Most Popular Fish-Safe Pond Liner for Small Koi Ponds and Water Gardens
The first thing you want to do is make sure the pond liner is fish-safe. This is vital. Fish-safe liners come in various thicknesses which are made out of different material. The most used for a koi pond or water garden are 45 mil EPDM rubber pond liners. These liners are very thick - about 1/8" and are very pliable and 'rubbery'. They remind you of a bicycle inner tube, but thicker. They come in a variety of sizes with dimensions which are divisible by 5'. For instance, a 10' x 10' pond liner would come pre-boxed and prepared to ship. Pond liners up to 400 square feet (say for example a 20' x 20' liner) can be shipped via UPS. Larger, 45 mil EPDM liners which are heavier and packaged differently, require shipment via motor freight and can be found in rolls with the biggest size being 50' x 100', all without trouble. These rolls are typically transported to the pond site with a front end loader with a fork that fits into the opening of the roll that the liner is rolled on. These liners can weigh 1,500 pounds or even more and once at the website, are rolled out close to the pond's edge and strategically placed in to the excavated area.
HOTTEST Fish-Safe Pond Liner for Large Fish Ponds
There are a handful of options for those people who are looking to create a large fish pond or water garden where they might require a liner larger than 50' x 100'. In cases like this, the 2 2 hottest options are to buy 2 or more rolls of the 50' x 100' 45 mil EPDM pond liner (or whatever size you will need) and splice them together (see below for splice information) or purchase a different sort of liner that will come in a much bigger size and is made all in one piece! I'll explain both options further so you can decide which sounds probably the most appealing to you.
How to Splice Two 45 mil EPDM Pond Liners Together
Although there are step-by-step procedures that certain must follow to splice 2 pieces of 45 mil EPDM liner together, in a 'nutshell' what you should do is lay both pieces on an extremely flat surface such as plywood or for larger applications, a set parking lot or driveway. You unroll each liner and carefully overlap one edge of the liner over the edge of the other liner. Ideally, this overlapped area should be about 6" wide for the length of both liners. A two-sided, sticky, EPDM pond liner tape (called a splice tape) is then rolled out onto the edge of the bottom liner which has recently been carefully cleaned and primed. The edge of the top liner, which has been cleaned and primed is carefully laid onto underneath liner. The spliced area (ie; overlapped area) is then rolled with a roller to make a tighter seal. In addition, an EPDM pond liner cover strip that is approx. 6" wide and has one side that's sticky, is then adhered over the seam joint from the 2 2 spliced liners. Next, a bead of rubber caulking made specifically from the maker who created the 45 mil EPDM liner, is ran along both edges of the cover strip. After a day of drying, the liner can then be moved into place. It is possible to splice as many pondliners as you need together to be able to create the correct size of liner you need for your application.
The benefit of having a big, 45 mil EPDM pond liner is that it's a heavy-duty liner and is 'rubbery' gives it greater flexibility and 'forgiveness' with any protruding rocks that could surface from the already prepared and raked out area for the pond. The downfall of utilizing a 45 mil EPDM pond liner for larger applications is that it's heavy which requires higher shipping costs and more manpower to move it into place.
24 Mil Woven, Polyethylene Pond Liners
24 mil woven, polyethylene pond liners are excellent liners for large ponds whether they're for large koi ponds, water gardens, large fish ponds or for aquaculture uses. They offer great strength and are light-weight. Unlike other polyethylene liners that simply stack layers after layers along with each other in the manufacturing process, this polyethylene liner is woven together which gives it more strength. Another huge benefit to the liner is that it's custom made to size and may come all without trouble around 65,000 square feet! Pretty sweet for a big pond application!
Unlike PVC pondliners that are available for large fish ponds, the 24 mil woven, polyethylene liner doesn't require 12" of soil on top of it to protect it from UV rays. Helpful site is UV stabilized so it can last for years! Because they're lighter weight, they're cheaper to ship and require less man capacity to maneuver. They are only offered in larger sizes and do not come pre-boxed like the 45 mil EPDM liners do. Each 24 mil woven, polyethylene liner is tailor made to size in increments of 5'.