[hubballi]

Hang on,    I put in my measurements on various websites that it is going to be 4ft x 3 ft x 18 inches deep and they gave me the liner to be 2,5 meter x 2.2 or so. I think you may have your wires crossed.

[8doubles]

Savbo has allowed for the pond being twice the depth you have , i think between the two at about 24" is plenty for a wildlife pond.

[hubballi]

The reading up I have done suggests a minimum of 18 inches deep.

[savbo]

18"/45cm is OK but not as good as 2'6"/75cm for providing a frost-free refuge area.

3' wide and 18" deep requires a liner 3' + (2x18"=) 3' ie 1.8m so you'll have a lot of spare width from your 2.5m. Your length is much closer but still with some spare...(1.2m + 0.9m=2.1m). All I was giving is a maximum size from that liner...

[hubballi]

All the info I pulled from the net suggested 18" is enough for depth. I have less than that in my small plastic round pond and have had frogs all the time. I could just improvise until I get the maximum out of the liner.

[JayG]

Try to incorporate a sloping area to make it easier for animals to crawl in and out, and a deeper area to help make sure at least part of the pond will not freeze solid in winter.

Don't make the shape more complicated than necessary though as you will just make life more difficult for yourself when you come to fitting the liner (lots of fancy shelves = lots of tricky folds and ultimately less pond from your piece of liner.)

[hubballi]

Ok, great advice  It's pretty exciting geting a decent pond. I remember putting Water Boatmen in this small one a few years ago and they seemed to fade. Never saw them again.

I would really like them again as well as pond skaters. Already got some marsh marigolds and iris but they do tend to form a large clump of root that takes up all the space.

[savbo]

You probably know already, but there are 2 types of boatman, one swims on its front and eats algae and the other on its back and eats animals. The former will usually survive in any clean water but if there isn't enough of an ecosystem going the carnivores could die out... they also both fly as adults...

pond skaters can be caught and introduced, i've never actually seen them colonise a pond on their own but presumably they can.

And one day the sun will glint off the water and down comes a great diving beetle. I was washing a car once and one landed next to me with a very big thump. Must have had one hell of a heache but was still alive and was fine once in the pond...

[hubballi]

Never had a great diving beetle in my small round pond. Can't wait to see what happens. We live in a pretty rural area with natural ponds not too far away. Would it be good to tip the water and mud in my already small pond into this new one ?

[savbo]

it's always good to start things off that way - at the weekend we installed a new larger pond on the allotment and used as much of the saved water from the old pond as we could. Some mud is good but if there's quite a bit of it I'd maybe leave some aside to help keep the water clear. We have a bucketful of mud that we don't want to transfer so I'm going to wash it through a sieve to see what creatures i can save before i put in the beds...

The best creature I ever had was when I discovered (40 years ago now!) that along with the weed I had collected for my little pond was a water spider... spent hours watching it come up and collect air to fill its little diving bell. Not seen one since in 40 years of pond-dipping...   

[hubballi]

Just opened my liner and it's huge. Absolutely massive. They sent me a larger size than ordered. It's 3 x 2.5 meter. Still charged the same.

[evie2]

We put our first pond in during the early May BH, plants the next day and fish a few days after that.

Six weeks latter we had baby fish, water boatmen, frogs, newts, dragon flies, you name it, we had it, that was several years ago now and every year it just gets better

It's also in full sun all day, the frogs love it, so does wee Evie

[hubballi]

We put our first pond in during the early May BH, plants the next day and fish a few days after that.

Six weeks latter we had baby fish, water boatmen, frogs, newts, dragon flies, you name it, we had it, that was several years ago now and every year it just gets better

It's also in full sun all day, the frogs love it, so does wee Evie

What size is your pond ?

[evie2]

It's a wild pond of about 10 to 12 feet across depending on where you measure, it has a shallow end with pebbles where the fish spawn the rest of the depth is irregular as the area it's in was an old rose garden and we decided as we were putting a lining in it we didn't need to level it.
 
We also have a small preformed pond, surrounded by herbs, set against a south facing wall which has no fish but does have a large community of newts :happy:

 

[hubballi]

Now I have the liner there are two colours. Black or brown. Not sure if brown will be too light. Has anyone got brown as a liner ?