My husband and I want to put a water feature in the ground near our deck and breakfast room window. We are not sure whether to use a preformed liner or a flexible liner. I've looked through the posts and don't see any discussion of this. We would appreciate any tips or opinions you might have. We have two goldfish who, to our suprise, stayed alive in a big clay pot on our deck. The whole thing was frozen almost solid but I guess they were dormant and our constant breaking of the ice (with hot water from the kettle) kept them alive.
We think we will start with a feature that is about 20 square feet.
New water garden
Today's EPDM pond liner has a guaranteed life of 20 yrs. and can accomodate nearly any width and, most importantly, depth. In your zone 2' for goldfish would be about as deep as you would need to go. Preformeds, if not installed properly can crack. Sometimes they crack even if installed properly. If they are going to crack it usually, but not always, starts at the top edge. However, I have a neighbor who's had one for seven years now with no problems. So, what I'm beating around the bush about here is depth. If your going to stay above two feet deep and with 20 sq ft of surface area the preformed may be the easiest way to go. Just be extremely cautious about installation. It has to be perfectly level and fully supported on the bottom and the sides - no gaps or pockets between the earth and the preformed. Preformeds are nice because they provide shelves for planting too. You could go with one more shallow, but if it's in the sun shallow water gets hot quick and you'll need to shade about half of the pond with plants.
Make sure your decking is not over the pond because some deck wood is treated with chemicals to preserve the wood but is lethal to the fish.
Congratulations on the pond decision!
Unless you have treated wood actually in the water as part of you pond the deck should not be a concern.
I personally would not use a preformed myself for the reasons Snapple described above. I would think it would be a real pain to get everything supported properly. With a liner you have a lot more flexibility. One thing to really consider is the padding under the liner to prevent stones and other debris from wearing a hole through it. A lot of places will let you haul away old carpet and that would be great to use as an underlayment.
Make sure that you also consider filtration and adequate oxygenation. A lack of oxygen can kill your fish very quickly.
Actually treated wood over a pond can drip into it and poison fish. Someone on a local pond walk told me it wiped out his first pond. He replaced the deck with another product.
Thanks MM! I thought once it had been sealed that the wood would not pose much of a danger.
Hi, checking in - I've got a 18' diameter bottom pond and used 45 EPDM. Couldn't be happier, and have had absolutely no problems with leaking or punctures. Since I enter my pond to clean it, I put old carpeting both below and on top of the liner - with a rustic look, it simply gets covered - I could not have had the flexibility of shape with a preform. Here's a pic of the liner when we put it in in 2005. - Dax
And last year, early in the summer - Dax
Dax, you're going to help me unroll the EPDM next year....riiiiiight? : )
It's not that bad. Don't let it lay too long on the grass in the hot sun, unless you want to sterilize that area!
Dax-very nice. Did you manually dig that hole? How long did it take you (and how many people). How did you get a used liner . . .? Wouldn't it be easier to rent a little bobcat thingy for a few hours (or am I oversimpliflying this?) The thing is, when my contractor did my pond I was out of the house for a few hours that day and the hole was dug in the little period of time. I saw the dirt and all the trenches but not the digging. I missed the good part of the movie!
Dax's brother owns a backhoe : )
Snapple, you overestimate how much grass I have, LOL. I don't have enough grass in my whole yard to lay under the sized liner I'm going to need for my pond!
Sure, IC - I'll be glad to help with the liner -
And mothermole - My two brothers came for one week in May of 2005 with a back hoe and a skid loader - I had all the materials all set, including the electricity laid. In one week, it went from this -
This message was edited Feb 21, 2009 1:41 PM
To this -
And this -
And this - was a fantastic week!!
WOW! When did you install your pond and how many gallons completely? Did you have a pond before this? Your pictures and breezy explanations make it look so easy!
Brings back memories! This is a 'before'
The hole.
The roll out.
This message was edited Feb 21, 2009 5:27 PM
Filling it up.
Some of the rockwork going in.
Today - It still evolves. A total Do-It-Yourself by folks who knew absolutely nothing about ponding the month before. There's nothing like jumping right in.
I have CONFIDENCE! I can do it! lol
Those look great you guys.
You're in for a good time 2RB!
I love both your ponds! I really love the stacked rock look and upper pond, on yours Snapple(and your doggies are adorable). And Dax, your streams and waterfalls are inspiring!
I'm thinking of building my own 55 gallon barrel filters on my next pond so I can spend all my money on rock:) Almost all the rock on my pond was free but I'd like some big boulders for a more natural look. I'll use the free rock too. Nothing like a spring rock hunt after they burn the fields and ditches:)
Snapps: Is that you in the first picture? I sometimes wonder what the people on this site (watergardens) look like. I'm going to start a new thread just for that. Everyone get your "skinny" "wrinkle free" pictures out! LOL!
