Rpe pond liner

40 GAL wide ZOOMED reptihabitat two asian painted frogs/ banded bullfrogs/ chubby frogs & one tomato frog half filtered pond , half false bottom & soil substrates automatic misting system (unnecessary, i know) & coconut fiber moisture retaining wall liners daytime viewing light & summer heat light glow in the dark dino skull for 😙🤌
any opinions on adding cory catfish or any aquatics to the pond? i haven't tested the water yet. dont have the quality specs.
thanks for droppin in. i love this community 🤙

Animals: 12x Giant Danio 7x Reticulated Hillstream Loach 3x Orange Rabbit Snail Plants: Valisneria americana Littorella uniflora Equipment: Fluval FX4 filter Fluval 300w glass heater Fluval aquasky 36-48in light Jecod 25-CP gyre pump Tetra 40 air pump 80lb Caribsea sand gray 40lb home depot river rock 1lb sm River stones 80lb garden center quarry rocks Styrofoam with pond liner to raise quarry rocks to different heights for perspective Overall cost: About 1000-1200 USD all costs included

I discovered this on one of my many trips to Home Depot. It’s inexpensive, comes in black and has been handy for a number of things.
NOTE: This should NOT be used in place of a good EDPM pond liner.
-If you’re digging the pond yourself over more than a day, count on it raining on the dig site. I used the plastic sheeting to cover the berm I was creating to keep it from washing away. Also useful for keeping tools and materials protected from the hot sun.
-I also used it as an extra layer of underlayment under the pond liner, and as extra padding underneath heavier rocks.
Just thought I’d share my discovery. Have a great day!

