Without any fish you will be raising mosquitoes. Put some rosy reds or mosquito fish in there. Fertilizing the plants, if they are in pots, is easy with Jobe's tomato or flower spikes.

You don't need to cover the liner with rocks as long as there is water over the liner it wont degrade. Just cover what isn't covered with water or the sun will degrade the liner rather fast. Most ponders don't like rocks in the water since it makes the pond harder to clean.

You can mosquito fish for free from the local mosquito abatement (at least you can here) call them up and see if they will come drop some off. They are very small and need no care.

Thanks for your responses!

I just thought of something. If you want a true wildlife pond, you will probably want frogs. Mosquito fish eat everything that is small and wiggles from baby fish to tadpoles to mosquito. You may not want them in there.

I have heard of something called a mosquito dunk that you can buy that will keep the mosquitoes away. You might want try those first.

Hi Betony,
We are going fish-less and electric-less also. We did the same thing at my school with help from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. They recommended using Mosquito Dunks till the natural mosquito killers take up residency. We put one in our home pond - they only work on mosquitoes and do not harm wildlife at all!!!! We got ours at Lowes.
We will eventually edge our pond with flat stone or something - for the aesthetics/natural look.
We only have a few plants right now. We picked up a water hyacinth from a local nursery - had no idea they were so expensive!
At school, we have water plants in containers and just put the entire container on the pond shelf. They've done fine.
I saw a segment online (P.Allen Smith video) where he recommended inverting a clay pot for elevation/shelf for a plant in a container. I like the idea of terra cotta pots in the pond as clay is porous and I think would look better.
I'm interested in the progression of your pond!

*oops - water lilies not water hyacinth. I had no idea water lilies were so pricey!

You can get waterlilies from other ponders for a lot less money than retail. There is a trade section on this forum too.

Mosquito Dunks are indeed a wonderful way to control mosquitoes. They are pet and wildlife safe and they do work.

You do not need fish!

Here is a link that might be useful: This price is excellent....Mosquito Dunks

Thanks for the info - that is indeed an excellent price for Mosquito Dunks!
I'll have to keep my eye out on the trade section!