OT: Water garden\Koi pond

[atram]

Does anyone here have a water garden\koi pond? I was thinking about putting one in this year, thought it wouldn't be to hard to diy. But reading some of the forums on the web it looks like a huge and expensive undertaking. Looking for input from the experienced. Here's one of the sites I was checking out.

http://www.koiphen.com

Thanks

Al

 

[annewayne]

Ziggy692 has a 600-800gallon pond. He has a waterfall built in and numerous koi. Maybe he'll chime in.

 

[tibbs2]

I've done some research on it as well. I just remember that you don't want the banks to slope to keep predators out of it and it needs to be deep enough that the whole thing won't freeze during winter.

For a nominal fee, I'll bring you back some authentic japanese KOI next time I'm in Japan.

 

[waverz]

Heres one i built for my mom a few years ago. The waterfall is bigger now and i also fixed the exposed liner issue.

I built the filter out of a cpl 5 gallon buckets, it was only around $300 for everything.

 

[annewayne]

waverz do you have link on your 5 gall bucket design?

 

[musty baby]

The parents put a ~1500-2000 gallon pond in behind their house. They paid a landscaping company to do it, which I think was a mistake. Knowing now how simple the system is I think they could be done for a fraction of the cost, provided you have access to a backhoe/skidsteer (we own both, and I suppose even a pond of this size wouldn't be too big to dig by hand if you had the time and drive). The liner was the most expensive necessary cost.

How big are you thinking?

 

[atram]

Waverz, that's a sweet looking pond, it's like what I had in mind. Dig a hole, install a gravity bottom drain, install a liner, install an overflow, filter and return.

I plan on building a 12 x 8 kidney shaped pond about 4 ft deep at the deepest part. My neighbor has a bobcat and is always looking for some reason to use it, so I'll probably throw a few bucks his way and let him dig the hole.

Here's a link written by Anthony Calfo about watergardens and making a 5 gallon filter.

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic59673-33-1.aspx#bm60209

 

[KnoxvilleIa]

pond

pond

I put in a 2000 gal pond. I figure I have 200.00 in it.
maybe 3.
JUst a lot of digging, I made a few mistakes.
641-842-7470 and I'll tell you my mistakes. lol

 

[atram]

What kind of liner did you use? I read that .045 mil liners are recommended. What did you use for skimmer and return flow? I want to put a drain in the bottom to collect fish poop. I've been reading and it doesn't look to hard to set up a gravity feed bottom drain.

 

[acidlittle]

Me and my dad have about a 500gal koi pond, We bring the fish inside every year into a 100gal horse trough. It's actually really nice and small, and it's a 2 tier one. Upper tier is mostly the smaller koi and lilly pads (and the damn occasion frog or toad) that waterfalls into the main holding area with the big boys and some really cool plants.

Does anybody have the issue of their Koi jumping out when it rains for an extended period of time?

 

[Ziggy692]

atram, they are easy to do. i made my on a weekend it about 3 feet deep 8 feet wide i thank it s 14 length. have a 3 tier water fall and about 15 koi.

 

[atram]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9338862#post9338862 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ziggy692
atram, they are easy to do. i made my on a weekend it about 3 feet deep 8 feet wide i thank it s 14 length. have a 3 tier water fall and about 15 koi.

Do you winter your koi outside? Where did you get your liner? I was talking to a guy from Illinois and he was telling me that I would need to go 5-6 feet deep.

A co-work has one and he told me the freeze line is 3 ft and I should go about 4 feet at the deepest. I've been viewing pond forums and alot of the ponds have cement poured around the bank, is this to prevent the bank from collapsing.

Also, could you post a picture of your pond?

I talked to my neighbor yesterday he has a bobcat skid stear and he said he would dig it out for me. The biggest expense should be the rock.

Thanks

 

[waverz]

Expensive rocks??? What you need to do is drive out in the country in the spring. Farmers make huge piles of them when they pull them out of their fields, thats where we got most of our bigger ones. As for the smaller stuff its just landscaping rock, cost about $15 for a truckload.

 

[atram]

Cool, I've been threads about building ponds and they are buying landscape rock.

These are some of the threads that I have been following, they seem to take a long time.

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23971&page=1&pp=10

http://koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36773

 

[highland135]

I've had a small two tier pond with small waterfall for about 10 yrs. It is one of the pre-formed ones about 120-130 gal. I run a return pump for the waterfall, but no skimmer. A couple of times a summer I put the hose in for top off. I also have water lillies and Koi that I over winter in an old 55 gal in the basement. No heater, no lights. I just drop in a little food once a day. Waverz is right about the rocks. In the spring drive the country and you will find big piles near the fence lines that are usually falling over into the ditches.

 

[tibbs2]

Do you need to feed the Koi in the winter? I thought they hibernated and didn't eat food.

Where do most of you buy your Koi from? The LFS or online?

Do you all do Koi or do some of you do goldfish? Koi get so big that you need a pretty big pond for them.

 

[acidlittle]

We feed ours in the 100 gal stock tank durring the winter. They do get big and right now my dad probably has 10 of them that are over a foot long. He's thinking about getting rid of them and starting over with some babies. We have a couple goldfish that were "leftover" from my sis's wedding, they were feeders, and they are starting to grow out themselves!

 

[atram]

Having talked to a few local folks with ponds you can winter the fish outside if your pond is deep enough. I was told that the freeze zone around here goes down about 3 feet, so a max depth of about 4.5 feet should do it. My pond should be about 2400 gallons when it's finished.

 

[Ziggy692]

my koi pond is 3 feet deep

 

[acidlittle]

Ditto our pond is about 3.5ft deep, and my aunt and uncles live in KC and theirs is the same depth yet it doesn't freeze as deep, all you need to do is use something to circulate water and you should be good.