Pond construction begins

[koifishgirl]

Hi guys, well let me start out by saying that when I first started keeping koi I had a small pond put in the back yard and I was hooked, went from thinking I could put a filter in a mud pond to starting a small koi farm, I did not know a thing about what I needed to do, all I knew is that I wanted a koi farm. I found a forum and could not wait to learn all I could and get started with my farm. Its been a tough go so far and still have a great deal to learn.

Sometimes I still think I am 20 years old
Well for my first mud pond drain and cull, I end up hurting my right knee and now I am out of work and have to have surgery done on my knee. Can life get any better than this? I learned a good lesson, dont go leaping after a koi that has jump out of the net going back in the mud pond, just let is go, its much safer. I wanted to learn how to work mud ponds and boy am I finding out just how to do it.

Now Im on hold with all of this, just feeding my koi, I have a liner layed down in one of the ponds and wanted to seperate the large koi from the fry, I wish some of you guys lived close enough to come help Even with my bumb knee, I aint stopin

[koifishgirl]

Hi all, I pulled a few of the koi fry from the water that was left in the mud pond and these koi fry are double the size of the fry in the lined pond, I need to know if I can ferterlize the lined pond the same as I did the mud pond and if I do will I have good luck with the fry growing as well or do I need to put a layer of mud on top of the liner and then ferterlize? I could not believe the difference in the growth rate, it really amazed me to see this and was very upset with myself for lining the pond. I could not even believe that they were still alive as it only had a very small amount of water in the pond and had to get very hot durning the day. But they looked better than the koi in the lined pond. Also I have a Showa that was lacking in good color untill I put her in the mud pond, the shiro, sumi and hi was great after several weeks and I liked was I saw, well I put her in the lined pond and now the hi is orange again and the sumi that was jet black looks almost like a matsuba koi, its almost gone.

Some help here please

[bekko]

The mud bottom provides a lot of worms and bugs for the fish to eat. Over time, the lined pond will develop its own forage base but it will never be quite as good as the mud pond. It could be a density effect too. The more koi per square yard, the slower they grow.

-s

[koifishgirl]

If I put mud on top of the liner what then, will that help and can I ferterlize the pond?

[bekko]

You can put mud on top of the liner. Better yet, put sand on top of the liner, if you have any. Sand seems to develop a better and deeper benthic community - probably because oxygen penetrates deeper.

You can fertilize the pond with or without the soil on the bottom. However, without aeration you have to be very careful with the fertilizer.

-steve

[koifishgirl]

Steve, I have set a big pump in the bottom of the pond so I have plenty of air, I ran a piece of pvc pipe up about 2 feet above the surface and that splashes back down into the pond. I dont have sand but I have plenty of red clay I can put in the pond, I will check and see how much a couple of loads of sand will run to dump in the pond, I should be able to get enough to line the bottom for not to much, I dont think sand is very high. How deep do you think I should put the clay or the sand, keep in mind the pond is only 4 foot deep, and in some areas not that deep and the ponds are not level.

[gregbickal]

dip lead weights in hot wax. End of discussion