A little buggery with the parents and Mom agreed to a pond, under the conditions I build it and maintain it all my self. Psh, no problem Mom! It's harder then it looks. So far the lines have been marked and some excavation has taken place. Roughly it's 15 feet by 3 feet and I'll try to get it 2 feet deep. We have some nasty oldpine roots that are thick as heck and an old plum tree roots that come out fairly easily. Has anyone encountered roots durring digging? How did you manage to get them out, they're pretty thick, a saw maybe?






It's kind of in a V shape, a waterfall is going to go in the pointy end right here.


I'm not sure how many gallons that's going to be. While this thing starts to shape I need to start looking at filters. In this area I'm very confused, what type of pond filter works best? How should it be set up, how does it work? An outlet is pretty far away but I've devised a way to fit the cord through PVC pipe and hide it underground. What do you pond experts think?

Hi Tam,
Well, we ended up having a backhoe come in, but we did have roots and we cleaned the dirt away from the roots and hubby used a chain saw to cut them off. We also dug back to be able to cover up the ends and then refilled dirt around them.

If you have hard winters, better go 3 1/2 ft. Deep min. What are you planning on putting in it, Koi or goldies?

Re-inforce the upper ledges with brick or those cement ones. Don't want you pond edges sliding in with heavy rain or moles digging things out!

The pump you get should have full turnover once every two hours, so you'll have to figure out how many gl's, and allow for something like spitters, fountain heads, which can be t'd off the line.

Filter, well, IMHO, I bought a fishmate bio with uv light, those sit above ground, you can alway's build a little bench or something to hide it, but easy to lift to backflush & clean.

Strawberry pots make nice trickle towers that you can run a t off the mainline, will be added filtration. We use lava rock and kitchen scrubby pads in those. You run the line in to a piece of pvc pipe that capped on both ends, drilled to make a spray bar and that spray's down through the lava rock, scrubbies and the water trickles back out of those nice little open lips back into the pond. A good spot for water loveing vines too!

I also use in my stock tank, its 750 gl's, a Laguna 1500 w/fountain head and the lagguna bio max filter (its a in pond model & expandable). They make a in line uv for that set up also. It works pretty nice for the small tank set up.

Otherwise, the only other thing I can think of is, is most people have bottom drains in the system. I didn't do that with mine, since my ground is rather funny and sloped, we just installed a overflow pipeline that allows us to flush and change water as well as pumping it out.

Thanks Tamianth! I think I'll go with an external filter and do a spraybar and waterfall. It's just going to be one goldie (6 inch common) in there till oh say October then our store gets really nice koi in. Winters here are at worst 40*F but I like the deeper pond idea because I do have cats and often raccons/oppossems will come around.

I'll ask about the backhoe, that's a great idea! These are just the plum/fig tree roots but there's a thicker pine runner underneath them.


OFF TOPIC: Tamianth, I had to do a double take with spelling there, that's so close to my name! (Tamatha)

Yes, I see that! Tamianth is a Queen Dragon In Moreta's story by A. McCaffrey. Have had this id for years..... LOL! Been called Tam or Tami for short!

I generally recomend a good sturdy net, nothing flimsy. I'm going to raise mine with Shepards hooks, double hooked, then run nets around for easy removal. Well staked down at the bottom. Will keep osprey and the likes out, coons and herons, but allow me to roll the nets aside to get in and clean and such. Now remember one thing with koi, they need around 250 gls each, since they get so darned large, and alot messier in the pooh dept as well. Coons can be the worst problem, stake's every 6 inch's, tree type ones, again, nothing flimsy to break easy. Coons are very strong and can move a pretty hefty rock and if they find any opening, they will use it. Make sure the waterfall is sealed off as well.

Ooo, that's a neat idea with the net. I'll check out what they've got at Home Depot and some local harware shops.

Here's a general layout/blue print of the actual pond I'm aiming for. The feet markings indicating depth.



Got the left side dug out a little bit today and uncovered more of those unsightly roots. (Smudge is playing the part of the fish. )


Closer.


Right side with a nasty pine root.


I measured it (tried my best to measure it as a rectangle for easier calculating) and it's 18.17ft. length X 5.08ft. width X 2ft. (average) depth, so take that and multiply it by 7.5 and we get 1384.55 gallons. That formula came from another topic on here. Is it about correct? That's a lot of gallons... Tamianth, I just want like 3 fish in there haha, a white koi specialy...ooo lala.

Wow tam, you have got your work cut out for you. I hope it works out for you. I hate roots too, good thing I didnt have to deal with them when I put in my pond ( just a TON of rocks )



-calico

Kitty Fish!

Actually, those pond calc's tend to come out on the high end. Never exact. Metering is the only exact way of getting actual volume. I broke mine down in sections to come closer, but not exactly like you can do that the way I did. My pond runs 33 ft long... Deep end is 3 ft. then I go to a two ft, then a one. When I figured in on the calc, I got something like 10,000 what ever's, but by breaking it down, I came up with 8,177. So I drop the 177 for medication/salt purposes. The waterfall will add another 735 back in this year. Its got its own pond sized water holding pool.

White, if its metallic white, then Purachina or platinum. I'd love to have a Platinum myself. I'm looking for a Hi (red = hi or aka, also referred to as beni) Utsuri next though.

Oh girl, thats a small root...... Wait till you get some like ours, allmost as big as the darn tree!

*laughs* I'll have to take a pic of the one that is above ground out by the garage, its a doozy. Seriously, we want to take the tree out, but won't be able to remove the stump. Sooooooo, gonna make a planter out of that root.....


Calico, the rocks are a mega pain too........

Eek, bigger roots? How horrible, I like that planter box idea though, niffty.

Our LFS gets some nice 1 ft. baby koi in, mostly golds and calicos (don't know the japanese names) and rarely the platinum.

Mind you, its hard to learn the japanese terms. Red can be any of this: Hi, Aka, Beni. Ki is yellow, Orengi-Orange. Gin= gold Kin=Silver refers to the shiny aluminum foil scales, in combination ginkinrin means they have three rows or better of those scales from the dorsal fin extending down the sides. Combinations of those refer to scales/color/pattern.

So, sounds like Yamabuki's(gold/yellows in butterscotch or caramel shades) and maybe sanke or showa, depends on the markings.

red & white is generally a Kohaku, but depending on the blocks of red, it will either be 1,2,3,4 or 5 step. The breaks between the red should be clean. Black on Koi is generally referred to as sumi and you would mostly see that reference in say like my Bekko, you should be able to see it in depth, like its fadeing down into the fish, or "riseing" up, lacquer black. Reds should be strong as well.

The term Doitsu means no scales or few. My Shushui are actually a Doitsu version of Asagi.

Oh, its considered good luck to have at least one "ghost fish" A black koi in pond.

I like them about the one yr old age, old enough to be fairly hearty, but you get to watch them grow. Also gives you a fair idea of what they be like in the coming years in color. And they do change, some will hold there colors and go deeper while some for unknown reasons will loose color or change completely. Most seem to stay true!