[shadetree93pgt]

I am going to start adding ponds to my list of services, but I do not know what are the best/favorites. I have not heard good things from aquascapes (mostly pump failure).

what do you guys use?
pros/cons
price


Jeff

[NCSULandscaper]

aquascapes has chenged their pumps now and uses what appears to be a better pump, ive used the old kind and the new kind and like the new ones better. We do mainly smaller ponds so we use alot of nurserypro kits from aquascapes, some others are savio, little giant, and i believe atlantic

[GLAN]

Been starting to see kits available about 2 years ago.....

I've always kinda threw my own kits together. Buy the liner by the linear foot and if we needed extra width........glue seam it together........what ever biofall filter available, what ever pump available for our needs.

Haven't sold an installation with skimmer as of yet.........

Although I prefer using a liner........with smaller properties I have found it much simpler and quicker to sell the idea with using a prefab pond basin........I keep one around for visual selling purposes.....but will use what ever size and shape of my choosing for the project.

As much as I push a water feature........we are only good for one install, like every other year.

[trees]

I've built a lot of ponds and used a lot of different equipment for thier construction.

If you search this site for "water gardens" you'll find a lot of discussion revolving around this topic.

I'll sum up my view on this. Savio skimmers are hands-down the best. Fabricate your own biological filters and don't do the biofalls. Self-fabricating filters is definitely the way to go. You get a better product for a better price. The kits, quite frankly, aren't worth the price.

[TrickyDick]

I don't have much experience with this but I recently purchased quite a bit of material from "Pondliner.com". Good selection, seems like excellent pricing, especially compared to Aquascapes (I had bad experiences with their stuff) and pretty helpful sales people.

[waterfall larry]

I just saw the discussion on my favorite topic - waterfalls and ponds so I will jump in and comment on a couple of points. First, kits. I have never fooled with kits because they didn’t fit my needs. They sold parts I didn’t use. I get my liner for .35 cents /sq ft. and I doubt if kit liner is this inexpensive. Keeping the cost down is just as important as making a beautiful waterfall. So I shop around a lot for specials and the best deal.
Trees hit the nail on the head twice. Here I thought I was the only one who made my own skimmers. I make my own skimmer that works just as well for $20. I buy filter media in bulk and use fiberglass window screen for my leaf net/filter. I dig a hole in the side of the pond roughly the size of a skimmer and make my own hand carved 1 piece manufactured rock to use as the skimmer face plate. I leave a hole the same size of a professionally made skimmer in my skimmer face plate. With this method I save a ton of money and a lot of time not installing a skimmer box. If you re going to mke your own skimmer, size it correctly relative to the gph rating of the pump.
No one has given me a believable and PROVABLE reason to use a pure falls. And I can give a couple of reasons why pure falls aren’t the best thing to do. At an average of $250 for a pure falls and $250 for a skimmer, that is $500 of cost. I take $20 out for my skimmer materials and take that $480 and apply it to a second pump which gives me more gph which gives me more square feet of water falling beautifully which gives my customers a bigger waterfall for the same amount of money which wins me the contract which makes me more money which makes my girlfriend very happy
PUMPS to me the pump is the #1 most important part of the project. I will skimp on anything but the pumps and I don’t even like to use just 1 pump. Two is the minimum for me. My preferred pump is the t10000 torpedo pump by cal pumps. It supposedly puts out 10,000 gph and can be had for around $250. But someone needs to rewrite their gph performance specs. Think about this guys. Do you really believe that a 5,000 or 10,000 gph which I translate as gallons per hour pump could fill up 5,000 or 10,000 one gallon milk jugs in 1 hour? Something smells awful fishy to me. It would be a tremendous service if you all would get some of the different brands of pumps and see how much gph they really put out. With each of you using different pumps, we could easily get the truth.
ABOUT AQUA SCAPES sorry but I am not a big aquascpes fan at all in fact I feel they are doing waterfalls and ponds a disservice. First, probably 90% of their sales is the sales of products. Therefore they build up this “system” philosophy which is just a justification to buy the full range of their products so they can make more money. Buy our totally unnecessary pure falls because it is part of our system. Buy our lot more expensive flex pipe. Don’t go to home depo and buy larger size pvc pipe that delivers more gph for less money. Second, aquascapes encourages and equips people to make smaller waterfalls and ponds. As professional landscapers it is our job to get people as much beauty, benefits and enjoyment as possible. We should dissuade people from wanting small little waterfalls and the small little amount of waterfall beauty, benefits and enjoyment small waterfalls give. Furthermore if aquascapes teaches people to build their own waterfalls and ponds, doesn’t that cut into our ability to make money? Finally I don’t like aquascapes because they teach people to make streams which compared to a waterfall are highly disadvantageous. Then they turn around and use highly ugly 1 foot egg rock. I could say a lot more about aquacapes but I am not going to do it here.
In order to make a big amount of profit we have to think big - 2 pumps instead of 1, all 4 types of man made waterfalls not just 1, a big project not a small one. If you want to sell small create a small amount of waterfall desire but if you want to sell big create a big amount of desire for a big waterfall.

