I build ponds for cash. Im going to give you some free pointers ! I like the right liners, but Im sure that the waterbed ideas and stuff of that nature work wellfor smaller ponds. When you build a pond dig the hole, dig it a few inches deeper than you want the pond to be. Line that with sand, atleast a couple of inches. That is the greatest liner in the world. It molds to shape, doesnt have sharp anything that will puncture the liner... SAND and for most areas its cheap to free to get some. Carpet pads may provide some preotection but I cant see it working well as it would leave so many pockets of air to let things work in from the bottom and ruin the liner. If you want it to last a life time consider pouring cement over the top of the liner. Iv done several this way, that cement over a liner ? leaks are rare. If it doesnt look like yuo want it to, you can paint it. They make a special paint that you can have tinted in about any color you like, that is like a liquid rubber. The liner, the cement, the paint, all make a sturdy pond. I wont get into the plants and stuff as everyone likes different stuff and state laws regulatte alot of plants that while I can have here you may not be allowed there and vice versa. As for fish, I tossed some feeder gold fish (Rosey Barbs and basic gold fish) in the pond, after 5 years they were nearly the size of Koy. The roseys died off, and never got bigger than about 2 inches anyways and would of been fish food, probaly some were. Crayfish, atleast here are classified wierd. They are a game fish, if you have a fishing license you can catch and keep as many as you can haul. But none can be removed from thew water they were caught at alive. A single live crawdad in your stash will get you some serious trouble. I dont knwo about anyone elses location, but if I were you, I would look into local laws. Here in Utah, the abatment council will come take a lok at your pond, test water, a few times over about a month. If you can keep it up to standards you can get free misquito fish from them in an effort to control the population of the blood suckers. As to rocks... Building ponds is fun for me, alot of work but something I enjoy. Im much better at that than I am at typing, I promise you. If I were looking for rocks in an area that didnt have them, or had them only at great cost, Id google, or hop my butt on over to the hypertufa forum. If you use tha method to build yuor rocks and waterfalls remeber its a slow process to finish it and use it with fish. Your using cemement, its very alkalie and leeches into your water. The same goes for using a concrete liner for the pool. Think about swimming pools, all that plaster all that crap, thats why the required PH factor for humans to swim in a pool. Its the same with fish in a pond. You sue that and you need to control the PH. You can add acid, or yuo can use it with no fish for a year or so and let it naturally stop screwing stuff up for you. Personally, with a few water changes (Not a good idea for a large pond, but OK for smaller ones) I can get the ph stable and fine for fish. Add the acid, run it for a few days, change the water, start over. after 2 or 3 changes over a month of time, but a water test kit, check the water PH, wait a week adn check it again to make sure its not climbing. If yuor in a bigger hurry, you can but a water test kit and water maint. kit and add the acid on a regular basis and test daily to keep the PH in a decent shape for fish. All of this stuff is discussed, as well as how to make the mix, and how to build the rocks on the hypertufa forum, and numerous websites you can find from google. Ther are alot of recipes for the mud, none are wrong, just give a different texture at the end. Also look into "skins" a latex skin of rock textures that you press onto the hypertufa rock before its set to give it that rock texture. While its green you can carve it and add more definition. I like to run my pips for the pumps, set a base, then spray foam up onto a basic shape for the entire fall. after 24 hours I carve and sand and use my dremil to get teh look I want and cover it in a mesh and mud it and work it from there. You can get some really great effects with a bit of practice. I would start small, making rocks and boulders to be used outside before making an entire waterfall. Hope this post helps someone to do it right and save some money and heartache.

