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Building Your Own Pond from a Pond Liner Kit ... Complete Instructions
What's in the kit?1 2.5m x 3m (8ft x 10ft) 0.35mm PVC pond liner enough to make a pond approximately 1.5m x 2.1m x 0.45m deep (5ft x 7ft x 18ins deep) 1 submersible pond pump for use with the biological filter box 1 biological pond filter 2 metres of 20mm corrugated crushproof tubing 2 hose clips suitable for the tubing 1 250ml bottle of Pond Water Dechlorination Treatment 1 250ml bottle of Blanket Weed and Algae Control 1 100g tub of Tetra Floating Food Sticks for Fish TOOLS and other materials you might need. For the excavation Spade, shovel, straight edge and spirit level (or very long spirit level). 6 x 25kilo bags of soft sand or pieces of old carpet For covering the pond liner around the edge Suitable flat stone, brick, sett or paviours: the quantity will depend upon their size. Bear in mind they will have to reach around the circumference of the pond, which will be over 7 metres in length (nearly 24ft). If the choice of edging consists of fairly small units then they will have to be cemented into place around the edge. This can be done with 4 x 25kilo bags of Readimix cement mortar, or 3 x 25kilo bags of sharp sand and 1 x 25kilo bag of cement. METHOD
Lay the liner into place in the excavation. Smooth it out and push it into the crevices of the excavation. Hide some of the inevitable creases by gathering them together into larger folds. Hold the liner in position with smooth flat stones. Fill the pond with water. Now the liner will be truly pushed into place. Trim the liner allowing a 15cm overhang around the top edge of the pond.
Place a small conduit through the edging, like a piece of reinforced hose, and run it (underground) to where you will connect the electrical supply. Thread a long piece of garden wire through this.
 Unpack the bio-filter and set it up according to the instructions in the box. Connect the tubing from the pump to the bio-filter inlet (the left-hand side hose tail) using the hose clip. 16) Attach a suitable plug to the pump cable an d plug it into a fused mains supply, separate from domestic supply, via an RCCD trip switch. Planting The Pond The pond needs to be planted with a complete cross section of plants in order to help the biological filter keep your pond clear. It will need: 16 bunches of oxygenating weed, one water lily , 7 marginal plants, 4 floating plants and possibly one more deep-water plant a small lily or perhaps a water hawthorn. For these you will need 25 medium aquatic baskets with very fine mesh sides and a large 25kilo bag of pea-gravel. Also you will need 3 large bags of pond soil or some good chemical free garden loam (not silty). Fill one basket to the top with pea-gravel and push in all of the bunches of oxygenating weed into it. Slowly submerge the basket to the bottom of the pond. Fill all of the other medium baskets with the soil to within 10cm from the top. Remove the marginals, deep-water plant and lily from their small baskets and plant each one into an indentation in the soil of each basket; backfill with the soil to the surface of the soil at which each plant was planted; firm into place. Top off the surface of the soil with pea-gravel. This prevents the soil from drifting out of the basket or being dug out by fish.
Add the water treatment as prescribed on the side of the bottle. This will age the water in a matter of hours. However it is better to leave the pond and plants for a further three to four weeks before adding any fish in quantity. This will be the time it takes for the filter to acquire an active bacterial colony. Turn on the pump, check the filter is operational and check for leaks at the hose unions. For the filter to be properly effective as a bio-filter it must be run 24/7. Turning it off for more than 2hours at any one stretch will mean the death of the valuable bacteria. After 3 weeks begin to add fish up to a maximum total length of 70inches (1.8metres). It would be recommended to keep the population well below this especially in the first year. AFTER CARE Begin feeding the fish 2 to 3 days after arrival. Ensure the water temperature is above 10c. Only feed as much as they can eat in 5minutes. Net off any uneaten food. If you have to top up with tap water use the dechlorinator as instructed on the bottle. If you have problems with blanket weed or algae, use the Blanket weed and Algae control according to the instructions with the bottle. Wait for at least six weeks after the pond is established before you use any algicide. If and when you do, turn off the bio-filter for one week after treatment. Check the pump and its pre-filter each week. There is no need to run it when temperatures are close to freezing. Check the filter every month. Rinse out the filter every six months with pond water or rainwater. In winter, raise the pump to the marginal shelf level. Turn off the pump if the temperature threatens to drop below 5c. When the temperature rises permanently above 7c in spring, rinse out the filter medium with rainwater and start the system again.
Instructions by PeterJ.May2006-03-16. To learn a lot more about how to create the perfect pond. Your whole family will suddenly find a new exciting interest in the garden as a whole. Peter May also has sites showing previous water feature plan sketches as well as a site about solving pond problems |
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Choose a firm roughly level site in a
sunny sheltered place away from trees. Above all consider safety for when
children are about. If it is visible from the house, it is safer and it can be
seen in winter when you dont feel like being out in the garden as much. Also
bear in mind accessibility to electrical power and water.
Lay out the size and shape. This can
be done with a rope or piece of hose. Keep the shape simple e.g. rectangular,
oval or kidney shaped. Complex shapes cause ugly creases in the liner. The
maximum width must be under 1.5metres (5ft). The maximum length must be under
2.1metres (7ft). The maximum depth must be 45cm (18inches).
Cut away the turf within the shape
down to make a firm level area. This must be deep enough so that the edging will
all be below the level of the surrounding turf. If the excavation is in a soil
area, the same applies. This will be the water level. To make room for the
edging, this level area must be extended beyond the bounds of the laid out shape
by the same width as the edging stones or paving. Check all around the edge with
the spirit level.
Make an initial excavation 22cm deep
inside the shape that is laid out. Angle the sides back at 15 20 to the
vertical. Check all around the edge with a spirit level. This will be the level
at which the marginal plants sit in baskets.
Leaving a shelf area 25cm wide,
excavate a further 22cm to 25cm deeper within the initial investigation. Once
again make the sides slope in at 15 to 20 to the vertical. The excavation must
not exceed 46cm. Ensure there are no sharp stones in the base of the hole.
Smooth out the excavation and consolidate the surface with some sort of thumper
or ram. Check that the base and top edge of the pond is level
Spread 2.5cm of soft sand on the inside
of the pond. This can be smoothed into place with a trowel or a spade. You can
use old carpet instead to line the bottom of the excavation.
A stone, paving or even wood edge can
be laid into place onto a bed of cement mortar. This will hold the liner in
place. Ensure that there is an overhang of at least 2cm to help shade the liner
from the effects of the Ultra-violet rays from the sun. Special glue especially
designed for the purpose can be obtained from Blagdon Water Gardens for those
people who dont like dealing with mortar or are afraid of lime from the cement
leaching into the pond. Timber can be pinned into place with long thin metal
rods. If you do get cement mortar into the water you will need to empty it out
and replenish. 
Take the pump hose tail from the pump
box and cut off the 12mm (1/2inch) section. Screw it into the pump and connect
the hose to it using one of the hose-clips. Place the pump in the pond on the
bottom farthest away from where the filter box will be situated. Tie and tape
the pump cable to the garden wire and draw it through the conduit. 
Place the baskets in the pond. The
lilies and deep-water plants can be placed on the bottom and the marginal plants
can be placed on the shelf around the edge. The floating plants can be dropped
in to find their own level. If the lily you have chosen is not very
vigorous, it will be wise to place it on some bricks, piled up 2 high, until the
plant seems to have settled in.