The differences between a water garden and a koi pond.

[Joel Acker]

I have managed to apply a pond in my yard that contains a natural look ( and yes it has a rock base) as alot of koi kichi people do not like. before I go on let us remember our koi are being raised in mud ponds before you introduce them to any style of pond. I enjoy both natural surroundings and my koi and koi health is important to me. We made a 6,500 gal. pond with a first shelf of 24 inches and the second at 4 ft. our filter system is an upflow bog wich contains a seven stage filter system. Between the few plants, stream and bog system our fish are very healthy and we can enjoy all aspects of our pond and koi. It can be done

[RookieKoiGuy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Joel Acker I have managed to apply a pond in my yard that contains a natural look ( and yes it has a rock base) as alot of koi kichi people do not like. before I go on let us remember our koi are being raised in mud ponds before you introduce them to any style of pond. I enjoy both natural surroundings and my koi and koi health is important to me. We made a 6,500 gal. pond with a first shelf of 24 inches and the second at 4 ft. our filter system is an upflow bog wich contains a seven stage filter system. Between the few plants, stream and bog system our fish are very healthy and we can enjoy all aspects of our pond and koi. It can be done

Sorry I don't see this pond at 6,500 gal.

[Auntiesue]

Joel, welcome to the board first of all!!!

How old is your pond? It looks like a recent install. I also suspect that this pond may not have the volume you might think, but photos can be very deceiving often. Did you metered it when you filled it or was the volume estimated by yourself or your installer? Are you prepared to do the bi-annual necessary cleaning to keep your fish healthy? How many fish do you currently keep in this pond?

Please stay tuned and read as much as you can about keeping koi. It is such a wonderful journey and you'll be very amazed at what you'll learn along the way. This board has some very serious koi keepers and an exceptional source for information when you need it. Trust me, we all need help along our way and this is about the best place to get that help.

[koiczar]

Hi Joel

Welcome! I looked over your photos. Very nice install job! Can you explain to us what you consider to be the 7 stage filter system besides the stream and upflow bog?

Mike

[Russell Peters]

Quote: Originally Posted by Joel Acker I have managed to apply a pond in my yard that contains a natural look ( and yes it has a rock base) as alot of koi kichi people do not like. before I go on let us remember our koi are being raised in mud ponds before you introduce them to any style of pond. I enjoy both natural surroundings and my koi and koi health is important to me. We made a 6,500 gal. pond with a first shelf of 24 inches and the second at 4 ft. our filter system is an upflow bog wich contains a seven stage filter system. Between the few plants, stream and bog system our fish are very healthy and we can enjoy all aspects of our pond and koi. It can be done

Hi Joel,

Please do not take this the wrong way, but your install looks too new for the reality of what is going to happen, to happen. You have 6 months to a year before you have problems. You will have waste that settles into the rocks. The waste will build up and become anaerobic, it will produce some dealdly gases and it will be a haven for parasites. Even removing the rocks every year and cleaning out the pond will be unhealthy for the Koi. It is inevitable.
A mud pond is nothing like your pond. Mud ponds are prepared every year by the breeders for their Koi. The Koi also only live in the muds for about five months at a time as well. I think that you would find that the Koi would have many problems if the breeders left them in the mud ponds for years on end.
I dont know what your seven stage filter sytem is but it looks as if the water is pumped from the pond to the waterfall / stream and back to the pond again. Please let me know if this is incorrect. Do you have TPR's for circulation, do you have a bottom drain, do you have a skimmer and where is your air pump for oxygenating the pond?
Your pond volume looks to be about 2000 gallons. Did you use a water meter?

You have a very nice looking water garden pond with Koi in it.

[Auntiesue]

Quote: Originally Posted by Russell Peters Hi Joel, Please do not take this the wrong way, but your install looks too new for the reality of what is going to happen, to happen. You have 6 months to a year before you have problems. You will have waste that settles into the rocks. The waste will build up and become anaerobic, it will produce some dealdly gases and it will be a haven for parasites. Even removing the rocks every year and cleaning out the pond will be unhealthy for the Koi. It is inevitable. A mud pond is nothing like your pond. Mud ponds are prepared every year by the breeders for their Koi. The Koi also only live in the muds for about five months at a time as well. I think that you would find that the Koi would have many problems if the breeders left them in the mud ponds for years on end. I dont know what your seven stage filter sytem is but it looks as if the water is pumped from the pond to the waterfall / stream and back to the pond again. Please let me know if this is incorrect. Do you have TPR's for circulation, do you have a bottom drain, do you have a skimmer and where is your air pump for oxygenating the pond? Your pond volume looks to be about 2000 gallons. Did you use a water meter? You have a very nice looking water garden pond with Koi in it.

