Pond Liner For Fish Pond or Water Garden
Most Popular Fish-Safe Pond Liner for Small Koi Ponds and Water Gardens
The first thing you should do is make sure the pond liner is fish-safe. This is vital. Fish-safe liners come in a range of thicknesses which are created out of different material. The most popular for a koi pond or water garden are 45 mil EPDM rubber pond liners. These liners are quite thick - about 1/8" and so are very pliable and 'rubbery'. They remind you of a bicycle inner tube, but thicker. They come in a variety of sizes with dimensions which are divisible by 5'. For instance, a 10' x 10' pond liner would come pre-boxed and prepared to ship. Pond liners up to 400 square feet (for instance a 20' x 20' liner) could be shipped via UPS. Larger, 45 mil EPDM liners which are heavier and packaged differently, require shipment via motor freight and can be found in rolls with the biggest size being 50' x 100', all in one piece. These rolls are usually transported to the pond site with a front end loader with a fork that fits in to the opening of the roll that the liner is rolled on. These liners can weigh 1,500 pounds or more and once at the website, are rolled out close to the pond's edge and strategically placed into the excavated area.
HOTTEST Fish-Safe Pond Liner for Large Fish Ponds
There are a couple of options for those people who are looking to create a large fish pond or water garden where they might require a liner bigger than 50' x 100'. In this instance, the 2 2 most popular options are to buy 2 or even more rolls of the 50' x 100' 45 mil EPDM pond liner (or whatever size you will need) and splice them together (see below for splice information) or purchase a different sort of liner that will come in a much bigger size and is made all in one piece! I'll explain both options further in order to decide which sounds probably the most appealing to you.
How to Splice Two 45 mil EPDM Pond Liners Together
Although there are step-by-step procedures that certain must follow to splice 2 bits of 45 mil EPDM liner together, in a 'nutshell' what you ought to do is lay both pieces on a very flat surface such as plywood or for larger applications, a set parking lot or driveway. You unroll each liner and carefully overlap one edge of the liner on the edge of the other liner. Ideally, this overlapped area should be about 6" wide for the length of both liners. A two-sided, sticky, EPDM pond liner tape (called a splice tape) is then rolled out onto the edge of underneath liner which has recently been carefully cleaned and primed. The edge of the top liner, which has been cleaned and primed is carefully laid onto underneath liner. The spliced area (ie; overlapped area) is then rolled with a roller to make a tighter seal. In addition, an EPDM pond liner cover strip that is approx. 6" wide and contains one side that's sticky, is then adhered over the seam joint from the two 2 spliced liners. Next, a bead of rubber caulking made specifically from the manufacturer who created the 45 mil EPDM liner, is ran along both edges of the cover strip. After 24 hours of drying, the liner can then be moved into place. You can splice as many pondliners as you need together as a way to create the right size of liner you will need for your application.
The advantage of having a large, 45 mil EPDM pond liner is that it's a heavy-duty liner and is 'rubbery' which gives it greater flexibility and 'forgiveness' with any protruding rocks that could surface from the already prepared and raked out area for the pond. The downfall of using a 45 mil EPDM pond liner for larger applications is that it is heavy which requires higher shipping costs and much more manpower to go it into place.
24 Mil Woven, Polyethylene Pond Liners
24 mil woven, polyethylene pond liners are excellent liners for large ponds whether they're for large koi ponds, water gardens, large fish ponds or for aquaculture uses. pond pumps offer great strength and so are light weight. Unlike other polyethylene liners that simply stack layers after layers along with each other in the manufacturing process, this polyethylene liner is woven together gives it more strength. Another huge benefit to this liner is that it is custom made to size and can come all in one piece up to 65,000 square feet! Pretty sweet for a large pond application!
Unlike PVC pondliners that are on the market for large fish ponds, the 24 mil woven, polyethylene liner doesn't require 12" of soil on top of it to protect it from Ultra violet rays. This specific liner is UV stabilized so that it can last for a long time! Because they're lighter weight, they are cheaper to ship and require less man capacity to maneuver. They're only offered in larger sizes and do not come pre-boxed like the 45 mil EPDM liners do. Each 24 mil woven, polyethylene liner is custom made to size in increments of 5'.