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How Many Mils Do You Need for a Pond Liner?
The thickness of any particular liner, including pond liners, is generally measured in mils.
Fish and Plant Safety for Pond Liners
Pond liner selection needs the most attention when you’re planning to add fish and plants to your finished pond.
Underlayment for Pond Liners
It’s easy to assume that a single layer of pond liner is all you need to keep water in and protect your pond from erosion.
Your Flexible Pond Liner Material Options
Even once you’ve narrowed down your liner choices to a flexible material, you’re still left with plenty of options.
Why Pond Usage Matters for Liner Selection
Some pond liners work well for all uses, but others are strictly limited to specific applications.
Pond Liners - Plastic Liners vs Natural Materials
When aiming to mimic a natural environment for rapid growth of valuable fish or plants, it’s tempting to choose natural pond lining materials over flexible plastic liners.
Concrete vs Flexible Pond Liners
Concrete is often portrayed as a permanent or nearly indestructible option for lining your pond. However, it’s not quite as durable or easy to use for pond lining as you might assume.
Flexible vs Stiff Pond Liner Materials
Large commercial ponds require some kind of flexible or poured-in-place liner since they’re simply too large to cover with a pre-cast cover.
Should I Line My Pond or Not?
It’s easy to assume that excavation is the most challenging part of building a small to medium sized pond. However, a properly shaped and compacted pond will still lose water and cost too much money to keep filled unless it’s lined.
Choosing a Liner for Potable or Agricultural Use
Many commercial pond liners are marketed as being compatible with potable drinking water supplies or agricultural uses.
Preventing Valuable Pond Water Loss Through Seepage
Every gallon lost from a groundwater storage pond represents wasted energy and a reduced volume available for irrigation or drinking water.
Lining a Retention Pond the Right Way
Storm water retention requires runoff is held for a specific period of time, to give sediment a chance to settle.
Retention vs Detention Ponds
It’s easy to confuse retention ponds for detention ponds or basins when you’re exploring storm water management options.
The Basics of Retention Ponds
Retention ponds are often as simple as holes dug in low lying dirt areas but can also reach high levels of complexity with multiple compartments, advanced filtration systems, and extensive overtopping protection for floods.
Risks of Algaecide from Liner Materials
Before you install any old pond liner you can find in your new algae ponds, check out the material. Many pond liners, even those that are fish-safe and plant-safe, feature algaecide treatments to control the growth of these tiny plants.
The Importance of Pond Liners for an Algae Pond
Pond liners aren’t optional for algae ponds. While you may be able to grow fish or plants in mud-bottomed or clay-lined ponds, this won’t work for commercial algae production.
Designing Open Algae Ponds
It’s not enough to simply dig a pond, fill it with water, and sprinkle in an algae sample. Open ponds used for algaculture need constant water mixing, the appropriate depth, and accurate projections of the water evaporation and loss rates.
Open vs Closed Production Algae Systems
Algae is either produced in an open production system or a closed one. Bioreactors and sealed containers make up the closed category, while all other ponds, tanks, raceways, and tubs fall into the open category.
The Most Common Forms of Damage to Irrigation Canal Liners
Even after careful selection and installation, a canal liner made from any material can eventually become damaged and begin to leak. Concrete, geomembranes, and mortar-based systems are tougher than other materials, but they can still become damaged by specific hazards.
Issues Common to Unlined Canals
It is tempting to leave a canal unlined when it’s a small branch that is only supplying irrigation water to distant fields.
Choosing the Right Geomembrane Material for a Canal Liner
Even once you’ve narrowed down your wider canal liner choices to a geomembrane, you still have multiple materials to choose from.
Using Geomembranes as Underlayment for Concrete
If you’ve decided to pair a geomembrane from BTL Liners with some form of concrete or mortar, you’ll need to pick a product capable of pulling this duty.
Canal Lining Options
You’ll need to consider all of your options when choosing a liner for a new or existing canal. Each canal has different needs depending on the soil conditions, size, wall angle and total flow and discharge.
Options for Repairing Damaged Canals
Damaged canals don’t need to be abandoned or removed. Narrow and hard-to-see drainage and field channels need to be drained and filled to avoid serious injury to humans and animals.