Marks pond - week 8.

Fitting the liner and bottom drains.
There comes a point with the British weather that you just accept that you are going to get wet. That happened with a vengeance this weekend. The liner was ordered with a guaranteed 3-4 day delivery. After some complaining this turned into 8 days which missed the last nice weekend. They also neglected to include the tape which was ordered which necessitated a special trip out to get some. With hindsight this was not a good choice of supplier. We needed to get the liner in and bottom drains connected on Saturday and keep it dry until Sunday. That we managed and then the rain tried single handedly to fill it in on Sunday.
	With some help I got the liner into position. Because we had smooth concrete underneath I lined it with old dust sheets rather than newspaper or carpet. The material is thick enough to give a smooth surface and allow the liner to move without scratching.
	We got the liner into the hole centrally and then with bare feet I got in and pushed the liner into the edges all around allowing the bottom to be more or less flat all over with minimal wrinkles. When attaching to the drains the liner should not be too taught otherwise any future movement will pull against the drain rings and might damage it.
	Having satisfied myself that the liner was in the right position the drains were connected. To do this the screw holes need to be located. I connected the ring by screwing three screws a little way into the drain to allow a good gap and plenty of vertical movement. With a sharp knife cut an 'X' in the liner over the drain hole. (Nerve-racking this bit as it is the point of no return.
Using a mastic gun, insert the nozzle into the cut and apply a liberal amount around the drain top underneath the liner. You may need to dry the drain top to aid sticking if any water is present under the liner. Next apply an amount of mastic under the ring above the liner. Push the ring down and insert the rest of the screws into the holes through the liner. Using alternate screws, carefully tighten them all pushing the ring down more and more. Do not overtighten but make sure the screws are tight. The mastic will be forced out top and bottom. This is OK since the aim is to get a good seal above and below the liner. Cover and pray that it does not rain for a good few hours. Water will effect the setting of the mastic but if, like me you have water coming up even through concrete it will not get through the ring and the mastic will cure from the drain side. We left this overnight and next morning it was raining like mad. Fortunately our cover had worked and the pond was still dry.
	With a sharp knife the drain hole and excess mastic could easily be cut out resulting in a completed bottom drain. It may be useful to note that it is better not to connect the dome until sufficient water is in the pond to allow it to be attached without trapping air under the dome which would create some buoyancy.

	Next we connected water meter (on loan from Peartree Lake Fisheries in Staverton who have given lots of useful advice) and started the fill.
It is necessary to adjust and pull the liner from time to time as the water level rises. This might require getting wet but since it was raining hard anyway it made little difference.

Marks pond - week 8.

Fitting the liner and bottom drains.

There comes a point with the British weather that you just accept that you are going to get wet. That happened with a vengeance this weekend.
The liner was ordered with a guaranteed 3-4 day delivery. After some complaining this turned into 8 days which missed the last nice weekend. They also neglected to include the tape which was ordered which necessitated a special trip out to get some. With hindsight this was not a good choice of supplier.
We needed to get the liner in and bottom drains connected on Saturday and keep it dry until Sunday. That we managed and then the rain tried single handedly to fill it in on Sunday.

ith some help I got the liner into position. Because we had smooth concrete underneath I lined it with old dust sheets rather than newspaper or carpet. The material is thick enough to give a smooth surface and allow the liner to move without scratching.

We got the liner into the hole centrally and then with bare feet I got in and pushed the liner into the edges all around allowing the bottom to be more or less flat all over with minimal wrinkles.
When attaching to the drains the liner should not be too taught otherwise any future movement will pull against the drain rings and might damage it.

Having satisfied myself that the liner was in the right position the drains were connected. To do this the screw holes need to be located. I connected the ring by screwing three screws a little way into the drain to allow a good gap and plenty of vertical movement.
With a sharp knife cut an 'X' in the liner over the drain hole. (Nerve-racking this bit as it is the point of no return.

Using a mastic gun, insert the nozzle into the cut and apply a liberal amount around the drain top underneath the liner. You may need to dry the drain top to aid sticking if any water is present under the liner.
Next apply an amount of mastic under the ring above the liner.
Push the ring down and insert the rest of the screws into the holes through the liner.
Using alternate screws, carefully tighten them all pushing the ring down more and more. Do not overtighten but make sure the screws are tight. The mastic will be forced out top and bottom. This is OK since the aim is to get a good seal above and below the liner.

Cover and pray that it does not rain for a good few hours. Water will effect the setting of the mastic but if, like me you have water coming up even through concrete it will not get through the ring and the mastic will cure from the drain side.
We left this overnight and next morning it was raining like mad. Fortunately our cover had worked and the pond was still dry.

With a sharp knife the drain hole and excess mastic could easily be cut out resulting in a completed bottom drain. It may be useful to note that it is better not to connect the dome until sufficient water is in the pond to allow it to be attached without trapping air under the dome which would create some buoyancy.

Next we connected water meter (on loan from Peartree Lake Fisheries in Staverton who have given lots of useful advice) and started the fill.

It is necessary to adjust and pull the liner from time to time as the water level rises. This might require getting wet but since it was raining hard anyway it made little difference.

NOTE.
If you have any photos of your pond being built or completed why not send me some photos so that it can be seen by other koi-keepers? Why not send a message to the webmaster now?
The photos will be returned promptly if you cannot send digital images.

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