The differences between a water garden and a koi pond.

[RookieKoiGuy]

Joel,
A good place to start would be remove all the rocks out of the pond.

Put a retrofit bottom drain in....

[Auntiesue]

Joel, your water garden is a veyr nice, natural looking landscape addition. I can see that a lot of work and thought did go into building it. All of us have been right where you are now. I do applaud you for speaking with someone in the koi hobby that could advise you. I do however, wish you had taken more of his advice, but also understand why folks like to see something more natural looking as part of their landscape. Been there, done that!!

Over time, if you have a passion for koi, which apparently you do, you will find that the fish will become the focus of the setting you choose to put them in. That alone will overshadow any desire you have to have a pretty "natural looking" pond in your yard. When the fish become the beauty to enjoy and not the pond they live in and the maintenance of this type of pond becomes a burden, you will know what to do.

When health issues started to arise with my water garden and when I had to deal with the stress and heartbreak of loosing pets, is when I sought help. I came to appreciate the fish, not the pond, more. There is great beauty in viewing a large healthy koi in a rockless pond against a sea of green algae carpet that is simply breathtaking to those of us that appreciate the fish to a higher degree than the setting it is in.

I look at a water garden with koi living in it and I can only see fish that will not grow to their potential and fish that will eventually fall ill. To me that is not beautiful.

So please do not take any advice given here as a "slam" on all your efforts. It IS NOT!! We just wish you the best in your journey with Koi and would sincerely hope that you avoid all the mistakes that many of us have made along our way.

It was only when I started to listen to those that have gone before me that I started to understand how enjoyable this hobby can be if done correctly. This board is full of hobbiest that are among some of the best in the world when it comes to husbandry. They share their knowledge freely. I know of no other "expert" that gives this kind of advice for NOTHING!!! Listen and read!!

[schildkoi]

Quote: It was only when I started to listen to those that have gone before me that I started to understand how enjoyable this hobby can be if done correctly.

Sue, shall we talk about structures and "rock hard clay?" Oops, sorry, couldn't resist

Steve

[kent wallace]

If we only had "smellavision". I rebuild lots of ponds and this is how we start.

[Russell Peters]

Quote: Originally Posted by kent wallace If we only had "smellavision". I rebuild lots of ponds and this is how we start.

Kent, thank you for showing how well an R&G Koi pond really works. I love it.

[kent wallace]

No problem, I have more. I'm thinking of a CD possibly put to music with the appropriate "plug in" air "unfreshener" to go with it.

[KoiCCAPW]

I've also always thought that the "natural looking" rock bottom pond looks not really natural. The only "ponds" I've seen in nature that have rocks in them are pools in mountain streams in the Sierra Nevada's. Beautifully crystal clear right down to the granite stones. But no fish...a few water strider's in the calm areas, but never saw fish in them.
And of course the bottom stays clear because it's scoured clean each spring by the enormous floods of melting snows. Which also cleans them of most life.

Slow moving ponds that I've seen in nature, may have some rock around the edge from water eroding the soil away, but that soil goes down to the bottom and mostly stays there.
The bottom is usually a oozing sticky mud. And there is lots of life, water bugs, frogs, turtles, minnows and maybe a very few hearty fish such as sun fish.
Still very few fish compared to the total gallons. A natural pond also is usually flow through, new water comes in from streams and old water leaves the same way.
Plus all this life is also usually temporary, as a pond too is flushed with annual spring flooding, lots of life is washed down steam, and the whole life process starts again in summer.

Mud ponds for koi are also drained every year and the muck scrapped off the bottom, limed for disease prevention and refilled. Plus they are also usually flow through.

I think of a "koi pond'' as a kind of in ground giant aquarium. It can be made to look natural with clever design and landscape
( see the link on Japanese ponds at Koishack that Nancy posted earlier) but underneath that lovely facade is a true waste treatment plant. Nothing natural about it really. But it works.

I've always wondered; has anyone posted a pic or talked about how well their rock bottomed pond is doing that has been in 20 years, 10 years, 5 years even?

The best I've seen are always new ponds, a year or less. Unfortunately they are a system of diminishing quality. Even with clean outs. If someone out there has one older than 5 years that hasn't gone south, I'd be very interested in seeing it.

Joel, you have a very lovely pond, and no one is trying to pick on you. They are just trying to prevent your future heartbreak. It's too bad though; your future personal experience might be what you ultimately learn from. I hope not.

[Nancy M.]

Quote: Originally Posted by kent wallace If we only had "smellavision". I rebuild lots of ponds and this is how we start.

WOW nice porta-potty, does it smell like Channel #5

[Graham]

Quote: I have seen some elaborite filter systems like the one at my friends house Dick Benbow "The Koi Coach" and tried to take filtration and health to a better level for this type of pond. Although he tried to detour me from it a little Dick knows what I like as he has helped me along the way from my very first pond when I had goldfish.

If this hobbyist is a friend of Dick's, I'd suggest that he go have a very long conversation with him, because at this point he's bought the marketing, hook, line and sinker.

Having posted for some time on the ADI website. I haven't seen one of these ponds even come close to that actual volume, they are always off by 40 to 50%...they like to use the volume formula for a box.....BTW just because your stream is 5 x 35 doesn't mean a thing it probably doesn't have more than 300 gallons in it

[JasPR]

Good catch Graham, a 5X35 Stream is actually 420 inches X 60 inches

The formular as rectangle would be : L X W X D divided by 231 (a constant)

420 X 60 X ( 3inches of average deep?) = 75,600

75,600 divided by 231 = 327 gallons.