They had a smallish, shallow whiskey barrel type liner at our Lowe's. It wasn't as deep, like I said it was much shallower & not real big. It didn't have the spout either. Maybe that might work.

Hey there, Brenda. Lots of research does make things easier and total immersion in the topic, just like learning a new language, helps you catch on to the things that are important. This forum has a lot of info being talked about by lots of people, some of whom get pretty technical. There are plenty of others who keep it simple. Now I am going to be mean. Sometimes the limitations we cannot change make us give up some things we really want. A list of each can help see the realities. After I looked at the pond you like and read what you wanted, I realized you can't have all of it. I don't want to discourage you. You can still have a lovely and totally satisfying pond/water garden. The pond you like is a rigid preform. It is probably 72"x48" and 18" deep. It holds 125 gallons and will take 3-4 3" fish. Those dimensions are for Maccourt ponds which seems to be the most common preform. There are some new ones that are foldable made of virgin vinyl but that doesn't seem to be what you are looking at. There are also some pond kits that include plastic liners and EPDM rubber liners are very versatile. The volume of water in any of these ponds would prevent you from having koi. Koi grow to very large proportions and soon your fishies wouldn't have room to turn around, literally. I have a 1000 gallon pond and some of my 6" koi are now 12-14" after only one season. One that is 3 years old is now even larger than that. In addition I have a population of comets, sarrasa and other related fishies and they started breeding last year. Many of them started as 1" feeder fish. All of them need room to move! Fast! I'm getting nervous. There are many colorful fish other than koi that you would enjoy but you would need to control the numbers and figure out a way to keep them over winter. I put my gourami and guppies in the pond for the summer and put them back in aquariums in the winter. The cold would kill them. In your zone, it is possible for an 18 inch pond to freeze solid but more likely it would only have ice to 4-6 inches. I would wait through a full winter to see just how deep the ice goes before investing in fish other than goldfish. Gases that accumulate in the water could kill larger fish with only that much free water. An EPDM or plastic lined pond could give you the depth you need but the volume still would limit the number and type of fish. Don't despair! No one ever got it right the first time they were designing a home and you are designing a home for fish... and plants. Now that I have managed to scotch some of your dreams, (sorry, sorry, sorry) the necessary hardware can be put up for discussion. Sandy Here is a link that might be useful: preform ponds

Here's a link that might help. Most of the ponds are in-ground, but some of them are preforms, everything from wash-tups to stock tanks to the black Lowes-type preforms. There are a lot of pictures on this thread, so be patient. It may take a while to load. Here is a link that might be useful: I'll show you mine . . . .

Hi Think cc has the best idea if you have the room?? Wouldn't worry about filtration just make it easy to clean. The "waste " water certainly won't go to waste on an orchard.?? Automate it as much as your space and budget will allow as it will have to be cleaned at least every week. No use even trying to landscape it. I raised Wooducks and Mandarins many years ago on a half acre pond and it still showed signs of "ducks" lol. While most young birds are quite ugly baby ducks are adorable. So you have to choose either ducks or plants lol IMight also mention that three will soon become 6 or ten or more lol gary