Is your question 'what to do with a hole'?? Or something else?

yes it is. what do I do with the hole, and the boulders and the rest of the empty pond. no the koi are gone as are all of the plants.

Sorry. I didn't know about the Koi. Other than the obvious options, I don't know what to suggest. For my own education, and as a pond builder, I'd sure like to know your concerns. Please let me know. That's how we learn. Thanks for the posting.

How about a picture?

The pond was here when we bought the house, as we got older we found it harder to care for. We decided not to have someone come in and redo the filtration system, which it really needed , and chose instead to drain it and now can't decide what to do with it. I'll try to get a photo of it on here.

Easy..hire to remove the liner,fill the hole with dirt/soil. The water fall would be a nice place to plant around and let plants climb over. Make it a dry waterfall.

A bog garden? Leave the liner in place, but fill it in with dirt and plant bog plants.

ETA: Or, if it's in a low spot in your yard, remove the liner, fill it in with gravel and dirt, plant with plants appropriate for a rain garden.

Hard to say without seeing it. If the stonework and plantings are nice, just get rid of the liner and fill it in and redesign as a garden bed... or fill it in and pave it with flagstone for a small patio with plants all around it. If you want to get rid of the rocks, generally just posting them as free will get you plenty of takers - let them do the work of dissassembling/hauling.

You also could just stop with the filtration...and go with water plants and just a few Goldfish to take care of mosquitoes. Then,you have no maintenance. As large as that is,with enough water plants..you dont even have to feed the Goldfish..they will fatten up on algae. I've done that..amazing too how red they get on food the pond makes.

Thank you all for your suggestions. We discussed the ideas and decided to fill it in , use pavers , save the water fall for potted plants and have a new space to enjoy the rest of the yard from.

I expanded (to 6.5’ deep and hollowed out like a fishbowl) a leaky koi pond and used the old liner for a bog garden right next to it (this was 10 years ago). There was a slightly lower channel that went from the pond to the bog garden so to do a water change I just put the hose at the bottom of the koi pond, let it run, and overflow to the bog garden. I moved out just after I dug this but was back about 5 years ago and some the the koi were gettin big and the bog garden was thriving. Check out “pizza” in this thread. Ill be digging another one starting next summer that will be fed by (incorporated into) a stream whose source is a cistern.

https://www.ohiogamefishing.com/threads/koi-ponds.88232/page-2