Building my first pond. Advice needed please.

[Jordan.Green]

Hi all, ive been around ponds all my life now, have always fancied my own. Been looking at build threads on here for the last couple of weeks and finally decided to sign up and ask for some help and guidance.

Me and the mrs have bought our first house. And the orders off the mrs where to get the house spic and span before touching the garden. But ive now got to the stage where the house is done and i have starting tackling the garden.

Anyways, ive had a measure up in the garden. And im looking for build a pond roughly 12ft in length, 8ft wide and 4ft deep. I want in 50/50 with sleepers.

What sort of filtration am i going to need for this mass of water?
What are the best and most robust methods of fixing the sleepers?
And where do you guys get you bits from??

Ill be keeping koi.

I thought id ask the questions before touching a spade. So any guidance/tips and know-how would be very much appreciated.

Thanks jordan.

 

[addy1]

to our group!

Someone on here did sleepers, can't recall how they anchored them, think drilled holes with long rods through them.

 

[sissy]

welcome and congrats on the house and now that wife is happy you can get started making your dream come true .Keep your budget in mind and stay in it because ponding can make you broke if you go over .Have fun

 

[John O]

Think hard about how big and deep you want, decide on it and then add maybe 25%. You might build it with the ability to extend it or add a feature like a stream. (that's what I did, anyway) In my opinion, once you dig the hole and buy the liner, it is harder to make it larger.
I was restricted in size by the space in the yard we have.

I use a 150 gallon Skippy filter and I never looked back. The water stays clear for most of the year with the Skippy, lots of plants and the fish, of course. I have cleaned the filter maybe 4 or 5 times in 12 years.

 

[sissy]

Also leave all the excess liner tucked under as liner will settle ,mine settled over 8 inches in 3 months .Plus you may never know if you will have to raise the sides up some .I raised mine up over 2 feet already this past summer .Mine is half above and half below .

 

[j.w]

Jordan

 

[Big Lou]

Welcome Jordan!

If you are going to build a pond know that it becomes not only a home for your fish, it becomes a valuabe water resource for all types of creatures. You become a steward of nature. Stewardship is both a blessing and a commitment to the careful and responsible management of life giving resource.

One big don't. Never, never ever try to expand your pond by joining liner. This is a very difficult DIY task. If it becomes absolutely necessary I strongly recommend you consult or hire a professional. The same goes for patches. I learned this the hard way.

Good luck, have fun and enjoy becoming a pond keeper.
Lou

 

[HTH]

Lou what type of liner have you had problems joining ?

I have had very good luck with EPDM rubber. A friend and I bought a 10 foot wide roll and cut it in half to make him a 20 ft wide liner. We did that in his driveway. The biggest problem with extending a pond is getting the liner to lay flat so you can work with it.

I have never tried it on any other type of liner as I am sold on EPDM.

 

[Big Lou]

Lou what type of liner have you had problems joining ?

I have had very good luck with EPDM rubber. A friend and I bought a 10 foot wide roll and cut it in half to make him a 20 ft wide liner. We did that in his driveway. The biggest problem with extending a pond is getting the liner to lay flat so you can work with it.

I have never tried it on any other type of liner as I am sold on EPDM.

It was EDPM. A quick summary. Years ago I decided to add a cove to the original pond. The joint was at the curved evtrance to the cove. After draining the pond I dug out the cove then placed a long 2"x 12" board above and across the entrance to the cove. This board provided a work space for the joining process. Following the EDPM double sided seam tape instuctions I joined the smaller liner section to the original. The eventual leaks originated from where the joined liner flexed underwater upward to cover the ponds side. I believe the stress placed on the joint by its entrance to the extension and moderate to severe curved bend upward plus a possible over simplistic joining method caused the failure. I attempted repair after repair to no avail. Truly a novices DIY series of mistakes. To recover from this disaster a new one piece adequately sized EDPM liner was installed. This required a total rebuild.

Thanks for asking.

 

[sissy]

I had no luck joining 2 liners either and id everything said ,cleaned with acetone and dried it well and roughed both pieces up with a little fine sand paper and cleaned it again with acetone per directions and a year later it is leaking and since I am changing my water fall I will be making the upper part with a bigger liner into a plant holding spot and then water will go over into pond and hoping that will work .I will have a ledge in front for water to go up over and then into the pond .

 

[Waterbug]

I want in 50/50 with sleepers.

What's that in American? Two peoples divided by a common language.

And where do you guys get you bits from??

Does "bits" mean products? I'm a programmer so I push bits (1's and 0's) all day. I'm often trying to get rid of bits so I always have extras you can have.

I thought id ask the questions before touching a spade.

Not how I do it, but OK.

How many Koi do you want? Probably this is the most important question.

How into Koi are you? Like do you stay awake thinking of them? Are we talking pond type quality or $1000+ imported fish?

Or is this more of a landscape feature?

More of a Water Garden with plants or strictly a Koi Pond?

What's you thinking on maintenance? No one likes maintenance but to what degree? Spend $2000 now to save 1 hour a week in the summer?

What's your budget? All DIY or do you want to buy all the "bits"?

I ask because there are many different ways to keep a pond and designing to what your goal is can be a big help later.