I was hinting at this, but didn't want to scare the fellow away!!! Let's be gentle shall we?

[PapaBear]

I was wondering about the real volume on Joel's pond as well. Mine is about 6,500 gallons, much, much larger, and rockless. I think the installer must have calculated volume as though the rocks count as water and the stream is brim full of H2O as well. It is pretty though. Give my wife a day or two and it would have the prettiest mix of plants you ever saw (but we'd keep the Koi in my pond)

[CarolinaGirl]

Joel, your water garden is very pretty.....but it is not a koi pond. It is a watergarden that has koi in it. It is impossible to begin to compare a mud pond with a garden pond. First...a mud pond has mud in the bottom, not rocks. It also has a constant exchange of water, not a closed filtration system. A mud pond also has a stocking rate that is way differnet from our garden ponds. Many installers toss around words like "natural eco system" to make the pond owners think their ponds will become perfectly balanced, just like a pond in nature. Nothing could be farther from the truth. A liner pond (watergarden or koi pond) is a closed system that needs a lot of maintenance to be a healthy clean place for fish to live. Our job as fish owners is to keep that environment clean.

Because koi are such dirty fish, koi keepers have developed through years of experience ways to keep the ponds clean. We have come to realize that a smooth bottom with a bottom drain are the single most important thing you can do for the health of the fish. Rocks only trap fish poop and uneaten food, allowing it to rot and decay right there where the fish are living. NOT good!! a bottom drain carries the waste to the filters where it can be flushed out at least weekly so the fish are not constantly exposed to decaying materials. Filters must designed in such a way that they can be easily cleaned. A bog filter just provides another place for fish poop to rot, still within the koi's environment.

If you still want to keep those rocks, be prepared for a lot of maintenance. At least once a year you will need to move the fish out, drain the pond, remove the rocks and pressure wash the sludge out of the pond. It is a LOT of work. Many pond installers offer this service for a fee. I suspect one reason a lot of installers like putting rocks in a pond is so they can come back every year and make some more money doing maintenance. If you choose not to remove the sludge at lease yearly, then what will happen under the rocks is the sludge will decay and form pockets of hydrogen sulphide gas. One day, for no apparent reason, one of those gas pockets will break loose and release into the pond. The end result is every living thing in the pond will die almost instantly.

One more note....you need to make sure of that volume. I can almost promise you it is not 6000 gallons. It's more like maybe 2000 or 3000 gallons. The consequences of not knowing the correct volume could be deadly. If you get an outbreak of parasites and treat your water as if it is really is 6000 gallons, you will overdose and probably kill your fish. Knowing the volume accuratly is vitally important. Most installers seem to way over estimate the volume and provide the pond owners

Best of luck to you with your new pond. Most of us started out where you are now. Enjoy the journey.

Cindy

[kent wallace]

I would like to point out here that just because "Nature" has rocks and dirt in the water doesn't mean that adding rocks to a man made pond mimics nature. Nature doesn't artificially seal the water from the earth with a manmade barrier. Nature has processes at work between the water and the earth that are constantly in play. With a sealed barrier like liner, concrete, fiverglass etc we now are creating something completely different than the systems "mother nature" has in place. Even in nature there are stagnate places and deadly bacterial pools that are created and destroyed when water isn't circulated to eliminate that particular "balance".
Even the term "balanced" doesn't mean much because everything in nature is a "balance". Clean healthy water is a balance just as is a hurricane or a flood or a bacterial outbreak.
We try to mimick one particular form of "balance" that we like in our backyards in a much more concentrated system by using a narrow window of natural processes that control our artificial backyard pond. When we seal the water from the earth with a mechanical barrier and recirculate it through the same system in a much shorter time period than in "nature" it then starts to "balance" itself out according to what we've created. When we don't understand or handle the artificial system we've created in a much more concentrated way we get the "balance" nature has predetermined is correct for that system.
Every improperly designed and built pond always ends up to be exactly what we chose whether consiously or not. We aren't building anything close to natural and that mindset is the first problem that needs to be dealt with.
A backyard Koi pond is a completely artificial system that we are attempting to apply a narrow window of natural processes to in order to keep our fish healthy. We don't know a lot more than we do know and the rules the "KOI KICHI" have created are just a limited understanding of what we think we actually know. We're not crazy, we're just trying to understand some of those processes, causes and effects in a practical, consistant and repeatable manner.

[aquitori]

When Joel throws a $3000 fish in that pond and it remains the same condition or better in a year he can have my dollar...