The original pond had a shelf for the lilies, but I had to dig out the shelf to make a shaft for my bottom drain shutoff. My original thought was to put a plastic tote on the bottom to form an artificial shelf, but the surface area of the bottom is fairly small. By the time I add enough slope to the bottom for a drain, stabilizing a tote could be problematic. I don't think I can rebuild a shelf out of dirt, as I don't have enough room to slope the sides. (The original shelf was chiseled out of clay, so support was not an issue. Plan C was to bury some blocks under the liner and cover them with carpet padding and dirt, but I don't know how safe this will be for the liner. I plan to see if I can dig the pond a little bigger and stick with my tote idea, but any bright ideas are appreciated. How deep can Lilies be anyway? Pond Update: I found the damn drain pipe today! You may remember my indoor filter and tunneling questions from a couple of months back. I finished digging the tunnel about a month ago, but the other end had to wait until I dug out the pond. Well the tunnel was not where it was supposed to be when I had the guy excavate the for the shut-off valve. I drilled a bunch of pilot holes today and finally found it about a foot off target.

Simple solution that worked for us.. stacking bags of topsoil on top of cinder blocks. that way there's "padding" on top of the sharper block corners, and bags of top soil are cheap. We also used them to get more vertical sides in places where the dirt wasn't co operating. -- Gareee (Gary Tabar Jr.)

"Phyllis and Jim" <jimandphyllisrp@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1189598792.369027.223640@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > We have used milk crates, too. The area underneath is a good place > for smaller fish to find shelter. > > Phyllis Where does one acquire milk crates anyway? Did you have to weight them down as Black Cat mentioned?

"Gareee©" <gareee-nospammy@charter.net> wrote in message news:v5WdnXLh7btRmnXbnZ2dnUVZ_vumnZ2d@giganews.com... > Simple solution that worked for us.. stacking bags of topsoil on top of > cinder blocks. that way there's "padding" on top of the sharper block > corners, and bags of top soil are cheap. > > We also used them to get more vertical sides in places where the dirt > wasn't co operating. > > > -- > Gareee > (Gary Tabar Jr.) That's a neat idea, dirt I've got. :-)

<dr-solo@wi.rr.com> wrote in message news:46e7e0ae$0$1347$834e42db@reader.greatnowhere.com... > we did the blocks under the liner covered with the multicolored carpet > padding and it works great. Ingrid > > On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:26:18 CST, "Bill Stock" <me7@privacy.net> > wrote: > Plan C was to bury some blocks under the liner and cover them with >>carpet padding and dirt, but I don't know how safe this will be for the >>liner. Thanks, nice to know that's an option. I'm partial to the milk crates though, as it gives me slightly more volume and lets me change my layout later. I've done a lot of chiseling to get me over a thousand gallons, so I'd hate to give up to much space to shelves.

"chatnoir" <wolfbat359a@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:1189737737.484621.94380@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... > On Sep 13, 8:26 pm, "Bill Stock" <m...@privacy.net> wrote: >> "Phyllis and Jim" <jimandphylli...@gmail.com> wrote in >> messagenews:1189598792.369027.223640@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... >> >> > We have used milk crates, too. The area underneath is a good place >> > for smaller fish to find shelter. >> >> > Phyllis >> >> Where does one acquire milk crates anyway? Did you have to weight them >> down >> as Black Cat mentioned? > > I see them discarded all over the place! I bought mine at K-Mart! I > use a large flat stone I bought at HomeDepot to cover the top of each > crate! They are sold to be used Used as walkways! This way it covers > the top of the crate and provides privacy for the fish! You can Put > the opening to the bottom and provide shelter to small fish or put the > open end facing out to allow all fish to come under the shelf! The > crates are very strong and will not collapse! Mine float! Thanks, I guess the question was somewhat rhetorical, but it's good to know you can actually buy them. We don't have K-Mart here anymore, they got bought out. I tried searching a few of the recycling sites, but came up empty. I guess you have to be careful of what was stored in them if you come by them second hand. Funny thing is that I handled a few thousand crates in High School when I worked in the dairy for A&P. They really sound like a good solution, especially if I add a couple of Koi to the new pond.