One comment on manure from farm animals. Recent research suggests that kids that grow up around farm animals are much less likely to develop allergies than other kids. The theory is that the constant exposure to relatively harmless bacteria causes the immune system to focus on infective substances rather than on harmless materials such as molds and pollens, etc. I know of no studies that show that exposure to animals and manures (certainly plenty fresh on the farm) causes an increase in the infection rate of children (or adults). If you have worked on a farm, you know that you don't wear gloves all the time to protect yourself from the bacteria. It is to protect the hands from injuries. Agreed that exposure to e coli and other organisms that one has not developed a resistance to or a tolerance of can produce significant disease in an individual whose immune system has not be "hyped" up by continuous exposure to bacteria and other organisms. It is also highly likely that that individual has allergy problems. In the military (the same things happens when one travels), people coming for training from other countries tend to pick up significant GI problems from exposure to the local e coli and other bacteria. If you go to their country for long, you will probably experience the same thing. Again, in general, to contact an infective agent, usually a certain "load" is required to cause infection unless a person is severely immunocompromised. An example is typhoid where a healthy individual will need to consume in excess of 4000 typhoid bacteria at one time to contact the disease. Washing lettuce will reduce but not remove all bacteria. But it is not usually necessary (or possible) to remove all the bacteria (unless you cook it to 160 degrees for 20 minutes or boil it, etc). Our bodies have over many thousands of years developed amazing ability to tolerate our environment. It is reasonable to disagree on this. I'll have to admit I have eaten all kinds of things out in the garden (usually wiping off the obvious dirt first), and have not noticed and ill effect. But then my body has undoubtedly has developed a level of immunity to the organism in my garden. A level of respect for the danger of eating possibly contaminate food materials is certainly warranted. For me, fish pond water would not concern if it had been applied early in the production of the crops. Just an opinion.

Hey Sandy (nice to see the name of someone I recognize!) No I feed my fish twice a day in a small feeding ring. My father and sister in law both have fish (lots of them in what I consider very small ponds) that they don't feed. Only reason I feed the fish is that my pond is so big with so many places for them to hide that unless I tempt them to come up to the feeding ring I never even catch sight of them (and then get anxious that they have died) and so like to see them at least once a day just to be sure they are okay! At any rate I am just baffled by the foam - there is virtually no pond debris to speak of (that I can find anyhow - no leaves, acorns, decaying plant matter etc.) but I live under a dense canopy of mature hardwood trees and we have just completed our rather horrible yearly gypsy moth cycle and not to be too gross about this but when the gypsy moths are up in the trees munching on the leaves it virtually rains gypsy moth feces for a few weeks (it is so bad that at night when the feces is dropping out of the trees it hits the leaves of the trees and makes a patter so loud that you think it is actually raining!) At any rate, whilst I can blow this crap off of the decks and sweep the paths etc. I cannot control it falling into the pond (where it dissolves as soon as it hits the water) so now I'm wondering if this crap falling from the sky could be the culprit? I mean it's not like I've never had any foam before, but I've never had this much and for this long. Guess I'll just increase my filtration and continue the daily water changes... I would so love to drain the pond and scrub it and re-fill but I can't catch the fish...sigh...how does one catch such small fish in a large pond anyhow???

As an update: We sued the company that installed the pond. They are no fly-by-night place as they do most of the colleges and commercial locations in a 4 county area here in PA. We won our case but it did seem as if the judge was a bit overwhelmed by all of the information we gave him. The contractor sent one of the owners of the company to court and he was also very overwhelmed at how much information we had. We had books and pictures from his own site and that of Aquascape, his certification company. We did not win much money, but he did not pay the judgement we did win against him. I went to our county courthouse and even though it cost me 90.00 paid to have the judgement certified. An attorney told me that with the judgement certified, anyone who looks to see if he has any judgement against him will see that he does and he will have to explain it each time someone does a search. I also posted to angies list and the BBB. Our pond continues to have a few problems, but they are manageable without redoing the whole thin. We keep a deicer going in the winter and the pump going year round. We are careful to keep the pump and biofalls under close scrutiny. We salt and bacterize as needed and make sure the ammonia and nitrogen levels are stable. It has taken some of the fun out of it but we are not going to redo it unless we have no choice. Sorry so long between posts and thanks for the interest! Gayle