Topic: Story so far...

[Roy Bham UK]

I set out to buy another pond liner to replace the leaky new one that I fitted recently, :-\ I fully expected to have to pay for the replacement, but the kind man at Express Polythene in the city exchanged it without charge or quibble. :)

I put the old liner on the counter for the swap and enquired what would happen to the leaky liner, he said “we just cut them up for samples”, I asked if he would consider selling the liner as I could make good use of it as a weed suppressant in my Lottie, he said “give us a fiver and you can take it”. :o

I nearly bit his hand off at the offer but instead just shook it and thanked him very much. That’s the way to look after your customers; I have used them several times over the past 14 years changing pond sizes and will continue to do so. :) :) :)

Roy 8)

[Margaret]

Hello Roy,sorry to hear of your probs.The value of a good liner(butyl) was brought home to me years ago,on my first pond.Being amateurs and needing to get the pond up and running in a hurry as we had too many fish in a tank,we did not edge it very well.We started off with sand and limestone rocks balanced on the edge of the liner,sort of half and half with the grass.When the water got very hard and the pH rocketed,we swapped them for granite rocks.All seemed ok until one day when I was out we had a flood in the garden after a very heavy storm.I came home to find 2 very heavy rocks had slid in and hit the bottom.

Panic stations!! I could visualise the pond disappearing before my eyes.But no,i leaned in and got them out with some difficulty,and to my amazement they had not pierced the liner at all.

The funny ending to that story is that hubby had been away all week on a course.He arrived home,expecting me to greet him with welcoming,open arms.Instead one very wet,muddy and knackered wife saying ...hurry up get changed and give me a hand...............hmmmmmmmmm. ::) :o

[Roy Bham UK]

Hi Margaret, thanks for your concern, :) but isn’t it strange how people think that by keeping fish is a stress free and relaxing hobby, cor blimey I thought that when I got the bug, and then you finish up checking the fish every now and then to see if they have caught any diseases and keeping close tabs on the water condition, so far so good. ::)

Then they start to grow and grow and then become friendly (apart from valuable) and the stress-free turns into stress and the relaxing into paranoia, :o I lost a lot of friendly Koi through a sudden PH crash in winter, I was devastated and this prompted me to reduce my pond and go with the toughies (goldfish) plus me not getting any younger.

I used Butyl liners in 1990 and they cost an arm and a leg then and like most fish keepers the pond was never big enough and the ponds grew and so the story goes,  PVC was by far the cheapest option and I must add never leaked on installation, so I reckon this last one was faulty. :o

Roy :)