You've got the skinny wrinkle free part right. If we meet at Gee's don't use that picture for an ID. You'll never find me. I'm a whole lot fatter with some definite wrinkles. That pic's nine years old. I think I've aged 15 in that nine. The only thing I havn't done is grey ( much).
Magically, I have all my gray vanish every 6 weeks compliments of my hair stylist named Barb. . .
Aging, it isn't nice is it. I can't read without reading glasses, I ache every morning from doing nothing, I have chronic neck pains and am still nursing my left ankle from tripping in a garden this past September. Let's not even talk about weight and wrinkles or age spots!
Fine by me! I need glasses, arch supports, Aleve, and am limping from a botched foot surgery. Uhg!
Okay, you two are scaring me, LOL!
It's the years, children and forkitis. ( I can't put one down.)
Mine are marriage (DH like to watch too much TV and I get bored and snack . . . yeah it's all his fault . . .) and chocolate- I'm particularly fond of Cadbury's Dairy Milk and yet again it's my DH fault-he's the English guy who introduced me to it! I recently read a book on the chocolate manufacturers and history. Cadbury's puts a chemical in their chocolate that makes it near impossible to not be addicted to it. It's been in their chocolate over 100 years. And since I'm in a blaming mood it's their fault I am fat! OK, I'm done now.
I'd eat a dish rag if it was dipped in chocolate.
MM, be careful - Cadbury Milk Chocolate was one of the things recalled due to melamine from using tainted Chinese milk.
I blame my husband for weight gain too, LOL. He tells me to take a hike when I do that - his reasoning is "I didn't put those (insert forbidden food here) in your hand!" In reality, it is probably just because I am comfortable with him. Plenty of my ex-boyfriends had no problem belittling me if - God forbid - I tried to eat something in front of them. My mom was pretty bad about it too. I would rather carry a few (dozen) extra pounds than ever deal with those scenarios again!
My big weakness is cheese, I love cheese and crackers! MM, your hubby can appreciate this - I am addicted to Carr's crackers. I even have some in my desk at work. Bad, bad Elizabeth.
I learned something the other day (I love cheese too) - cheese is basically controlled spoilage. Boy did that give me different perspective when I went to my favorite deli cheese market. I love to cook. Even though it's just the two of us now I still like to put together a good meal. My ethnic backgound is Checzkoslovakian from a town right on the border of Hungary. They invented more ways to use butter and sour cream in recipes than any other culture. I make noodles from scratch they way my grandmother taught me. She didn't even measure. Just drop an egg on the cutting board in a scoop of flour, pinch of salt and mix. Roll the dough flat, cut with sharp knife and plop in boiling water. What I need to do is find recipes that are fun to make and healthy. I keep saying I'm going to change my cooking style but I just never do it. It's so easy to fall back on making the meals that are in your head that you don't have to think about.
My mom is Czech, my dad German - I'm first generation American. You can imagine my horrible eating habits!
Here is something rather healthy I made last night:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/German-Red-Cabbage/Detail.aspx
I added small loin pork chops at the beginning of the recipe and let them steam with the cabbage. It was really tasty. I cut the vinegar by half, the original seemed like way too much.
So now this is water gardens and low fat low cal recipes? Weight watchers has excellent cookbooks and the food is great. I am on weight watchers but have been very poor at sticking with it these past two weeks. Too much Valentines candy laying around. My kids would kill me if I toss it but I think I will toss it by Friday and give them a head-up on it now to eat their hearts out . . . My kids are thin with a touch of muscle from their waist down from running. My husband's family gave them the "skinny gene".
IC: Yeah my husband loves cheese as well as one of my two sons. I can't stand it except melted and even then only a little. It bothers my stomach. As far as my husband and cheese and crackers, he hardly does that anymore in America but will do it when we are in his Mom's house. Some English habits were dropped in the migration and others stayed. Watching football (soccer), drinking foreign beers, and a big love for wine stayed with him. Mealtime is a big deal to him so he does a lot of the cooking at home.
That's a great recipe ic. I'ts on the menu for this week. Do you speak either language? I'm second generation. A big regret is not learning Czech from my grandparents. My grandmother died at age 86 of dimentia. No one knows how she lived that long. She had screaming hypertension and was as wide as she was tall!
To diet I have to be a little less stressed than I am right now. A sale of the business fell through at the last minute. So. I'll be eating a lot of comfort food I'm sure. However you both have inspired me to make a definite effort to find recipes that don't automatically register on the cardiac seismograph.
Thanks guys.
I stumbled on that recipe by pure accident, I'm not "really" dieting (unless you count "don't gain weight) right now, for the same reason as you snapple - too much stress going on. I have been actively trying to find healthier things to eat, spending some serious time in the vegetable area of the local whole foods store. I saw that red cabbage and bought it a week ago, not having a clue what I was going to make with it!