"Aqua Scrapes". Really? Why be derogatory towards a company that has done so much to promote ponds and water gardens? That's just the way forums work. Pretty much every forum I've read there is a small set of people with a single perspective and they tell each other they're super. In high school we called them cliques. This pond forum here on gardenweb has shrunk a lot and the only reason we could have this discussion. In other forums there would have been a flood of posts pushing that clique's dogma. There is a concept in forums that it's OK to disagreement with an idea, like whether 1 or 2 drains will work in a 23'x43' pond. But the reality is if you disagree with an idea the person always takes it as a personal attack and respond with passive aggressive stuff as seen here. So this thread is very rare. It's cool in almost all pond forums to degrade Aquascape ponds, makes you in with the local clique. The only pond forums where it's OK to discuss Aquascape is in Aquascape specific forums. Can't take it too personal because it has nothing to do with ponds and everything to do with the people. Cross learning is never ever going to happen in any pond forum. It is just not in human nature. To me this is all really fascinating because I write software. Recently I found out there's a big business in writing robot software that act like people and post in forums and other places. Some forums pay for these to create traffic, all forums make it easy for robots to operate in the forum. It's estimated that 50% or more on posts on Twitter are by bots. The big money is having robots create a reputation over years and then having that respected robot push a product, recommend web sites to push traffic, post Yelp type reviews for sellers, etc. One robot doesn't earn a lot, but it's pretty easy to have hundreds with the right management software. I had one test bot on another pond web site, took a weekend to build. People love that bot. Gets likes, people talk to it. It even recommended a pump that someone said they'd buy. It's wild. The bot just always agrees with people. That's why they're there. None of this was possible even 10 years ago. Today it's easy. Search a forum, see bogs mentioned a million time and have your bot be pro-bogs. Koi Pond forum, push expensive filters. Fox News web site post anti-Democrat stuff. And the really cool part is people are totally OK with it. The stuff Facebook was recently found doing...no problem. A little grumbling, but no big deal. 10 years ago Facebook would have been in front of Congress for that. It's a whole new world. Pretty fun. So this clique thing happening everywhere has a plus side.

In answer to all of the above - I can't add anything to the present pump and tubing. The pump is submersed in three feet of water under several heavy rocks, and the tubing runs up and around under the waterfall. The guy who installed it was planning on "bleeding" me each Spring by removing the fish, emptying the pond, scrubbing it, refilling, etc. He told me to turn it off periodically to backwash it, which would clear the pre-filter. The way this thing is put together, I either have to run a second pump, and figure out how to camouflage it, and its tubing, or wait till this pump dies, take everything apart, and put in a better system. I am not happy about even having someone try to maneuver the tubing - the waterfall might have to be taken apart, to some extent. Today I climbed all over the waterfall, pulling off handfuls of string algae which was covered in brown muck. Most of the dirt washed down into the pond while I was working. I also added a load of extra rocks and pebbles in the three areas at the top of the waterfall which the water flows through before streaming down into the pond, hoping that some of the dirt would settle to the bottom up there, and the water would wash over the rocks, bringing down clearer water. For some reason, a lot of the rocks up there have either settled in, fallen in, leaving just open pools where the water just builds up, and then flows back into the pond. I know there are pond clarifiers out there which supposedly bind particles together, and cause them to sink to the bottom. Any suggestions? Is there a type of mechanical filter I could set up with a separate pump on the edge of the pond, to use occasionally, for some period of time, to clear some of the debris out? I can't put a skimmer in without pulling up all the landscaping, and cutting an opening in the liner, which comes out fairly far from the pond itself. I was wondering if there was a type of filter which I could just put into place occasionally - the equivalent of using a large pond vac.

Really neat. I live in Flour Bluff on the east side of Corpus Christi, and I am wanting to build a natural pond in my sandy backyard using clay and then lining the bottom with white rock and limestone. I want to make the pond look like the Comal River in New Braunfels ( a natural spring fed river) and plant it and stock it with plants and fish from the river. I live in a Zone 10A climate (nearly tropical) with an average annual low of about 31F. I have a tropically landscaped backyard, and I think having a natural spring looking pond would be awesome underneath my jungle canopy I am starting to grow in the backyard. I would like to make the pond about 10 - 12 feet long, about 8 ft. wide and about 4. 5 - 5 ft. deep. with a small waterfall and filtration for the fish and aquatic life. I would like to power this with a small solar panel attached to the fence or the roof of the house (where it can get some sunlight). Any suggestions? Thanks, John

The question might be exactly what is causing deterioration or even if there is deterioration. We really don't know from the information given. What kind of rubber lining is being used. The OP didn't specify EPDM. And UV could be involved since there is a skylight over it. sigh...Since actual rubber is used less and less while synthetic rubber is used more and more, terminology gets more and more confusing. EPDM is a synthetic rubber. While some tires contain rubber, synthetic rubber is becoming more common. There are any types of synthetic rubber. They are primarily petroleum products. I don't know why it is called rubber except it was developed as a replacement for natural rubber which is a very limited resource. All of it is subject to deterioration although isolation from chemicals and UV will extend it's life substantially. The water feature in this post was not filled with water for four years. So it has had more exposure to chemicals and UV so there is likely to be some deterioration. We don't know a thing about the water that is being used which can make a difference. Was the sand in the sand filter replaced? The guy who suggested the spa cleaners probably has a good idea but I have heard all sorts of complaints about those. I could come up with all sorts of things to check out but the easy fixes should be tried first and given some time. If it was my project, I would get rid of the sand filter first and have the water tested.