Next time a bear wallows around in your pond and eats 5 of your prize Koi, here’s what you do. First take out all the rocks & gravel from a 300 sq. ft. area, to expose the shredded liner.
If your pond is shaped like a bowl, with rounded sides, now’s the time to cut the edges into crisp 90 degree steps. That ground may be hard & rocky, so get your Big Boy pants on. Be sure the bottom is at least 2′ deep, and berm up the edge so the water won’t leak over it.
Then you seam $750 worth of new pond liner onto the old liner, with 3″ double sided seam tape & 6″ cover tape. You’ll need a 16′ long 2×12 to support the seam, steady hands, & nerves of steel. There are no do-overs with this stuff.
After seaming the new liner to the old, cover it with 2-layers of 6oz. Geotechnical fabric, for protection from future invaders. Now that your edge has been correctly dug out, you can assemble a fish cave for those prized Koi to escape the predators. You don’t want to use round rocks along the edges, but if that’s all you have, make the most of it by trying to interlock them.
