Yea, water garden gems is HIGH, I got all my stuff off the web. I have a surface skimmer that uses a pondmaster 2400, then there's a bottom drain system that uses a 3000 gph fountian pump from home depot ($99). I kinda did the same thing, just went out and dug the outline to see how hard it was gona be and never stoped. Had mine dug in 2 months. I had to use a jackhammer when I got past the top soil. This fall I'm gona build a lilly pond next to the other one, and raise fancy goldfish.