Sandy This "wall" is a bit hard to describe . It has several main functions but the primary purpose was to provide vertical grow space for various types of epiphytes. It is also a heating,cooling ,as well as a self watering self feeding (maybe??) system. lol I'll just describe the layout method of only the "wall" because it takes a book to describe the whole thing.lol It is located on the north side of the shadehouse wall,attached to the house wall, made mostly of 'painted expanding foam. It is above and behind the 150 aquarium. It has various "pockets" as well as natural materials for holdfasts for various types of plants. It is made and painted to look like a "rock " wall. It is 7x10 feet at this point. Water is forced by a pump from the aquarium to the 5 foot level of the wall at a very low flow rate so it drips accross 7 feet of the wall. i call this a "seep" because it's too slow to be called a waterfall ??lol The water flows down the wall and collects in a 2x6 foot "marsh garden" from there it flows into the lily pool which is located outside the shadehouse in the yard. After being filtered it is returned to the aquarium. The main purpose of all this was to expand the various types of grow areas and integrate the systems into a single system. Go from full sun to full shade, submerged to very dry. The goal is to make a "rainforest" rather than a collection of hanging pots in a grow area. Provide a home for the fish, lizards, frogs and birds . Pix have not turned out well for several reasons besides the fact that I don't have a camera lol. None of the construction pix turned out at all and now the wall can't even be seen due to the plant growth. lol. 3 feet is as far as you can get from the aquarium due to terrestrial growth so can't even get all the tank in one pic.lol There is also shading , and reflections from the glass. i look at my pix and I get confused as to what it is lol. I can see that the whole area is WAAAYYY to small and I'm hoping to expand to 25x25 feet and gain some roof height at least a couple of feet. Hoovb Don't need to test to know that all these chemicals are present due to the fact the water is coming from cycled pond water. The question is what is too much ?? The water and marsh plants are no problem as you can't OD them but Epiphytes is a whole different story. So far have not added any fertilizer to the wall part but feel almost certain that it's too weak particularly with "trace" minerals". But maybe not a problem??? thanks gary

Hi Steve, Let me answer some of your concerns. If you have a tree branch that is large enough to tear the liner in the pond will also tear up the clay. In each case they both will leak. The liner can be repaired usually fairly easily. That is also true of the clay. The liner has a life span of about 50 years. Yes animals can chew a hole in the liner but far less likely than with a clay pond. You won't have a problem with either moles or voles. You can have a problem with chipmunks and mice at the surface of the pond or muskrats below the water level. But the liner will be easier to repair in any case. I have had cattails planted in liner ponds for 20 years and they have never put a hole in the liner. With clay they would not have a problem growing through the clay. For the most part any unnatural creases will disappear once algae starts to grow. Yes there can be some waste with liner ponds and liner can be heavy. I would say that all these things came from the website that was trying to sell you on clay. They told you some of the downsides of a liner pond but not the down sides of a clay bottom pond. Almost all clay ponds leak. It is just a question of how much. Clay ponds are almost never as clear as a liner pond. Any roots can grow though the clay. You talk about ground water lifting the liner. If you have a clay pond that is totally sealed the ground water will lift the clay until it leaks ground water in. Once that happens when the ground water goes down the clay will continue to leak the liner won't. Getting debri out of a clay pond is a pain. This is just a few of the problems with clay ponds. There are more and I won't go into them here. There is a reason why most smaller ponds a liner and not clay. Mike

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

Joann...I moved my 4000 gallon pond from the back of my yard to the deck...per request from my neighbor as needing more shade to help with the green water..I also increased the filter size..and added a stream that I didn't have in the other pond...I'll post a link on before and during....all 10 ton of rock and liner LOL..Anne darling...I have had a few beer spills over the last week LOL...I'm not sure how many gallons the new pond is yet...I'll figure that out later...I worked on it 3 more hours today.(33 Hours so far on redo)..I'm getting close to running out of rock..will have to get a few more ton...and I'm not totally happy with the flow...plan on adding more pump gph...3280 gph pumping up 6-7' through a 1" 40' line takes away from the flow..Thank you for the comments.....Dave :-) Here is a link that might be useful: BeforeandDuring