The pond is for a water feature when I am on the back porch, or when my wife has ladies meetings at the house.
I will have a small pump and a fish that squirts water into the pond. $15 for that whole system. I have it on my Amazon wish list.
The pump will be in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket (Inside a PVC pipe with holes drilled around the bottom) the bucket will be full of gravel outside the PVC pipe. My cheap bio filter design.
The pond will be populated with a few plants like hornwort, glass shrimp, Japanese trapdoor snails, mosquito fish and feeder goldfish.
Nothing extravagant.
As far as labor, that does not count. I have a great wood shop and love wood working projects.
If it is a labor of love, it is not labor.
My goal is to have the whole pond in for under $50 that will include the pump fish system and the liner.
Did I mention I an Scottish, thus the cheapness...
Haha... Don't hide behind your nationality
Cheapness is a universal, cross-cultural DNA caveat... or a blessing, your call.
Thanks for the explaining. So you are aiming to set some kind of record of cheapness and/or stake an internet or YouTube claim / make a splash... surely polyethylene, polypropylene, vinyl (standard above ground pool liner), large thick PE bags (I'd probably stay away from the check out bags and wrapping sheets in cashier lines... whilst they will hold water, I am teasing), vinyl shower curtains, painter's PE cloth/plastic sheeting, etc. will hold water if it is initially free from (micro)holes and punctures and is kept that way. It seems there are some of these marketed for ponds and pools and a roughly 15'x15' can be sourced for $30 shipped (even PVC)... assuredly the cheapest are from China directly on Amazon and Ebay.
The challenge is obvious: many can wing this on a budget of $0-$50 but almost no one can make such a pond to be easy to maintain and long lasting, like at least 5 years.
Your bucket filtration design needs a mechanical stage that can be removed and cleaned, otherwise it will become clogged and next to worthless in a week of normal operation. I can't fathom you wanting to empty the gravel, wash and recharge every week... unless it will too be a labor of love, which you don't count as labor
I believe after 10-20 weeks, it will cease to be the labor of love but become a labor of annoyance accompanied by some expletives...