Sharing my story maybe it helps someone building their pond.
This winter my pond sprung a leak. I’m glad I looked under the polycarbonate panel to realize most of the water was gone just in time to avoid a total loss. Then with the rough winter and building my pond a little too shallow I ended up adding hot water with a hose from the basement when the temp started dropping below 40F. I looked ridiculous by the way. Eventually I bought cattle trough heater that I read here didn't work but I thought it worked well and kept the water over 42F the rest of the winter.
Eventually this spring I patched it hoping to buy enough time to redo when I had a little time on my side. Patch didn't do anything. End up adding water every day. Get fed up and order 45 mil epdm liner. It’s on backorder. It arrives once it’s too hot to enjoy digging. Drain the water down to about a foot. Then I net out the goldfish without problems. Get in there and corral the koi into a cooler. They look so much bigger out of the pond. I had to enlist my family to help move the koi to the inflatable pool. I stopped feeding the day before. It was so nice to be able to see the side view of the koi through the clear sides of the pool. They seemed to really enjoy the vacation.
Pulled out the old linear it was really brittle and I strongly suspect that ants did start the holes it had based on the amount of ants under the linear. Dig down to 4 foot depth. Make it a little wider and square it out. Also leveled the ground with the clay I was digging out of the hole. It’s amazing when your pond is blocked in you can probably notice a 1 inch drop over about 10 feet very easily.
Takes a few days and I’m sore and exhausted. I considered renting one of those small excavators from home depot but figured the learning curve might be a little steep. Put in linear, fill up the new pond, add fish, and put a net over most of the pond. I did not move the plants in the pool because I was tired. Then the next morning go out to clean up and discover that one of my oldest koi had jumped out of the pond and died. I think he was 4 or 5 years old. I was pretty upset. He was actually the easiest one to catch and I had never seen him jump. At some point during the night my cat was looking out the window but I didn’t make the connection because I was tired. I don’t know if the new pond scared him or the lack of plants. I feel like if I had put the plants back it probably wouldn’t have happened. I was pretty mad at myself. He was a big guy.
Well it looks better now and is deeper. I added a few hundred gallons. Made some of the changes I wanted to make but really not as big as I wanted but it was just too hot to keep digging with the fish in the pool.
Its been about a week. I need to check the ammonia again. And have a very brazen bird problem but that is another story. Photos below.
This winter my pond sprung a leak. I’m glad I looked under the polycarbonate panel to realize most of the water was gone just in time to avoid a total loss. Then with the rough winter and building my pond a little too shallow I ended up adding hot water with a hose from the basement when the temp started dropping below 40F. I looked ridiculous by the way. Eventually I bought cattle trough heater that I read here didn't work but I thought it worked well and kept the water over 42F the rest of the winter.
Eventually this spring I patched it hoping to buy enough time to redo when I had a little time on my side. Patch didn't do anything. End up adding water every day. Get fed up and order 45 mil epdm liner. It’s on backorder. It arrives once it’s too hot to enjoy digging. Drain the water down to about a foot. Then I net out the goldfish without problems. Get in there and corral the koi into a cooler. They look so much bigger out of the pond. I had to enlist my family to help move the koi to the inflatable pool. I stopped feeding the day before. It was so nice to be able to see the side view of the koi through the clear sides of the pool. They seemed to really enjoy the vacation.
Pulled out the old linear it was really brittle and I strongly suspect that ants did start the holes it had based on the amount of ants under the linear. Dig down to 4 foot depth. Make it a little wider and square it out. Also leveled the ground with the clay I was digging out of the hole. It’s amazing when your pond is blocked in you can probably notice a 1 inch drop over about 10 feet very easily.
Takes a few days and I’m sore and exhausted. I considered renting one of those small excavators from home depot but figured the learning curve might be a little steep. Put in linear, fill up the new pond, add fish, and put a net over most of the pond. I did not move the plants in the pool because I was tired. Then the next morning go out to clean up and discover that one of my oldest koi had jumped out of the pond and died. I think he was 4 or 5 years old. I was pretty upset. He was actually the easiest one to catch and I had never seen him jump. At some point during the night my cat was looking out the window but I didn’t make the connection because I was tired. I don’t know if the new pond scared him or the lack of plants. I feel like if I had put the plants back it probably wouldn’t have happened. I was pretty mad at myself. He was a big guy.
Well it looks better now and is deeper. I added a few hundred gallons. Made some of the changes I wanted to make but really not as big as I wanted but it was just too hot to keep digging with the fish in the pool.
Its been about a week. I need to check the ammonia again. And have a very brazen bird problem but that is another story. Photos below.