I inherited a quite large, neglected, 40 year old concrete pond. It was completely overgrown, it didnt hold water and had large visible cracks. Can you spot the 70 cubic meter pond?
https://preview.redd.it/3fcdgzrukr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=ccfb6ee8545fcd59a9618d8611f3d84bf1abcfde
After some excavation:
https://preview.redd.it/f3wn5sialr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=53f62cdf97b7635320cf3fe38431c66676b6590e
https://preview.redd.it/2os9p84klr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c0e087943327ad4d23b745de237b2d0926c5a46
​
And yes, Im sad that Japanese cherry tree had to go, but it was terminally ill. Maybe ill replace it.
I have googled and searched advice on fora, on reddit, and from professionals over the past few years on how best to proceed. Then I decided to ignore almost all of it.
"Mistake" #1: concrete instead of EPDM.
No company I found was willing to fix my concrete pond. They where scared the existing concrete was rotten, the rebar rusting, it would just crack again, they couldnt guarantee it.. Even when I suggested using the existing pond as just a big hole to make a new reinforced concrete one in, they refused. Everyone said, dig it all up, or put in a liner; but due to the complex organic shape of the pond, the enormous circumference that would need a new border, I just didnt see a liner as very feasible, - or very pretty.
I considered an epoxy or PU coating, but given the size of my pond, that would get very costly, and if the concrete cracks moved too much, there was no guarantee a coating would even hold. Its also something I can always add on top, but I cant go fix the concrete underneath if things go wrong.
So i did it myself. Having absolutely zero experience with masonry, not even knowing the difference between mortar, cement, grout and concrete, I googled and experimented, and finally did it the easiest way: just add a new cement layer with reinforcement mesh/ fabric over all visible and suspected cracks.
https://preview.redd.it/qpufzkonlr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=52d27a0f93dfe3e4591c9649bad727e200bce084
I used a pure sand / portland cement mixture, only added a clay colored pigment on the top coats, and a plasticizer - a local product called Compaktuna, that improves adhesion, water resistance and flexibility. Its something very well known here, all masons here use for just about anything cement or concrete, especially if its exposed to water, but it doesnt seem very well known abroad. Im sure there are similar products elsewhere.
https://preview.redd.it/qflthqeqlr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a16aa79ae2d5e2cbfdcdad21a539684b1f10152
​
https://preview.redd.it/odg0xewulr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=99ab1886dbfa1d73680430ab4f87421d77b4412b
I did a first (few) layer(s) last year, filled the pond up, and crossed my fingers during an unusually harsh winter that, despite my efforts to keep water flowing, resulted in 30cm thick ice.
https://preview.redd.it/fn1jwnveor4b1.png?width=1253&format=png&auto=webp&s=2f8162f162b991e9935da97fcab6c61359506b8d
It held up, no leaking, no cracking. Its too early to proclaim victory, it may start leaking or crack next winter or in 5 years. But liners can leak too, and now that I know what to do, if the concrete or cement lining cracks again, its really not that difficult to fix.
What will be very difficult to fix, is the fact the pond isnt level. Either it was constructed like that, or, more likely, it sank unevenly, but the left side of the pond is some 5cm higher than the right. Thats a bummer, I only noticed that after fixing it and filling it up. The only plan I have to "fix" that, is hide the higher border with plants :/.
Mistake #2: add fish prematurely, dont cure or acid wash the cement.
I mostly drained the pond again this spring, keeping just enough water to keep my lillies alive, so i could add a bunch more concrete and cement to hide some pipes, create some more planters and work on the swamp filters.
https://preview.redd.it/ru8ym9jlqr4b1.png?width=1253&format=png&auto=webp&s=e9a267069fb8733aae09acdfac379cab3168060e
I kept the swamp filters under water during the work, but the plants I had planted the previous year, just wouldnt grow. I wasnt going to add fertilizer to my water, and I couldnt wait, with the pond only filled 1/10th and the work not done, I added some sacrificial baby test koi, also to help get the nitrification cycle going.
Everything I read about concrete ponds said I should let it cure for several weeks, then acid wash the concrete, then cycle the pond a few times before it would be safe to introduce fish. But I couldnt find anywhere what actually would be dangerous about cement. And everything I read about curing cement and concrete said: if you can, cure it under water, it will be much stronger. So I did that, screw the fertilizer-fish, I kept the cement wet for half a day until it was dry-ish to the touch, started filling. The water became cloudy, and I would monitor the water and fish as the water rose, but if it killed the fish, so be it.
It didnt. My baby koi did just fine. In fact, if anything, my water quality measurements improved as the water level rose and more cement cured under water. Im using ground water that is very soft but has relatively (though not dangerously) high nitrate levels. I wasnt surprised at all when my GH hardness went up, as the cement would give off calcium and other minerals. Saves me from buying GH+. I expected PH to shoot up too, cement is supposed to be quite alkaline, but it didnt, PH remained steady around 7-7.5. What did surprise me was that the nitrate levels actually dropped, even though there where hardly any plants yet, and the ones I had wherent doing very well.
Later i found some scientific papers that describe how portland cement can and is used to reduce nitrates and anions in general from polluted ground water to make it safer as drinking water.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42247-021-00271-w
Not saying you should all deliberately add cement to your ponds, much less to drinking water, the chemistry is way above my head, and all kinds of more toxic chemicals might be added to various cement mixtures - but "pure" portland cement is clearly not as toxic as some would have you believe and it might even be beneficial.
Its been fully filled for over a month now, I had to add some KH+ because KH remained very low, but now all water parameters I test for are perfectly fine, my fish are thriving, the plants are finally doing ok. The water is fairly clear, but will turn greener on some days, I fully expect that may get a lot worse before it gets better. But it wont be the cement.
https://preview.redd.it/v7u7gtruqr4b1.png?width=1253&format=png&auto=webp&s=69c2298cebe78822b48dc9185909d3ca2f4caa1b
​
https://preview.redd.it/2plbvvrsor4b1.png?width=1253&format=png&auto=webp&s=ef9b72d1fa19492b1213c167903747081b22b65c
​
Mistake #3: lava filter.
I spent an ungodly amount of time thinking how i could add a biological filtration system to this pond, with its organic but highly impractical shape, without digging tunnels under the pondm drilling drainage holes in the concrete, or having too much unsightly pipework going in and out of the pond. I also needed something (large) that worked as a skimmer, as the pond is under some oaks and lots of stuff falls in to it. A little floating skimmer or a pond net alone isnt going to cut it.
I ended up doing what almost everyone in the koi forums will tell you not to do: lava beds. I used the two shallow lobes of the kidney shape. In the left one, I pump water from the bottom of the pond through a mostly hidden pipe to under the lava, via a mesh of perforated pipes distributing the water.
(Many more pipes where added later and looped in to each other).
It then flows through the lava over the wall, back in to the pond.
On the right, larger lobe, I do the opposite. I made some 3d printed floating skimmer doors in the retaining wall, and a pump pulls water through those doors from underneath the lava (through another mesh of perforated tubes) and sends it back in a jet aimed at the bottom of the pond.
​
https://preview.redd.it/474h88nkrr4b1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=d35cd6d22233e782c18dc6ace5e322f5dde9de37
https://preview.redd.it/2io6t7dyqr4b1.png?width=1253&format=png&auto=webp&s=90e434d1845e5e67119e6a77e8820c5b180deed3
On hindsight, I should also have put in aeration lines in those filter beds, I may still do this.
So far, my koi have not swam over the skimmer doors, but Im sure they can and eventually one will, but the water level in the skimmefilter is high enough that they can swim there and possibly find their way back.
Is this setup ideal? No. I know lava isnt nearly as efficient as "modern" filter media or moving beds or whatever is in vogue today, but I cant hide these filters, I want them to look natural, be a place for most of the plants and be a part of the pond. If I where to design a pond from scratch, I would do it very differently, and definitely make the filter areas larger, but I have to work with what i had, and I hope 3 cubic meter of lava will be enough, especially since I dont plan on a heavy fish load. If need be, I may add another even larger or at least deeper lava bed at the back of the pond in the coming years.
How will I clean it? Well, I probably wont, or not much more than picking up large debris in the skimmer area once in a while. I know, lava is supposed to clog and all that, but Im encouraged by the ponds of 2 neighbors, who use (what looks to me like seriously undersized) lava filters for their over stocked and over fed koi ponds. The filters havent been cleaned ever and both ponds (and koi) are 15+ years old. Their water is crystal clear, they dont even do systematic partial water changes, and only one has a problem with high nitrate levels because the lava bog filter's surface area is way too small and cant fit enough plants.
And even if it this system doesnt work well enough, it wont hurt, I can always add pipework and an external filter or swamp area, but I hope that wont be needed. Until then, ill just enjoy my mistakes !
https://preview.redd.it/9mem8nsrqr4b1.png?width=1253&format=png&auto=webp&s=6bd62a2501bc2f8653ab58448525d6da0ed7943c