[LandArts]

Larry- where do you get liner that cheap???

[waterfall larry]

LandArts,

It wasn’t hard. It took me about 30 seconds to find the following and a little longer to check them out.
Go to google and enter epdm pond liner then try hdpe pond liner. For those of you who may not know this, hdpe and epdm are the two leading pond liner types. Hdpe is more of a plastic. I have used hdpe and would not have a problem using it but would prefer epdm. The advantage of hdpe other than lower cost is you can get it in any size you want. I believe epdm is limited to 50x100 feet. Hdpe is a little stiffer and but if you use it where not a lot of bends are necessary, like a bowl shaped pond, hdpe may allow you to build a much larger pond with less trouble for the same price as Epdm. You northerners should check on cold and freezing tolerance for hdpe.
Very important let me tell you from learning the hard way, 50x100 feet of anything won’t be unloaded from the truck by hand and you better have something other than a bobcat to move it to the installation site and then unroll it and move it in place.
Also I would advise you to check several places across the country. And for heavens sake, get the total price i.e. delivered from their nearest location to your zip code. If you live in California and the product is shipped from Las Vegas it may be cheaper to buy from Las Vegas at .50 / sqft than from a company in Baltimore and pay 35 cents /sqft plus a whopping delivery fee.
Also inquire about picking up the liner. It might be cheaper for you to pick it up yourself. If so ask about the size and weight. And very important, Duh Larry just because your little Honda CRX gets 32 mpg and is probably pushing 240 horse power doesn’t mean that it would be wise to go pick up a 50 x 50 foot hunk of liner in your CRX!!!
I know some of you might say well Larry, I would never use 50 x100 feet of liner. I would say, “shame on you if you don’t use it up in 1 year”. First of all the price of liner isn’t going to ever decrease in cost so consider it a long term investment. Second. Get on ground trades and post a post asking people if they want to go in with you and buy a larger piece.

I GOT THIS FROM GOING TO GOOGLE AND ENTERING > EPDM POND LINER
__________________

Pond Liner $0.30 to $0.39
harrisonsponds.com

Fish safe, 45 mil epdm rubber liner Immediate shipping 1-866-706-3762
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Incredible Prices
PondGard Epdm 36 cents square foot
Professional Technical Assistance
www.justliners.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A while ago I got epdm from Bestnest.com at .35 sqft now it is up to .40 sqft.
Located in Ohio ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I GOT THIS FROM GOOGLE AND ENTER > HDPE POND LINER

The company that had the following ebay advertisement is http://www.watergardencreations.com/pondpage.html

Also someone check out their spiel about this being hdpe and ldpe and that this is a better liner and report back your findings.

23 cents sqft 200 x 200 20Mil HDPE Pond Liner
Corporate Office Sedona, AZ 86336 200' x 200' 20 Mil HDPE Polyethylene Pond Liner. We have many other Custom sizes to chose from. $9,200.00

26cents sqft 24x50 20 Mil HDPE Pond Liner
Most times this liner is used in large pond installations where customers DO NOT want any type of field seaming. These liners weigh about 1/3 $312.00

26 cents 50x50 20 Mil HDPE Pond Liner
Most times this liner is used in large pond installations where customers DO NOT want any type of field seaming.
$650.00

>>>>>>45 Mil EPDM Pondliners as low as 34 cents per square foot!!<<<<<<<<<<
WE will BEAT Every PRICE ON DELIVERED EPDM pond liner from ANY internet stores DELIVERED price to you for equal pond liner product with equal warranty!!

