I have clay soil that can be hard to dig but is solid and makes good framing for the edge of the pond. I got carried away while I had a mechanical digging machine and chewed up some area that would have been much easier to handle and shape with a shovel.

Don't trim your liner until the pond has been running for about 3 months. bigger pump to start with.

Dianne

make sure your top edges are level all the way around.

first would be making the pond too small. having a filter too small,you can not have too big of a filter.i tell everybody that is going to build a pond. to put a settling chamber and mechanical filter pads before the pump.

When you are using expanding foam, put TWO (2) or more sets of rubber gloves on. As one set gets too gunked up, you just remove it and have a clean pair to start over with. This isn't a "what if" situation, it is an "always happens" situation.

Water WILL find a way to wick up, leak out or sidle sideways to escape your liner. Trust me on this one.

If you are on municiple water, use a chlorine filter (made for campers) in case you forget and overflow your pond. Could save all your fish.

A low water shut off gizmo (made for sump pumps) will shut off the pump if there is some kind of a malfunction and the water is spraying all over the yard instead of going back into the pond. A pond can drain dry very quickly.

Have a quarantine set-up for new fish or sick fish. It is devastating to add beautiful new fish to a pond only to have fish dying off in droves.

Read the thread shown below. We had a wonderful time adding to "Murphy's Laws of Ponding". LOL

Most of all, have a great time planning, building, and enjoying your pond. Know in advance that no matter how much you plan you will always find something else to add, expand or pick up and move (ask me about my 2 tons of rocks that I've moved all over the back yard!!)

Anne

Here is a link that might be useful: Murphy's Laws of Ponding.

Think about large rainfalls and where all that rainwater should go. When I have a quick, heavy storm (one to two inches in an hour or so) all that ground water was flowing into my stream and pond - in areas/ways that I did not want it to happen. So, plan embankments, grading, edging accordingly. Also, consider an overflow for the pond itself - that excess water has to go somewhere. Plan now and it reduces headaches later.

Echo the sentiments above on pond sizing and filtration. Neither are ever as big as you want them.

Enjoy!

plan your edges so that the black rubber doesn't show. It's been a while since I built mine so I was looking around to find some good diagrams of what I had in mind, had to draw my own. The ledge under rock one needs to be level all the way around the pond. Rock one needs to have some thickness so that the water level can go up and down a little without showing the liner above the waterline. The gound needs to slope away from the edge so that rain water doen't drain into pond. This is the concept, you can change it up with your rock choice if you don't like how uniform mine is. Plants help soften it up. Liner that you see in second picture will be folded under and hidden like it is next to the concrete.
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forgot to add this one.
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Add my voice to the chorus chanting to go bigger on absolutely everything! Have an action plan for the winter months before you dig. And I can personally attest to the need for a quarantine tank, having just lost all my pond fish to an introduced illness.

I forgot to mention that rock and gravel on the floor of the pond can be one of the nightmares you may want to avoid.
It looks nice initially but...it is difficult to walk on when you need to do upkeep and eventually harbours all sorts of nastiness.

Thank you all for the great suggestions, Rexanne your pond is beautiful! Any one else?

Rexanne's edging thing is good. I made mine too deep and ended up having to stack rocks on top of each other to hide liner and they collect alot of crud. The coping edge just needs to be deep enough to hold one layer of rocks so that the pond when full covers most of the rock. Also I ran my liner all the way from the waterfall containers (I have two waterfall filters) and the pond. That way there is no leaks like I had on my first pond when I had a separate liner for the waterfall section and the pond. My pond is also peanut shape and I have dead areas that collect more algae as doesn't have the current to circulate. So I guess I'm saying here that watch the shape of your pond. I like external pumps better as don't have to get in the pond to clean the pump and they are also more energy efficient. I found out the hard way this year and last that if the external pump is in a vault below ground that is not water tight in my case the water table rose and flooded the pumps from below. If I'd had them above ground that wouldn't have been an issue just a little bit different plumbing. Happy ponding.Patti

1. Go google koi forum and read at the first site you see that begins with a koi... (This site won't let me post their information). Their pond construction forum is phenomenal. These are very technical koi ponds but you will learn and unbelievable amount of information reading there. Not only with respect to building but also in ways to save yourself some $$$$ with DIY features.

2. Install a bottom drain and don't put rocks on the bottom of the pond.

looking at other sites for info is a good idea but make sure you are clear as to what type of pond you want. Koi ponds and goldfish/wildlife ponds are different from each other and have different design requirements.

Another thing I thought about was how I was going to handle pond care during the winter. Do you want a bubbler or tank heater to keep a hole open for your fish? I don't have a long stream to the pond and that allows me to run my pump all year without worring about ice dams and inadvertantly emptying the pond, so no worries about changing things around for winter or getting more equipment. I don't even move the plants for winter.

