Small Koi pond.

Was putting down scrap granite and marble chunks at the house off the lani for a sitting area for the family and found my old rubber made horse watering tank. Thought Hhhmm Could use this as a fish pond out here. Build a small water fall and put in a few small koi, plant a few ferns around it and it would look great. Here is how it looked as it was put together. Will have pics posted in a few.

http://www.reef-geeks.com/forums/mem...eland-c220.jpg

I think some ferns, landscaping, and a waterfall would look great with your pond.

See if I would have just waited I would have seen the completed version.

Looks good. You have any fish in it?

Two small Koi. Water does not want to clear up for me. Because of the location I don't think it will. It gets full sun from 7am until about 3pm. I loose around 1 to 2" of water a day from evap. Causing algae bloom to come fast.

The marineland c220 is a good little pump. Believe it or not when I was moving in with my Fiance I went to a LPS to look for boxes and there was the pump sitting in the box with the cord cut. I crabbed it up thinking to snag parts from it. Looked in the box receit was still in there and was 2 days old. Rewired it real fast and plugged it in and off it went. I think some person bought it and could not get it primed and brought it back as defective. there loose my gain.

ooh yeah. I put a T in it so the water could go to to places in the water fall. I think I need some kind of check valve though. If it looses power it looses prime. :-(

The next pond will be much larger. I have planned out on the other side of the yard that gets a lot of shade. The pond will be around 20' long and at widest point around 8' with a little island in the middle around 3x3'. It will kind of be kidney bean shaped. I talked to a few people I know that have made larger ponds in my area and they all agree that not to use the under liner that the stores sell. They all found scrap carpet that was destined for the land fill and used that instead. They said it cushions the liner and helps prevent roots from coming up. I am thinking the pond should be around24 maybe 30' at max. Any thoughts?

Looking sweet, where do you live to get the exotic plants to live?

I edited the title for ya

I live in sunny, humid, with luck not oily Florida. I have exotic plants?

Thanks for the fix. :-)

Give it time ,, once the algae starts to settle on the sides it may clean up.

Also If you have some flower pots around that you can fill with peat moss you can use them as filters!!!

Set them in a tray or trough or somethng and run a supply and return tube from the pond..

You wouldnt believe the tomatoes you can grow!!


Put it the plants inside a inclosure and you can enjoy vegies year around!!


It looks good!

LOL I live kitty corner from you in NW Washington state so they are exotic to me....

lol The one in front of the pond is just Aloe Vera. The others are either air plants or lady fingers. Heck you can go kayaking down here and find Orchids.

Hhm So fill something with peat moss and have the water flow through it?I think I can do that. That may work good to put some of the water variety of ferns in. Great Idea

thats why I went indoors, algae is a fact of life for outdoor ponds unless you build a gazebo with some sun shades and if youve got young children gates and fences, Koi are pretty easy going except for ph I have to run quite a bit of crushed coral to keep it around 7, best advise I can give is get all your fish at one time and don't add any new ones there are some pretty nasty illness's that go around

Good bit of info to know. I just found out last night we have a large koi farm about 40 miles from me. I want to go check it out sometime soon.

The area I want to build the large pond is mostly shaded with a few small oaks and a touch of bamboo. I will plant some bamboo that stays on the shorter side when it is build. What kind of filtration should I use on a larger pond?

oak leaves are full of tanin, your water will be brown from it if you can't keep it out.
for filters? I use the simplest thing possible because the cannisters are so expensive and not very efficient. Plastic pot scrubbers from the dollar store are fantastic for bio filtration and simple to set up, a 5 gallon pail of aquarium gravel and crushed coral will filter all the solids, I put a pipe into the pail to the bottom with some window screen and pump water in, it flows up and out, every 2 or 3 months just wash the gravel and reuse, bigger pond, more fish? just add a bucket

hhm would love to see a diagram of how that is done. That sounds a hell of a lot easier than using a canister. Also know the pump is not going to get damaged from getting wet like you do a canister system... If you are up to it scribble down how it looks for me. I think I would much rather use that kind of set up. Thank you.