long story short, pond liner gave out in April, and koi, goldfish and plants have been hanging out in 2 -100 gallon rubbermaid tubs. My wife gave me an out by telling me we could sell the plants and fish and worry about it later. i decieded to redo it. it went from 11'x7' 2' deep to somewhere around 17'x25' 4' deep with a waterfall, stream,and bog area. Are there any helpful hints as to mistakes people made in the past building a pond that i can avoid? the plan is to put the liner in on Saturday.

Hi Matt

glad to hear you are re-doing the pond I be it looks good. I use a food grade 55 gal plastic barrel as a filter for mine. My pond is 16W X 22 L looks like and oval or egg shape with a 4 foot waterfall, I used the dirt from digging it to bury the drum I can access it from the top and have plants to cover the top to hide it. I used a 11/2" line from the pump to the barrel and it fills from the bottom to the top where I have two 2" pipes I use as a over flow about 4 inches from the top that goes out over the top of the waterfall. Please dont fillthe barrel with lava rock It is a pian in the but to clean. I use a poly bag full of shreaded plastic straping for filter media. I have my pump in a bucket that is coverd with pond floss the blue kind and it catches almost every thing going in to the bucket I also have some lava rock in the bucket to weight it down and to keep the fish out. you going to see the koi guy any time soon ??

Dale

Hi, I have a kio and goldfish pond 20'X20' and tiers down to 4' in center. I just had to redo my pond and have found a few things that were helpful to me along the way. With the waterfall..run water from top down if you have it coming out each level. (my first time doing it, i made the mistake of running it from the bottom up) 2nd, I use a swimming pool sand filter and pump. Yes a pain when you start it up but well worth the results if you have a problem with algea (which i have had in the past. i have because it gets 100% sun...i have no shaded areas other than what pond plants offer) and 3rd..get a UV sterilizer for it...best investment i made for $65 on ebay. Mine has been up and running forn about 8 wks now and its as clear as the day i finished it. Hopefuly this will help aliitle along your way. I will try posting some pics of it...i think its pretty sweet. Best of luck, hope something helped you some.

I think pix of the progress would be cool. 

thanks for the info. went to the koi guy last week for food and bought a lotus. going to hold off on more fish until it is complete. will let you know when we plan on going again.

Tropicorium has (has) some amazing Koi in some pictures they posted.

Just a FYI.

first picture is after we have removed all of the rocks from the old pond, the second shows the boulder retaining wall we had to build to get the waterfall/stream some height. don't forget this is in the middle of my driveway which limits what we can do. all plans and budgets has gone out the window.

goin big time, looks like it's off to a rockin start

You said you were building a pond, not a lake!