalized your pond. Too bad you don't have cameras on the pond, so you could verify and press charges!

Would love to see some pictures of your koi I used to have gravel, but removed it a few years ago. I loved how it looked, but over time, my water lilies had gone haywire and the gravel was dirty.

 

[Marshall]

If this was done intentionally by the pond guy you fired then I would personally put his business info online and broadcast it on all social media and review sites etc. so nobody else uses his services if that is the way he deals with clients.

 

[sissy]

but if you have no real proof it may be unfair to him .You need cameras to catch him in the act .I think he could have done it but i would hope not since he could be caught he would be really stupid to even try to damage something .I always want to think the best but bad people are out there ,

 

[mgmine]

Well I guess I'm one of the ones that will tell you to leave the gravel out. The small amount that has fallen into my pond from the lily containers is enough to convince me that gravel is nothing but a dirt collecting, impossible to clean problem. As far as patching the liner you might be better off just putting a new liner in and using the old liner as padding. For a few hundred dollars and a half a days work you will be assured of a leak free pond.

 

[Marshall]

but if you have no real proof it may be unfair to him .You need cameras to catch him in the act .I think he could have done it but i would hope not since he could be caught he would be really stupid to even try to damage something .I always want to think the best but bad people are out there ,

That is why I said "if this was done intentionally" which I hope is not the case but, if it is then that would warrant at the least a private reporting of the practice to a review agency.

 

[sissy]

I had that patching stuff and not sure if it was just winter cold but it did not hold .I tried to get myself through winter last year by patching it ,well it only made it to March and I had to work through snow storm after snow storm .I used the seaming tape because i had it on my water fall filter and used to to seal between the pvc liner around the filter tank and it did not hold .I cleaned the liners and put weight on them and left them dry well and now I have to replace the upper filter liner with epdm .So that means more work for me just because it is leaking somewhere