| Back garden was full of clay and nothing grew very well in it. Decided it would be good for the kids to have a pond with some fish in. With a spade I dug through the clay and made a small pond 700 - 800 UK gallons. Got some good advice from a very friendly garden centre outlet and bought one of their special little black box filters and a pump. Lots of gravel in the bottom cos they like that ! Had some goldfish, rudd, tench & rainbow & brown trout and a few koi. The trout all died the same day I switched off the wtarerfall at the end of summer. They tasted nice.
Kids lost interest in the pond within a few days.
Rudd & Koi bred, added a few more to replace the ones that inexplicably kept dying. learned to buy expensive bottle of anti-bacteria, anti-parasite etc. Pond ended up two thirds water and a third medication !. Must have had well over 30 fish in it including a 16kilo purachina. For the next 10 years things went well, cleaned the filter as I'd been told to once a year, cleared out the dead fish every spring, friendly garden centre only too happy to sell me more.
New dealer opened up. Got talking to him about dead fish etc.. at that time they wree all dying, nitrite always very high, learned for the first time that there were others out there, discovered bulletin boards, air pumps it seems were essential, black box filters no good, koi don't hibernate etc.. decided to either fill it in or try one last time..... now have 3500 uk gallons, koi only, no plants, heated, loads of air & filtration, constant trickle of water and too many fish from Infiltation no money and a big electricity bill !
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