Since You Talked me out of a Bartisian, let me Have a Koi Pond

[lefty]

I would like to install a 'simple' Koi (Goldfish) Pond in my backyard. I'm looking at the preformed, drop-in vinyl units from Home Depot or Lowes like this----
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJFakRLUVQs

I want to get at least a 125 gallon unit, like this https://www.lowes.com/pd/MacCourt-7...ty-Polyethylene-Pond-Liner-125-Gallon/3389466

I prefer larger, but I shall see. My greatest expense will be running electricity to the pond to power the water pump/filter.

My buddy has one, and he lives near Sonora and he claims that it is "Super Low Maintenance". He has had his for 10 years and he has it filled with cheap goldfish and he only cleans the filter 1/month.

 

[i_am_the_koi]

Gold... :laughing

Let me get to a computer and I'll type up a legit response.

 

[Johndicezx9]

My old neighbor had a koi pond, and some fairly well fed raccoons.

 

[ScottRNelson]

I had a koi pond for a couple of years, but my neighbor's trees dumped enough leaves and other trash to totally foul it and eventually kill all of the fish. It needs to be deep enough for the fish to hide from birds of prey and raccoons.

I would love to have a nice koi pond, but it's more work than I'm willing to sign up for.

 

[Maddevill]

Your local Raccoons and Great Blue Herons will thank you. At my old apartment, there were a series of ponds with fountains. I watched a huge Heron wade right in and pick off one fish after another. Pretty soon the ponds were empty

Mad

 

[i_am_the_koi]

Typed 3 pages, and then refreshed the page and lost it all... :rant

 

[aminalmutha]

My old neighbor had a koi pond, and some fairly well fed raccoons.

Lol raccoon sushi bar.

 

[DucatiHoney]

My neighbor is looking at doing a pond too. He's got it about half built. He claims that making the pond pretty deep and wide (I'd say his is about 4' at the deepest part and 15' wide) and providing overhangs at the edges so the fish can hide/escape is key. I've also seen someone put a little electric wire around hers.

 

[i_am_the_koi]

Part 1:

Got a meeting starting and then will give you part 2, and sorry for the rambling, but feel free to ask any questions man.


Koi are easy, ponds are cake, IF you set yourself up for success.

Preform ponds are great. They’ll last 5-10 years with full sun before they get brittle, like drop a rock and crack the plastic brittle. Be sure to backfill under each step/level so you don’t stretch the plastic over time.
Rubber liner is better as it’ll last 20-30 years and you can customize it’s design. Definitely put the gopher foam (gardener’s felt) under it for penetration protection. You can build in water features and such without worrying about waterloss as much as with trying to add to a preform.

For your pump. The books will say you want to turn the water over once an hour. The more the better IMO because everytime it goes through your filter, it gets cleaned. You’ll need 100 gph for every foot vertical, and 1000 for every foot wide if you were doing a waterfall. Avoid ceramic propellers if you can, but usually you don’t have a choice before you get to 2-3k gph pumps.

Filters! Go big, like, see your little 200 gallon pond? 2938649236592392 gallons of filtration!!!!
But seriously, as big a filter as you can afford will behoove you in the long run. I recommend UV filters as well for starting ponds out as you’ll be able to control the algae better until you get an ecosystem. Foam filters are best and easiest for small ponds. Sand filters aren’t really good until you get to 2000 gallon ponds or small swimming pools. You might bog filters being talked about. I love these, but it is incredibly hard to get going on a new pond. Much easier to add to an existing pond and then be amazed at how you forgot to clean your filter for 6 months because the bog is doing it’s job.


Coming soon: Fish, Plants, Predators, Health and Safety, Your pond and You

 

[Bay Arean]

It's already covered above but yeah, when I read OP I just thought, prepare for the raccoons. Those cute little bandits!

 

[i_am_the_koi]

Part 2:

Predators Suck in this are. Racoons, egrets, herons, cats, kids, dogs, coyotes, pissed off neighbors (NoRly). Deep water is best, anything past 4 feet is gold but 4 should be the goal. After that the water starts getting murky and you can’t see the fish (neither can the predators). That’s why there are steps so they can hide deep, but then come to the shallows for you to see. Plants give you protection from these, or as DH said, rocks over the edge to give you a lip so they can’t scoop out the fish. They’ll claw the hell out of them though and yes, you can suture a fish. Electric fences are crap but the motion sprinklers are really effective against the birds. Raccoons DGAF after the first spray and will wash their hands in it after eating your fish. They’re the hardest to deal with and depending on the size of your pond, might just require a netting on top when you go to bed at night. Bigger is better, give your fish more places to hide. Underwater hides are good too, like fishtanks but bigger. If you got deer in the area, they can eat your plants which suck but won’t tough the fish.


Speaking of plants: healthy plants are a healthy pond and require far more maintenance than the fish ever will. Trimming and feeding and chemistry will all be very important to keeping them healthy but not letting them just take over the entire pond. Granted, if they do, it’s great because that means it’s healthy in the water. Parrot feather is great, lily’s are good but more finicky. Water Canna are great filters as well.

 

[i_am_the_koi]

Waiting for the meeting to start, sorry for the snippets but I'm just adding as I can.