Technically not aquaponics since I'm using ducks instead of fish, but I think there is a lot more potential than what I have. Right now it's some cement blocks and pond liner on a 4x8 torsion box lifted up on more cement blocks so it can flow back into a stock tank that my ducks happily fertilize. I'd like to build a lot more, because right now I'm collecting about 100 gallons a week and using it in the garden. Water has gone from green to very light brown (although the tank is discolored and makes it look off).
Only challenge is that they need to be up high enough to drain back into the stock tank (about 2 feet high). Wish I had better pictures handy, but I think you can tell what I'm working with. Ideas?

So, I have a front yard pond. I can't tell exactly how big it is but I think it's about 165-175 gallons.
I'd like to build this pond out. Obviously this is a preformed pond, so I'm open to a larger one or a liner.
How would you make this larger? Can anyone recommend a good preformed one which is larger or am I better off with a liner?
This is in the front yard so I don't have an unlimited amount of space, but could easily have something double the size.

I’ve made two ponds out of swimming pools one is a foot deep with a pond liner and some gravel and the other is a hard plastic baby pool I’ve lined with this plastic it’s all my mom could find and she keeps saying it will work but was wondering if anyone had any experience with it and if it will kill the plants I put in it I set it up to be a quarantine to make sure it doesn’t have hitchhikers do I have anything to worry about because my parents aren’t going to get me another pond liner and the don’t want to see the link baby pool underneath and any advice on the set up would be much appreciated the big one is the one with a pond liner I attached pictures of both materials thank you !!!!!!

Should I be concerned about these little guys? There was a lot more that were out of frame

Hello, Reddit! I wanted to share with you all an exciting project I've embarked upon. I'm in the process of building a pond, a substantial one at that – approximately 1100 square feet with a maximum depth of 5 feet.
Here are a couple of progress photos for you to see what I've done so far
The pond is situated in a natural depression area where water periodically gathers after a good rain. This seemed like the perfect spot to create a flourishing aquatic habitat.
Initially, I started with two 30 x 25' Reinforced Polyethylene (RPE) pond liners. However, effectively seaming them together turned out to be a real challenge. Despite my best efforts, water was leaking through the seams, thwarting my plan.
I wanted to come up with a way to fix this without removing the liner, since I had already added hundreds of pounds of stone to the edges and bottom before I found the failed seaming tape. To overcome this hurdle, I'm currently lining the pond with a robust steel mesh, which will be followed by a layer of concrete. This new strategy is aimed at achieving superior durability and a more secure water seal, while maintaining the natural aesthetic of the pond's location.
That said, I'm relatively new to the world of pond, building and would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions from those with experience in this type of pond construction.
Additionally, if anyone has tips for maintaining a pond of this size, especially one in a natural depression area, I'd love to hear them! And of course, creative ideas to enhance the visual appeal and future inhabitant-friendly features are more than welcome.
Looking forward to learning from you, Reddit. Let's collaborate to make this pond epic!
Thanks in advance!

In my recently built pond I have placed an overlay on top of the liner to protect it. It’s the same material as underlay (white fuzzy material, not sure what it’s called). I made sure the liner was wider than both under and overlay so they are never in contact thus preventing wicking of water.
It’s been dry recently and the pond level has dropped as you might expect but I’m wondering if having the overlay could be increasing the ‘wet’ surface area and increasing evaporation? What I mean is as the upper parts become exposed they stay wet and continue to lose water? All the overlay and liner in the shallows are covered by pebbles but still got me thinking… or over thinking?