Pond to reduce mowing

[secuono]

I am on 2 acres and one acre is a section down a hill. I wanted to put a large pond at the bottom. About 20 to 30ft square, 3 to 4ft deep if I can. I really wouldn't bother with filtering, since it would be more of a thing to reduce grass area and just to be pretty. I may later add a filter and fish. I wouldn't mind rain water runoff from the hill. I wanted to find a very cheap liner, like a pool liner. Would that be ok? I can later change it out if I opt to go for a real, permanent pond.
Anyone else have a huge in ground pond like the kind I'm trying to make? Pictures?

 

[Conner]

If you're not going for an ornamental, nice clear pond that will have lots of showy fish in it, you can probably get by without a liner, if you don't mind a muddy pond. Or you could try some of the clay-based liners out they. They basically line the entire bottom of the pond with a dense clay and then tamp it down into a waterproof layer.

You'll want to make sure that the pond has appropriate drainage if its going to be at the bottom of a hill, or the whole thing will be overflowing when it rains. Better to build in 1 or 2 large overflows to help control overflowing and direct the water where you want it to go.

I would also go deeper to start if you can. A deeper pond will hold more water, need to be re-dredged less often, and support a larger ecosystem. But if you want to stay shallow, that's up to you.

If you planted the edges heavily with cattails and other bog/marsh plants, then you could probably get by without any filtering, as long as you don't stock it with many fish. Once you start getting a larger bioload in there, you may want to consider adding some kind of filtration.

 

[secuono]

If I just dig a hole and fill it with water, wont the water seep out eventually?

 

[Yanbbrox]

If I just dig a hole and fill it with water, wont the water seep out eventually?

Depends on your soil/clay but the short answer is yes

 

[Conner]

If I just dig a hole and fill it with water, wont the water seep out eventually?

It depends on what type of soil you have. If you have really clay heavy soil, then it will likely hold water a lot longer than if you have sandy soil.

Lining it with a pool or pond liner is a good option, I was just giving you a couple other to think about. Check out this option (I'm not 100% sure one what cost would be vs. a rubber pond liner):

http://www.pondsealer.net/