Some say that failure is a stepping stone to success and that it is only through failure that one obtains the knowledge to succeed. I say why suffer the agony of defeat when you can learn from the dumb mistakes of others? To that end, I am happy to offer my own experience as a guide for what not to do when it comes to pond construction and maintenance. If you still believe that personal failure builds character, please feel free to apply the following character-building tips:
Use a cheap plastic liner. When I built my first pond 12 years ago, I was determined to save money by shopping around for the best deals on individual components. I bought some PVC liner direct from a local manufacturer. During the first two weeks, the pond looked great and I took pride in the fact that I had done it on the cheap. By week three, nearly all of the rocks in the pond had slid down the face of the slick liner and piled up at the bottom, leaving the liner exposed to the sun. Within a year, the liner had cracked and was leaking bad. Any initial cost savings were quickly eaten up by my water bill while trying to keep the pond full; not to mention the eventual cost of replacing the liner with the appropriate 45 mil EPDM.
Any old pump will do. A pump is a pump is a pump, right? I only knew that I wanted to pump a lot of water. So, I purchased an above ground pool pump, connected it to a bottom drain, and routed the discharge line to the top of my waterfall. The result was a
noisy, inefficient pump that cost a lot of money to run and always struggled to prime itself at start up. Not good.
Filter shmilter. The pool pump was attached to a large sand filter that looked like the new years ball in Times Square. I soon learned that sand filters are made for filtering chlorinated pool water, not algae and fish waste. I also learned that retrofitting a pond after the fact with properly sized mechanical and biological filtration is not as much fun as doing it right to begin with.
Use a water hose to fill your pond. Because my pond was leaking, I was constantly dropping the hose into it to keep the water level up. This method worked fine… until the day I forgot that I had left the water on. Four hours later, three of my neighbors had their very own backyard water features. Float valves are a wonderful thing.
Feed the birds. No one appreciates the importance of fish caves, nets, and motion activated sprinklers (AKA “The Scarecrow”) until they lose a pond full of koi to a hungry
predator. In my case, it was a lovely grey heron that enjoyed a $300 fish dinner at my expense.
Don’t seek the advice of experts.
Unfortunately, when I built my first water feature, Buck’s was not the “one-stop-pond-shop” that it is today. Even if it was, my ego may still have prevented me from reaching out for help. The result was a piecemeal installation that was far from the hassle-free,
peaceful oasis that a pond should be. Today, with numerous successful pond installations now under my belt, I can tell you that there is no shame in seeking feedback from those in the know.