TheFishGuys Goldfish Pond Build.

[TheFishGuy]

When I put my first liner in, because I didn't have enough slack, over the first few winters, along one side, the bank started to fill in, pulling at my liner. To stop this, which is similar to what you have going on, I lowered the water 6" below the area in question, then dug out the extra dirt that had slipped, but when I did this, I leveled the same area behind the liner and laid some brick, to stop any future sliding. This in essence, made my pond slightly narrower but more stable. I'm thinking you can do the same, and especially since you don't even have the water in yet, will be a lot easier.

Simply pull the liner back a bit off the 'short' edge. shovel some dirt in and tamp it to the side. You could also lay in some solid concrete slabs or create a pressure-treated (for ground usage) wood and create a verical wall. I'd just slide some of your extra dirt back in and tamp. Create a slope up to help everything stay in place. What you're doing is essentially putting back that part of your pond edge that you took out. When you do this, you'll see you now have extra liner as you've made your wall thicker and hence, the pond width/length shorter. It really isn't that hard to do, especially since you can get at everything without moving anything (except for pulling the liner back a bit so you can work).

Then of course, put the liner back. I'd think if you pack your new wall 6" thicker (pond 6" narrower), you'd gain the inches you need. See, as you fill, the water is gonig to pull the liner a bit anyhow, so you want some slack.

This is the way I'd do it as I'm not as confident in any seaming fixes.

Hope this helps.

sounds good! I do have a berm on one side I need to get rid of anyway,so I will just shove that dirt right down that darn hole.

hopefukly that will give me enough extra

 

[Lisak1]

@brokensword explained it better than I did - I would rather see your pond a tad smaller than your liner too short on any one side. That will be an ongoing aggravation. You will have sides that need to be raised down the road - guaranteed.

 

[TheFishGuy]

rock rock rocks

and cleaning up my worksite, that almost took more work than the rocks.......

of course I would have done more rocks, but that 500 pounds ran out quick, so we gonna go get another thousand pounds tomorrow, and hopefully that will be enough to keep me busy till next weekend when we can get the final thousand pounds. ( just for the inside )

I was not going to go with this rock, and took a big chance by getting this much, but I am really liking the look so far, I think I will replace some of the smaller rocks with bigger ones, as I am not quite digging that part, and it in no way looks natural, but I like it

 

[mrsclem]

Like the rocks but just be aware that they displace water volume so if you calculated your pond to be 1000gal it could be a lot less. Any idea how you are planning on keeping all those leaves out?

 

[TheFishGuy]

Like the rocks but just be aware that they displace water volume so if you calculated your pond to be 1000gal it could be a lot less. Any idea how you are planning on keeping all those leaves out?

I calculated the before volume to be around 1800 gallons, so maybe 1000 to possibly 1500 gallons after rocks. Does Not concern me too much, with only two growth stunted koi and a few goldfish I still think the pond will be plenty big enough, and as long as it still looks big I'm fine with it

The leaves have been overtaking right now, and before I fill it up I will use the shop vac to clean them all up, but after I get it filled I will be looking into a net for leaves.

Hopefully not something totally ugly, just low profile bird netting, small holes, and just something to put up in the fall.

 

[TheFishGuy]

couple of updates:

yesterday:

Today was just above freezing the whole day, so not too much done, and it was all with jackets hats and gloves.

AND, I got my largest inside fish tank ( 75 gallons ) drained and partially cleaned out, I got the lfs to rehome my current fish, cause the tank was getting overrun by algae and I had a mix of small fish. I am gonna replace it with either a pond tank, or a cichlid tank.

 

[cas]

Nice progress on your pond!

 

[GBBUDD]

Coming along nicely

 

[addy1]

Looking good. How is the fire doing?

 

[Mmathis]

How is your depth holding up? It does look shallow, and as already stated, the rocks displace water. It really does look like your overall volume has been compromised with all the rocks. It looks nice — great job — but when you fill it with water, I would definitely recommend getting a water gauge to monitor how much water goes in. It would be tragic (and disappointing) to do all this work only to find that you don’t have the water volume you expected.

 

[TheFishGuy]

How is your depth holding up? It does look shallow, and as already stated, the rocks displace water. It really does look like your overall volume has been compromised with all the rocks. It looks nice — great job — but when you fill it with water, I would definitely recommend getting a water gauge to monitor how much water goes in. It would be tragic (and disappointing) to do all this work only to find that you don’t have the water volume you expected.

It does look pretty shallow,

it got taken down from 32 ish inches to now around 28, but since the bottom layer is done that is bassicly the final layer.

I know this is borderline for koi, and so Mabye this pond isn’t for koi, but we will se once it is all finished up

 

[TheFishGuy]

Nice progress on your pond!

Coming along nicely

Thanks!

It is going a little bit better than I anticipated, let’s hope it continues that way.

 

[TheFishGuy]

Looking good. How is the fire doing?

We had another day like wendsay on Saturday, 50-70 mph winds ( in the mountains ) and dry.

that blew the fire up from 167 thousand acres too 200k.

the little offshoot got almost as big as the main fire, and the 43% containment level went in the trash.

they had to evacuate a couple of city’s near us, and our friends cabin just above horses tooth burnt.

not looking so good, we had some rain yesterday which really helped, but it is still progressing, thing is they are working on other places right now so we aren’t a major area that is getting .

We are still here though! And let’s hope that resivoir does it’s job!

 

[frogbath]

I really like the look of the rocks you picked out and how you arranged it. If you've got a leaf blower that's the ticket on the pre water clean up. Up until you and others convinced me to fill my pond blowing it out with the leaf blower was a multi time a day chore.

 

[TheFishGuy]

I really like the look of the rocks you picked out and how you arranged it. If you've got a leaf blower that's the ticket on the pre water clean up. Up until you and others convinced me to fill my pond blowing it out with the leaf blower was a multi time a day chore.

I do have a leaf blower, so I will blow out all the leaves in the coming days before the hose gets plopped on in

and thanks about the rocks! There are a couple places I dont like, but I think it will be a whole lot easier doing the foot deep shelf.