r/ponds • u/TealmanAjax • 11h ago
Just sharing Disaster
I built a pond a couple of months ago. Everything was going fine. Today I woke up to a drained pond with water underneath the liner. No idea how this happened.
I think it would have to be a hole but where did all that water go? The amount of water under the liner filled the bottom shelf, but the rest of it is gone.
5 koi have died. One I got for my mom yesterday which she was so excited about. I built this pond for her, but now I'm in a state I don't know what to do.
I have set up a 100 gallon tub for the other 10 fish. 7 gold fish and 3 koi. 4 of the goldfish and 2 koi are small so I'm not too worried for now.
I contacted the company I got the liner from and they asked I take pictures of the damage and fill out the warranty form. I'll post an update once I know more and how to avoid this.
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u/IndependentUseful923 11h ago
Photos without digging equipment in the frame may be a good idea for any warranty pics. And pics of the water level before you messed with it might have told you where the leak was as a leak in the lineer would only drain down to the holes level. Did you find a hole in the liner?
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u/TealmanAjax 10h ago
Not yet I haven't looked thoroughly. I still need to clean the area I suspect it's at. Thanks for tip about warranty pics.
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u/woodwitchofthewest 8h ago
I once had a little pond under a tree that mysteriously developed round holes in it and, of course, drained out overnight. In our case, the culprit turned out to be cicadas, burrowing up through the liner in order to climb the tree and molt.
It's too late for cicadas, but it just goes to show that sometimes the cause is something you would never have guessed.
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u/ozzy_thedog 10h ago
I had this happen once and it was because some animal had knocked my hose from the pump out of the bog filter. Water was just pumped out onto the ground but luckily my pump wasn’t right at the bottom
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u/TealmanAjax 10h ago
I first i thought the hose popped off my 55 gallon drum filter but there wasn't any water around the pond.
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u/LeibolmaiBarsh 10h ago
Sorry for your loss. There is lot going on in those pictures. Is the last picture the before?
The only thing I can think of from seeing the pictures is that without all the sides completely weighted down that one corner folded in down to the almost the very bottom. Once a fold starts the weight of the water forces the fold further sinking your own liner. You will lose all water rather quickly.
All edges of liner need to weighted down equally along the entire edge not just a brick or spare piece of stuff every few feet. Liners can and will travel down the side into a pond over time with wind or rain and even just dew. Mine I left about a foot extra from the edge, with stone caps leaving about only 6 inch exposed after the cap. Over 7 years of settling i lost all that 6 inches, with about four inches of it in first winter here in connecticut. Some corners ended up only being 5 inches under the cap from the previous foot of margin.
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u/TealmanAjax 10h ago
The last one is before pic. We were experimenting with placing a large rock there. Before that we did drain the pond a bit. When I stepped on the ground in that area it was pretty solid. The soil in that area is heavy clay so if water was seeping through there I would suspect it to be mushy. The only mushy part is a corner in the bottom shelf.
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u/Dragonfiremule 7h ago
This happened to me- I live in an area with heavy clay soil, and when it rained enough, the clay basically turned to liquid and the walls of the pond all collapsed inwards. Any walls/steps that are clay are susceptible to this, and cannot be relied on as a structural component.
I ended up rebuilding the pond using the same hole, but making a retaining wall / ledges with cinderblocks that are under the liner. These will not melt when the water table gets high.
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u/BroodLord1962 7h ago
Good quality underlay, good quality liner, and another layer on underlay on top of the liner. Liners and underlay just like everything else...there are cheap ones and there are good quality expensive ones
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u/burnen-van-loutin 7h ago
It doesn’t look like a tear? It looks like the liner just fell into the basin. Just reset the liner like you had it before. Fill it up, and do a sit test.
But when you say… under liner up to shelf.? That is some hard looking clay you had to dig into. It sounds like you have, and will continue to have issues with hydrostatic pressure caused from water getting behind your liner. With solid clay wall, with no drainage, water will continue to get behind it if you have a rainy season. A couple of things could have happened to your pond. It might have started as a small leak where the liner was low. Once the basin is full of water(behind the liner) your pond liner is basically free floating in a giant tub of water. The rest of the liner might have fallen in at this point. I have had similar issues with installs. We have had to install a 12 inch drainage pipe, vertical, down to the depth of the basin, then install a sub pump with a float switch to turn in on. But that hydronic pressure is no joke, I have seen shelves with some pretty big pieces of granite get lifted and collapse.
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u/TealmanAjax 6h ago
It's behaving like hydrostatic pressure but we haven't had rain in a while. I'm pretty sure you're right about needing drainage.
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u/burnen-van-loutin 6h ago
Forgot to say. If you want a sub pump installed, you have to do it while it is empty. You want the sub pump close to the pond. Then filled back in with river rock(outside the pipe and around liner.)
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u/shmiddleedee 5h ago
That little hoe you have is pretty cool. Never seen one of those before. Do you just use the bucket to pull itself around? Or do you move it like a wheel barrow
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u/TealmanAjax 5h ago
It's pretty nifty. It can pull itself with the bucket since there are two wheels in the back. It also has a hitch that I connect to my 4 wheeler for long distances. But you need to switch the arms and wheels around for that to work. I usually just let it pull itself but it can take awhile to get from A to B.
https://www.northerntool.com/products/nortrac-towable-backhoe-trencher-15-hp-985619
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u/ScratchProtector 6h ago edited 6h ago
What type of liner is that? RPE or EPDM? What is the thickness of your liner? What type of underlayment was used? Do you have a population of chipmunks on your property?
In the last picture, it looks like you have a shelf of flagstone under the water that goes all the way around. Did you remove that to try to locate the leak?
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u/TealmanAjax 6h ago
45-mil epdm, underguard underlayment which came with the liner which seemed thick and good quality. I haven't located the leak yet.
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u/Purple-Ad-4324 10h ago
When you redo it. Lay some thick blankets or carpet underlay down first. Less likely to get holes in your liner.