I'm going to purchase about 40 tons of sand for a little beach for my children.

The slope is not very steep where I want it, but should I put something like a liner under the sand?

Has anyone done this before? Did you box it in and line the bottom with plastic?

I was just going to pour it on the ground, but that is a lot of money to wash into the mud.

From what I've read here, you probably do want to box it in with some type of retainer on the deep water side and to put some type of liner material down. Whenever I fix up some better spawning areas, that will be my plan.

There's a back issue of Pond Boss showing how to build one.
I believe it was lined & a cement curb around to hold it?

My son-in-law used to drive a dump truck with a shotter on the back. What it was was a conveyor belt that would shoot the materials up to 70 feet. He used to pull up to one lake and shoot sand in the lake to make spawning beds. Sure saves a lot of back breaking work.

LD

We put 6 large dump loads of sand on a shallow slope at one end of the pond 7 or 8 years ago. We used the common yellow type of sand as opposed to the white or beach/play sand. (you get what you pay for). We did not put any type of liner down or spread any in the water. Mother Nature did a fine job of moving a major portion of it into the water over time. I go over it a couple times a summer with the rototiller behind the tractor to eliminate the weeds and to fluff it up. Still looks pretty good but it's not used very much anymore.

Dan

There is an informative thread on beach building here:

Beach thread

Great answers and good link to the other Beach thread – so now I have an idea of how to do it, but have no clue on volume or size of the beach with what I can afford.

I want sand to be 12”-15” deep and have budgeted for 50-60 tons of sand – how much area will that cover?

just completed the same job.what i did was dug area 18 inches deeper,put 2 pieces of pond cloth down then added 18 inches of sand.we then built a wall 3'6" tall on back side so sand would not leave area and kids would know not to go outside this area.water is just getting into area so i'm not sure if this project is going to work are not.good luck.

20 tons of limestone sand covers 8'X150' strip 4" thick (My wife's outdoor riding arena, one truck load of apx 30 needed).

Multiply by 3, your 60 tons should cover an estimated 1200 sq.ft. 12" thick.

Well that should about make the area I need -- that'd be 30' X 40' 12" deep in sand.

I'll probably run it about 15' into the water and 15' up the bank and 40' wide.

The pond is full so I will use concrete blocks in the water and large timbers on the bank to hold it in -- along with shade cloth on the bottom.

Thanks everyone for your help. The kids will love it and my wife can have a place to get a tan (skin cancer).