Call for our PRICE BEATER QUOTE!!
WE DON'T DO A 130% price match and then run you through our store to use your "credit". We GIVE you your savings with your order NOW!!

Scroll down below to view our EPDM Pond Liner Sizes & Pricing

All EPDM pond liners picked up at our St Charles, MO distribution warehouse location will be at 42 cents per square foot PICKED UP.

All EPDM pond liners picked in our western warehouses in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, California, Washington, Oregon and Nevada are only 38 cents per square foot picked up at the warehouse!! These rolls are available in widths of 10', 15', 20', 25', 30', 40' and 50', and by 100' lenghts ONLY!! Call for your savings NOW!!

[waterfall larry]

for everyones fyi

I found this brief history of epdm on

http://www.watergardencreations.com/pondpage.html
page. Forgive them for their numerous spilling oops spelling errors. Someone doesn't know about spell check.

EPDM Rubber Pond Liners****Why they are the BEST value for your money
EPDM, Ethylene Polymer Diene Monomer, is the very best liner membrane in the pond industry today, and has been since it's development in the 1950's. In a short history of this product, the US government engaged the services of Dow Chemical and Dupont in the mid 1950's to develop a waterproof liner material for holding water in the hot and sandy areas of the Mideast. This request was to obtain a waterproof liner that would hold potable water, and that could withstand high tempretures, be resilient to UV degradation and have ease of installation with little or no service requirments. After much research and testing, they came up with a sheet membrane of EPDM that met or exceeded every criteria of the US government. After this initial release of the product, independant companies secured rights to further develop and improve upon this product. By the end of the decade, with additional improvements and advancements of the EPDM membrane, it was found to be usable in many types of installations requiring waterproofing and containment situations.
EPDM is extremely flexible, much like a tire intertube, and extremely strong. EPDM has over 350% elongation, and it's performance characteristics are stable in tempreture ranges from -50 to 240 degrees before failure. The EPDM membrane also exhibits over 1,300 lbs psi tensile strenght, and 150 psi tear strenght. Though there are other types of membrane material in the marketplace today being sold as pond liner, none of them meet all the positive characteristics, ease of handling, and price of EPDM.
Both PVC, poly vinyl chloride, HDPE, high density polyethylene, are used as pond liner materials, but neither can withstand long term exposure to ultra violet radiation. Both products will deterioate and fail if exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods. There are other composite membranes that have been introduced into the pond liner marketplace in the past few years, like UltraGuard 20 Mil Polyomer, and Xavan. These products have neither the flexibility or ease of repair as EPDM rubber liner. None of these liners meet or exceed the EPDM membrane performance specifications, a liner which has been around for almost 50 years. We have incuded a copy of the spec sheet from one of the EPDM liner manufactures for your information.

[synner]

Larry, any photos of your home made skimmers?

[waterfall larry]

uh sorry no photos, but I could do some drawings. The only problem is that I am new to this board and don’t know how to post photos or drawings yet. Someone want to tell me how post a drawing? Short of that I could up load some to my web site. I will work on getting some drawings and text. Look for it in the next day or 3.

[shadetree93pgt]

i too am interested in your homemade skimmers.

could you please post up a list of items that you used for this?

-Jeff

[waterfall larry]

Sure will. It is raining cats and dogs so I won't be able to work on a little waterfall project I have. I tried to write out a verbal description but gave up when I realized that a drawing would be a lot easier and better.

The ability to save $500 to $700 is a really valuable ability. When you promote it during a sales presentation and show that other companies who would use a factory made skimmer and prure falls and would charge you for the skimmer and pure falls but that you can make one that works just as well and can save them 500 to 700 dollars and then take that money and get them a better bigger and more beautiful waterfall, this will increase your chances of getting a contract which will make you thousands of dollars.

Being able to make your own skimmer is a very valuable ability.

[synner]

Larry, email me the drawings/photos and I'll put them on the board for you.

[Nyx]

Did you guys ever follow-up on this? I would like to see his skimmer, too.