Koi Pond Liner damage caused by ...... ?

Unknown said:

Can that have caused the damage

edit did you get a photo of the Heron jsb

No, the surface is netted , except just now to allow access to the men in waders, to work, the netting looks awful, but necessary, because we see herons a lot around here. They are from local parks, used to humans, so really bold, you have to chase them away, otherwise they just move to a safe distance and watch you.

The covers I have will do the trick. As regards photos, no sorry, I was just waking up, luckily opened the curtains, or it could have been messy, the herons do not always eat the fish and the remains are not pretty. It has only happened twice, to my knowledge, a fish too large to swallow, left dead on the grass and the same thing, but left in a neighbour's garden. Financially losses can be costly, but in these cases I had bred the fish myself, so it was a personal loss, rather than a cash one. But fish do die occasionally, I had a bout of losses due to dropsy and had to euthanise those affected, when they became distressed. So it is not always a bed of roses, keeping fish. The oldest koi I have is an Ogon, a yellow one, which is 29 years old.

I have not found out the cause of the damage to the pond liner, but I have cut some samples of the old liner, to research in the future. I believe it was caused by some water-borne organisms and on taking professional advice, in order to protect the new liner, I shall treat the pond each year with a product that attacks ectoparasites. Which will kill any invertibrates that may be responsible.

The fish were housed in a temporary above ground swimming pool, with aeration, during the reconstruction. The new filter has produced clear water and the notrobacter are populating the filter rather slowly due to the colder weather. All the fish survived the transfer out of the pond and back again into their, refurbished home. The electrics are working well, but the timer that brings on a second pump to work the heater that runs on Economy 7 electricity is being watched, as on one night this week, it failed to come on and as a result I was lucky, that the thermal cut-out on the heater tripped and prevented the heater from melting, which could have been really serious. Although the whole supply is protected by an earth leakage detector, on the consumer unit, which should give overall protection.

For anyone with a large leaking pond such as I had, the method of constuction involved the following. To save having to completely rebuild the whole pond from scratch, a compomise solution was, to keep the concrete edge of the pond intact, so saving rose spanish quartz, crazy paving, which is very attractive (when it is cleaned). Abandoning the old liner, pipework and drains and laying a new liner inside the old one and fixing it with a plastic strip, actually a curtain track product, which is then hidden by folding the liner back over the plastic and sealing it in place with a special adhesive.

This is a compromise solution which now means that I have a pumped system instead of a gravity fed one, which less efficient in cleaning and clearing debris from the bottom of the pond, but it cost considerably less, than a complete rebuild, which would have been too costly.

Last week Ray Mears was on ITV in the wetland forrested area of Argyll. Something he said and showed was some lichen on a tree and he referred to lichen 'script' as I recall and it made me take notice as it had the same pattern of short lines, as I had in my old pond. I still need to get to the botttom of this problem, as I do not want a repeat of the phenomena again in years to come. Lucky for me I had recorded the programme, since ospreys were due to make an appearance. I have some more information of the same thing happening in a friend's aquarium and I intend to continue posting here to help me come up with an answer.