

A box-welded liner is made by heat welding flat liner panels into a 3D 'box'. If you still want the convenience of a preformed shape and no folds in the liner, then maybe a box-welded liner is right for you. On the flip side, if you plan on adding a large waterfall and lots of fish that will require pumps and filters, you may want to consider building a more advanced pond out of a flexible pond liner to get a little extra depth, size and flexibility with regards to design. For more information on pond plants, please see our page on pond plants. In fact, if going with this approach, instead of adding a pump and filter to keep your water clean, you would probably be fine just adding some floating oxygenating plants and other plant life to filter the water naturally. If your main goal is just to create a small pond in your backyard to plant some water lilies, or to add a small focal point to your garden without a lot of expense or work, then a preformed plastic pond will likely work fine. Keeping the above in mind, preformed liners aren't all bad. We have heard reports that some brands are prone to cracking.There's not as much room for things like waterfalls, plants and aquarium fish without overcrowding.It's usually not possible to keep traditional pond goldfish and koi due to the shallow depth and small size.Shallow water is more prone to overheating which creates problems for fish and promotes pesky algae growth.It's more difficult to create a proper ecological balance in a small pond, which can lead to poor water quality.The smaller size can have repercussions later including: The main disadvantage is that preformed ponds are usually quite small and shallow compared to custom-built liner ponds. There are however some disadvantages to preformed plastic ponds over traditional liners, or other types of preformed options.
