How can I add to existing pond?

[haver79]

Welcome! If you are having sloped sides, consider a stair step on one side. It will help you to get in and out.
The liner becomes VERY slippery and if it is deep and with sloped sides you might have trouble getting in and out.

 

[Big Lou]

Not much time at the moment yet wanted to welcome you Melissa. Another North Texas member!

 

[shakaho]

The best way to rehome your koi is to contact a koi club like this one. Most clubs have a rescue service just for koi that have outgrown their ponds.

Rather than trying to find a way to remodel your pond with the fish in it, get yourself one of these (only if you have rehomed the koi) or one of these. You can put the fish in there while you remodel the pond, and keep it around for future emergency use.

By far the safest, easiest, and least costly way to remodel the pond is to remove the fish, dig a bigger hole and get a new liner. Yes, a liner costs, but adding on is tricky enough that you are likely to need to hire professional help to handle the leaks, and that really costs. To save on the digging, you might consider raising the sides of of the pond with a row or two of concrete blocks.

 

[addy1]

I used ppl liner (bend tarp and liner), a lot less slippery than epdm. Epdm becomes like ice way slippery.

 

[Jason]

Welcome! My Wife is from Denton/Lake Kiowa Area. Nice Pond btw.

 

[Dave's pond Indiana]

Hi,

I am new here. My husband and I just got married and bought a house in the Fort Worth area which has a koi pond. Here is a picture.

Go to new posts and read Making Pond Deeper. I posted how I added to my pond without draining or moving my fish, They moved on their own when they got curious and swam over to the expansion. Welcome!! I hope this will help you.

We LOVE our pond. It has about 7 HUGE koi, all at least 2ft long and some small goldfish and 2 large goldfish. Thing is, the bottom layer with the koi was only built 1 ft deep. As newlyweds, we dont have a ton of money, and I already tried contacting tons of businesses to see if they wanted our koi or could relocate them. No one wanted to. The water is always in really good condition, I do lots of water tests and we take good care of it, and the fish never seem to mind, but I know they need a deeper area.

So here is to my question-

What is the best, most cost efficient way to either add a third level that is deeper for the bigger fish, or to deepen our pond. And is there a way to do this without draining the pond and removing the fish? We are pretty good DIYers, and can't afford thousands to hire someone to come do this for us. Any ideas, suggestions, etc.? We do have plenty of yard room to expand.

 

[herzausstahl]

I say you could dig up and completely rebuild if you want too, or you could join the liners to create a 3rd pond that the second flows into. Just follow addys's advice on joining 2 liners. I did to join my stream liner to the pond and it sits under 8" of water constantly but so far so good. Just check out the early stages of my pond build in the gardenpondphotography section. I would say deeper is better whenever you do anything because you will always wish it was bigger after the fact, but I would think at 3-3 1/2' you'd be ok with your caves to help avoid the heat. And if it seems too bad for them you could always create some kind of temporary sun shade for part of the pond. My advise is usually let your imagination be your limit and adapt your plan to overcome whatever problems arise. A good liner is expensive initially but worth it over the long run. Epsom lasts forever as sissy says, my mom has a small pond with one over 20 years old that she bought from a roofing company and even the parts completely exposed to the sun & UV light over that time are still intact.