 

[westie]

I have a 5' circular 1-1/2' deep pond if you want it. It's clean and viable. When my jacuzzi broke down I made that into a fish pond. A filter isn't really needed but depth can matter if you have racoons.

 

[i_am_the_koi]

Fish: Will be the easiest but most maddening part of the pond. If you are getting into Legit Koi, like, having to know Japanese level of Koi, oh the detail we can get into. But even at the basic level, disease and parasites are a pain in the fucking ass. Nobody "cheap" cares about them, and anybody that sells expensive ones, assumes you have a medical team waiting to treat them anyways. Quarantine tanks are important for this and can be anything from a bucket to a tub that’s separate for your pond. Salt treatment is easiest and best and gets rid of most things like Ich and Flukes that can transfer to your pond though there are special treatments. But it’s important to treat the fish before adding them to your tank, and the plants, and anything else you add that’s been in water before you got it. A fish will grow to the cleanliness of it’s water and it’s food source. So you can grow a monster fish in a bucket if you keep it’s water clean and give it plenty of food, or you can grow tiny fish in a dirty pond with no food. But on average, 1 inch of fish per 100 gallons is a good number to shoot for to maintain an ecosystem. More inches of fish means you need more filters, or more plants.

 

[Roundboy]

First thing we did when we bought this house is to remove the pond. LOL I saw how it was set up though. They did a great job took me a while to undo the setup. We kept the waterfall unit and ran just that for a while with some small goldfish. they were eaten by the racoons within a week or two and that was that. I sold the waterfall unit to some guy that really wanted it for the ecosystem of moss growing all over it. He said it had seasoned and was actually very valuable. So everything I'm hearing in this thread sounds legit. Good luck!

 

[KooLaid]

My neighbor is looking at doing a pond too. He's got it about half built. He claims that making the pond pretty deep and wide (I'd say his is about 4' at the deepest part and 15' wide) and providing overhangs at the edges so the fish can hide/escape is key. I've also seen someone put a little electric wire around hers.

That is about the size I built for my sister many years ago. 4' deep and about 15' wide with an 12" deep, 18" wide shelf around the edge for plants and rocks. Have never seen birds in hers. I even built a waterfall at one point but I was young and stupid, didn't think the waterfall through. This was the result of my brother in law renting a mini backhoe and leaving it for the weekend unintentionally because the rental place didn't pick up on friday like they were supposed to. Being 16 years old and home alone that weekend, I decided to dig holes and I wanted one deep big enough to drive the mini backhoe into. I knew I could get away with leaving the giant hole but I didn't know what to do with all the dirt soooo I told them it was for the waterfall. Poof, waterfall.

 

[Climber]

On a smaller note, my brother had a big oscar in a tank in his room when we were growing up. One day I walked upstairs and our cat who was a great mouser and birder came streaking down the hall. Went into his room to see what had happened and she had tried to scoop the oscar out of the tank but he must have tried taking a bite out of her paw. :laughing

 

[ScottRNelson]

One other thing to pay attention to when starting a pond... Don't put fish in it until you have the ecosystem going. Especially don't put expensive fish in it until it's ready. I suppose cheap goldfish could help get things started.

I had a neighbor in Pleasanton that paid to have a nice big koi pond put in his back yard then spend several thousand bucks on some very nice fish. It was only THEN that he found out that it wasn't ready to keep them healthy yet. It was a rather expensive learning experience for him.

 

[i_am_the_koi]

One other thing to pay attention to when starting a pond... Don't put fish in it until you have the ecosystem going. Especially don't put expensive fish in it until it's ready. I suppose cheap goldfish could help get things started.

I had a neighbor in Pleasanton that paid to have a nice big koi pond put in his back yard then spend several thousand bucks on some very nice fish. It was only THEN that he found out that it wasn't ready to keep them healthy yet. It was a rather expensive learning experience for him.

Always start with cheap fish...

Built a pond for an ambassador. He flew his fish over and insured them for the flight at 1.4 million dollars. We advised him to place them in the deep pond until the ecosystem is going and we were sure that they were safe from predators.

He couldn't see them from his balcony in that pond so he moved them to the upper, more shallow pond.


Napa Herons got a 1.4 million dollar meal for about 2 days.

Sad part was they just ate the brains, so there were all his expensive fish piled around the pond for him to view...

 

[lefty]

Wow!!!!!
Lot's of Great advice here!!
Koi- You are the MAN!!!! I was going to buy that one from Lowes, but, it's only 18" deep. I will keep shopping for a deeper unit.
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Update- I found a couple of units that are 4 feet deep, but I realized that I'm now posing a safety risk to my Granddaughter who visits most weekends. I'd rather lose some fish, than create a safety issue for the Granddaughter(s) (My Wife's older Daughter just had a baby)- so that is a safety issue that I cannot ignore.

Regarding Fish- I will be filling it with Feeder Goldfish. I have no desire to spend big $$'s on fish (no offense Koi).

Regarding Critters- I have two Pit Bulls (that are super sweet) but will eat ANYTHING, other than my Cat, that enters our yard.

I do not have a problem putting landscaping stones around the edges to deter critters. Also, I can use netting as well.

I will heed your advice and get the best pump possible. One coworker told me to get a type of pump/filter that sits OUTSIDE of the pond, not inside. He said that it makes it much easier to clean, if you do not need to reach into the water.

Thanks Everyone!!!!