I know I have a leak somewhere in my liner. I can fill the pond to the top and within 12 to 18 hours, the water line will lower about 3 inches. I painted a dot of nail polish on a rock to mark the low water point and it always stops at the mark. Happens every time regardless of temperature, wind or sunny or cloudy day.

I gave it a few half hearted attempts to reinforce some spots where I had liners overlapping but nothing helped yet. I really doubt those spots were the problem as the liners are overlapped with over 24" to spare on each side and it the overlaps only occur at waterfalls.

So, here's the question I have. I've read all about the milk method but am wondering if it will work in my particular pond. I have a shelf all around the edge of the pond 12-14" down. I have stacked rocks along the wall of the pond from that shelf up. I did this because I didn't want to have to look at liner if the water levels got low. (Works fantastic by the way). But, still would like to find the leak as it making the shallow pebble "beach" (thanks joann and cliff for the idea!) I added last fast useless. Water is too shallow there for the fish to come up and feed.

Would I be able to get an approximation of where the leak is by pouring the milk in with rock "wall" in place or do I need to bite the bullet, pull out all the rocks from the low water line and up in order to get a better idea of what the milk is doing and find out where the leak is?

Thanks in everyone in advance who is willing to share their trials and tribulations in leak finding expeditions.

Jenny

Thanks for getting back to me. The pond does still go down with the waterfall off. I tried that experiment last summer. I do have a skimmer, but it is an in pond niche type skimmer so it is not piercing the liner. I used 45 mil EPD for the pond which was initially installed in 2009. However last year after some remodeling around the edges, I realized I had cut the pond liner too short in some places back in 2009 and it was not accommodating the remodel. The liner would come just an inch shy of the new edge in 2 places so I patched in some pieces of liner to extend the length so it would go over the edge of the pond.

Regardless, the leak is well below the low points. I've checked around the pond endless times looking for muddy/wet soil and not found anything significant. The pond is about 1200 gallons.

I did do some pipe booting last fall to connect a 500 gallon addition but the leak was present before then and has not changed since so I doubt the places where the pipe pierces the liner is the problem.

I'm beginning to think the only solution will be to pull out all the rock and going over the liner very slowly looking for the leak.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!

Jenny

please help as i have leak and dont know how to find it.

thanks linda