The skimmer has two ways to draw water so if the skimmer opening gets blocked the bottom drain is still drawing. I have never had the pond totally freeze caused by drawing water off the bottom as I have heard would happen.

All the possible mistakes are too numerous to list. Why don't you draw up your plans and post them and we can warn you off design mistakes or at least give you options to think about. Or, having just reread your 1st post, take some inprogress pics and post them, we can at the least cheer your progress.
RexAnne

Failure to install a bottom drain.

Needing Help with something so Employ a helper; a secondary, interested person.

Negative drainage is problematic. Slope surrounding grade away from your water feature. This can be fairly flat but at least 1/4 inch / foot is my best guess.

Wrong / lesser equipment. Magnetic Drive Pumps need no oil.

Running out of what you need. Always have some dechlorinator / water conditioner at hand.

Cloudy water. Yeah, mechanical filtration and lots of submerged aquatic plants.

Unstable water conditions. Don't rush the fish thing.

Naturalizing the edge is a great design challenge. I think I've moved away from one type of edging material and like a varied approach, rocks, beach, plants, rip rap, etc. to naturalize the edge but I'll be the first to admit, it depends on the design, etc.

Sizing and sectioning. Personally, I would not do a real large plant shelf, not to be confused with a coping shelf, as I find that most of the plants I like take deep water. Also, fewer animals enter the water feature if they must go deep first / early...

Have some patience after filling your water garden.

Failure to take notes. I've learned to keep a notebook with everything Aquatic. Learn the chemistry from all the best sources and record it, but try not to use too many manufactured chemicals -- don't develop a dependency, at least, keep it to a minimum.

Finally I think having a water feature, like an aquatic garden, is a lot like owning an old house. You're always in the middle of a work in progress, and at the same time the end target is somewhat changing -- you see things a little differently over time and plans change. So I wouldn't set too much in concrete, literally.

@ pondbucket - what is rip rap?

It's rock, but more like rubble, used to armor a shoreline.

Around here, the central U.S., the Army Corp of Engineers uses rip rap to line their sloping walls at their dams.

I have one edge of my water garden lined with a fine, somewhat cut stone coping, and, another area near the skimmer box that's kind of a wider edged and I guess I just equate it to rip rap. That's what I was going for :)

And actually, the stone I used for it is from the same type of limestone that the Corp uses on their lake projects. Same Quarry.

Hope that helps, probably could google it for a pic.

You need to know what you want out of your pond before building it.

Koi ponds and watergardens with goldfish are not the same thing.

Koi require much more depth, size and precise filtration.

Know the properties of your soil. I see these pictures of beautifully molded pond holes ready for lining. My soil is pure fine sand. It won't hold any shape whatsoever. I dug my first pond with nice vertical sides, carefully lined it and put in water. Then it rained and the whole thing collapsed into a saucer of mud. Now I line the walls with cement blocks. Heavy soils may be hard work to dig, but you really can just dig a hole and line it.

One more reminder to raise the sides of your pond enough so you don't get runoff. That was another of my first pond mistakes.

And no matter how big you are planning to build your pond, it's going to be too small.

I did my edge a little different. The extra liner I folded and pointed straight up in the air. I put a rock on the outside a rock on the inside and a rock on top. This way the pond water can be filled a little higher than ground level (by about an inch) and no run off can get into the pond.

I must echo some of the good advice above:

Don't rush to put any animals in the pond at first, see what is happening first (i.e. water filtration, cloudiness, moss, algae, etc.) for at least a month or more.

Check the pond at least twice daily for the first 4 months. A whole list of things can go wrong with a pond in just 24 hours.

Buy a QUALITY liner, don't go cheap. Just a simple thing like a falling rock can puncture a cheap liner and in no time you are looking at a dry hole.

Use a cover net in the fall if you are near trees. I've learned the hard way about this and killed off my entire fish stock by not timing the net placement soon enough.

Clean off any excess string moss on a daily basis. It can eventually be controlled but takes maintenance. Don't expect a barley bale to do all the work by itself. Barley straw is good, but won't clear up an existing string moss infestation.

Nobody thinks their pond is big enough and we all have "pond envy" when we see one that's bigger.

When you build a pond, they will come. That is, animals will come to your pond. Some are inoffensive- the squirrel or deer taking a drink, likewise, small birds, frogs, toads and dragonflies. Others, like racoons, snakes and my nemsis, the great blue heron, will also come. Be prepared. I string fishing line in a grid across my pond to deter the herons, and have a fake heron statue. It is illegal (at least where I live) to shoot them, and they are beautiful birds, but when you see them eat all the fish in your pond you will learn to hate them.

Also, I use a handmade skippy type filter system, which has worked better, and requires much less cleaning, than all the commerial types (filter mats, bio-pressured systems, UV lights, etc.) I've used in the past. Don't know if it's actually the filter, or just that the pond has reached equilibrium, and now, after four years, has tons of acquatic plants.