Life Under Cover-Winter Time

[Danjols]

KB-er's,

This time of year we need to cover our ponds in the Northwest, this cover is one I had made for me two years ago. Used a PVC structure to hold the cover in place. As some of you predicted, when I posted a pic a few years ago, the weight of the snow along with gusty winds brought the cover down. I would spend an hour pumping water off the cover to bring it back to the original shape. This year I have built a 2X4 truss type frame with a 2X6 ridge notched to allow the PVC structure to lay over it. We had some 60 MPH winds here yesterday along with a quarter of inch of rain, the cover didn't sag or sway at all. I'm pretty sure the cover will handle plenty of snow as well.

How about some other pics of covers, for those that have outdoor koi ponds.

Dan

[KoiCop]

Dan . . .

Very professional looking -- but then, we wouldn't have expected anything less from you.

Is it a one-piece construction or can it be taken apart for storage?

[Danjols]

Don,

Yes, I have plywood plates with screws holding the ridge together in two places much like pressure plates that are used in truss member connect points. I can break it down to a pile of wood that will fit easily in the corner of the garage. The cover is really the largest component, a little heavy but two old geezers can handle it!

Dan

[KoiCop]

Smart.

And thanks for posting, since I'm sure there are other folk in cold weather climes looking for ideas about how to shelter their ponds/fish.

[dick benbow]

Pond covers in the NW are a necessity as strong winds suck the heat out of the pond so fast, that trying to heat something would put your heating bill out of reach.Glad to see that good light is still a factor for the koi as denying them that will be easily seen in poorer colors by spring!

Gee, If I'd of been there Dan, you could have said 3 old geezers thanks for posting.....

[Lam Nguyen]

Hi Dan,

Wow, your pond is gigantic! How big is it and is it heated during the winter time? If so, then what type of heating system do you use? Also, what type of filtration system do you have? Your help is much appreciated as I am in the midst of redesigning my filtration system.

[Russell Peters]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lam Nguyen Hi Dan, Wow, your pond is gigantic! How big is it and is it heated during the winter time? If so, then what type of heating system do you use? Also, what type of filtration system do you have? Your help is much appreciated as I am in the midst of redesigning my filtration system.

Rumor has it that it holds 50,000 gallons of water. Poor Sharon had to fill it up with buckets.

[Lam Nguyen]

Jeeze Louise, no wonder not that many people can compete against her! My gosh Sharon, how do you fill that much water with buckets?!

Lets see, to fill a 50k gal pond, it's gonna take 10k 5-gal buckets. If you can carry 2 of those buckets at a time, that's 5k trips from the water source to the pond. At 5min per trip, it's gonna take you 417 hrs or 17.4 days!!!! Wow! If Dan helps out it still takes 8.7 days!

In my Vietnamese village, we are not very strong people so we use 1-gal buckets. That's 25k trips at 5min per trip, it's going to take me 2083 hrs or 86.8 days! If I invite the other 99 people in my village it's gonna take one whole day to fill the pond.......Yikes!

[Russell Peters]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lam Nguyen Jeeze Louise, no wonder not that many people can compete against her! My gosh Sharon, how do you fill that much water with buckets?! Lets see, to fill a 50k gal pond, it's gonna take 10k 5-gal buckets. If you can carry 2 of those buckets at a time, that's 5k trips from the water source to the pond. At 5min per trip, it's gonna take you 417 hrs or 17.4 days!!!! Wow! If Dan helps out it still takes 8.7 days! In my Vietnamese village, we are not very strong people so we use 1-gal buckets. That's 25k trips at 5min per trip, it's going to take me 2083 hrs or 86.8 days! If I invite the other 99 people in my village it's gonna take one whole day to fill the pond.......Yikes!

I think inviting the whole village is a good idea. So, it doesn't hurt when you figure this stuff out does it?

[Danjols]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lam Nguyen Hi Dan, Wow, your pond is gigantic! How big is it and is it heated during the winter time? If so, then what type of heating system do you use? Also, what type of filtration system do you have? Your help is much appreciated as I am in the midst of redesigning my filtration system.

Lam, thanks for asking all those questions. I will skim over a few of the aspects regarding design but first one must define purpose. In our case the spirit of design was to grow out koi to meet their potential. We have owned a garden/koi pond at our old house and got quite frustrated with having to deal with health issues more times than not. So we just decided a real koi pond design would be the best direction.

The pond is a rectangle approx 14 feet by 46 feet with 4.5 feet to 9.5 feet in depth. Filter is a combination swirl seperator, twin chambered filter (22 X 11 X 3.5 ft) gravity flow to two 3 hp variable rate speed pumps into two large bead filters then to two UV lights. One of the two systems has a heater loop that runs through a marine grade heat exchanger that sources heat from a boiler. In addtion we do a constant flow through water change that replaces about 10 % of the water daily. The whole concept is quite simple, just a little on the large side.

Dan