Find a roofing company near you, they throw this stuff away all the time when they redo a roof. All my ponds are lined with this and I've gotten it from a roofing company's dumpster that gave me permission. When it has already been used the talc is no longer there. I just have to hose off any dirt. I don't understand roofing, but my husband talked to them and they said they give the used pieces away all the time to people who use it for garden ponds. Two of my ponds that are lined with the used roofing liner have fish in them also. This liner is made to withstand sun, beings it's on a roof. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE PRICE OF FREE!

In Florida its hard to get anything done without upfront money.Just ask people who paid and waited a year for new roofs and carports to be built. My first(and one year later fired) pond contractor refused to work without most money up front.You know he has to pay for heavy equipment, gas, subcontractors,,,,, drug habit. Before we hired him he drove us around to various ponds he SAID he did but we should have actually knocked on their doors and asked if he did them.While I argued with both of the pond guys and insisted they build my ponds and attached creek to look natural they balked. NOW our county is making it a rule that all ponds be natural not rectangles squares and circles. I do wish they had regulations on the contractors but until they do be careful!

I ditto tiller and others. Good advice from all so far. The only thing I would add about chemicals...is that there is one bottle of stuff you really should have, and that is a water treatment for Chlorine and Chlorimines. Chlorine is not that bad if you add less than 10-20% of your total amount at once. The fish can get Gill Burn if they play in the hose spray so put the hose in a area they can't get to. The chlorine will hurt your bacteria colonies in your bio filter but won't wipe em out. After a day or two contact with the air will dissipate the chlorine (it will go faster if you have an airator or waterfall). Chlorimines though are baaaad. They will never leave your pond without being treated with an additive. You can call your water company and see if they use chlorimines. If they do, then you need to get in the habit of using a neutralizer every water change. If they don't then you can get away without, unless you notice your plants being hurt by chlorine when you change the water. "Bad stuff" on the bottom are organic compounds like leaves, fish poop, dead fish etc. As it decomposes it will create a layer of mud called "muck". It's black and smells bad. If your pond ever has a sewer odor that's a sure sign that your muck has run amok and the fish are in danger. When this happens oxygen levels drop and you start getting brown algae and your water will look like rootbeer. Anaerobic bacteria start to go to work in the oxygen free environment. This is a fish death sentence. You should regularly scoop out the majority of the muck leaving as little as possible on the bottom after it settles back down. "Regularly" depends on your pond. More trees, dust, pollen, weaker filter etc mean you need to clean it up more or less than others. There is no rule about how often to clean. To clean out muck, you just need to scoop it out. You can do that by hand, with a bucket or shop vac. One thing I like is this little attachment that goes on the end of a garden hose. The flow of the hose water creates venturi suction that pushes the muck into a little nylon bag. Keep in mind that with any of these options you will stir up the muck and it will take a day or so to see improvement. If you do it regularly, the stirred up muck isn't a problem for the fish. But if you have a deep layer of it you might want to do what destany said above, and move the fish into a container for a bit (filled with pond water!) as all those bad compounds will be spiked during the clean. If your depth is closer to 3 feet I would still think about either getting rid of the goldfish (donate them to a pet store or other ponder) or the koi. With either 3 koi or 11 goldfish you have about the right fishload. But with both, you have about double what you will need in a year or so when they get big. If you are dead set on keeping all of them, you need to plan on losing some to stress or plan on getting a heavy duty biofilter and/or doing regular muck sweeping.

Yes, I'm talking about a whiskey/wine barrel. I've been looking forward to doing this for the last few years and now it seems like it isn't coming together. The barrels I had held water up to the very top rim then, because of stupidity on my part, were left empty for a week. Now the water in just the barrels stops about 6 inches from the top. I'd like to think they would "plump" up again but I don't know. I was going to put towels around the edges to see if it would help them "wick" up the water. I think I am suffering from information overload. Some people say rigid liners are good and others say they crack. Some say to put the flexible pond liner in the wine barrel and others say to use it as it is. I did one yesterday, no liner, but because water won't come up to the top the two tall planting containers I used for plants that can't have the crown wet, show and look horrible. I don't understand how drilling holes in the metal band will keep them from falling apart. How do you do that and not put a hole in the barrel?