So we moved to our current house in 2011. One of the many awesome things about the property (or so we thought at the time) was the fact that there was a nice sized fish pond in the middle of the circular driveway behind the house. LOTS of goldfish and a couple of channel cats. Had to learn about basic winter maintenance and such, but otherwise as long as they were fed, they took care of themselves.
We hooked up with some local guys who know EVERYTHING there is to know about ponds, fish, the physics of water flow, etc. They did some cleanings to get a lot of the YEARS of muck out and have been very knowledgeable and helpful. A couple years ago, I started to notice that there was clearly a leak somewhere. Over a long time, the hill where the biofalls sat had noticeably shrunken due to erosion from a leak. By early this year, we'd lose several inches of water in 2-3 days, enough that the pump would suck air and we'd have to add more water.
So I purchased a new liner and felt overlay and set about the seemingly insurmountable task of tearing the ENTIRE pond apart so a new liner could be installed. Mrs. C's brother came over said "Let's do this" and within a day, we had moved fish to a holding pool, removed all the water, removed ALL of the plants (and it was a JUNGLE in there, so much so that the entire perimeter of the pond had vegetation that grew several feet above the water and fell over on itself), placed as many plants as possible in holding pools, and removed every BIT of rock. Big flat slabs of rock, bucket after bucket of river stone with sludgy gravel mixed in. Making it harder is that most of the plants were NOT in planters. The roots had grown through a lot of the rocks in the pond, making it MORE difficult to get out.
Finally, it was all clear of everything and I got my pond guys to come install the liner and felt. Installed it over top of the old liner. Great. Then the reconstruction. This is what the pond looked like after the liner and felt install:
For reference, that's about a 15' x 20' piece of liner. The pond, when all put back together right, has about a 1,500 gallon capacity.
So all three of her brothers came over one Saturday and started helping move ALL of the rock back into the pond. We're talking well over a ton of rock was moved by hand. The finished result before refilling it:
The next day, we put plants in pots, situated them around the pond, and refilled it:
The amount of work and (literal) blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into this are beyond anything I would ever want to try to do again. This was ridiculously difficult, but the end result looks great. I can't even begin to explain how much I have learned from my pond guys about pond maintenance, fish care, etc. As the reflection in the last picture shows, there's a big pergola overhead. I have a 14' x 14' shade sail coming to lay across the top and anchor down 1) to help provide shade from the sun to cut down on algae and 2) to make it slightly harder for the resident egrets and blue herons in the area to see them.
Our other option was to give the fish away and fill it in. I'm glad we didn't.