Koi & Ponds

Kagemusha

Kagemusha

Kagemusha

Associate
Joined
7 Mar 2003
Posts
940
Location
South Yorks
Just interested in whether there are any forum members that keep Koi or ponds.

Having taken over the running of a pond when I bought my first house towards the end of last summer I've found I'm always striving to improve things. My pond is only small @ 6000ltrs but in the next few weeks I'll be breaking the filtration system down, re-plumbing and re-organsising the filtration compartments, all in the name of clearer, cleaner water.
 
Does the pond have a bottom drain? If not you should look into a retro-fit bottom drain which uses the pump to suck up the detritus from the bottom of the pond. It's far more effective at cleaning up the water that a standard pump sitting in the water.

I have a dinky 3500 litre pond in the uk and I've built an 11,000 litre one here, though the one here has catfish as well as koi.

What are you planning for the filter? 6 years of pond-making lead me to believe that some combination of aerated K1, tesco green scouring pads, trickle towers and use of plants is the best way to get clear and clean water for very minimal cost.
 
6000 litres and you call that small? lol Mine is about 2800 litres got 9 goldfish, 2 koi and 1 common carp. The water is very clear. I just use a standard pump with a UV clarifier built in to it.The pump is actually designed for a 9000 litre pond .
 
god dont talk to me about ponds!

Adopted one when i bought my house, and the bleeding thing is turning into an addiction!

So far thrown a couple of hunded, but have an itch to blow more. Would reccomend over-speccing your filtration - so if you have a 6000L pond, get a 10000L pump n filter. Regarding the pump - i'd also reccomend a dedicated solid handling pump - these can pump larger particles, and place it on the floor. If you want a fountain use an old pump, or just buy a fountain pump - the combi systems (fountain and filter pump) arent really up to the job imo.
 
Good to see a few other enthusiasts on the fourms.

My setup so far is pretty good, its just not good enough...if I had the cash I would fill it in and go bigger, much bigger!

Getting back to the setup:
My current setup is ~6000ltr/ph large diameter intake submersible-pump which goes through a UV tube then into a 220ltr 3 compartment system with brushes, foam and alphagrog, returned to pond via 2ft waterfall. I also have a 50l/pm air pump via diffuser direct into the pond.

The sub-pump I have at the min does a super job of keeping the bottom free, but as the pump can be run dry I might get a retro kit for a bottom drain giving the fish more room to move in the pond.

My new setup is going to be something like this...
UV
Compartment 1 - Brushes & Settlement area
Compartment 2 - Sponges - Low to High Density, topped with Japanese matting
Compartment 3 - K1 with 10-20ltrs/pm of air
Compartment 4 - Flocor

Quickly drew it up
obviously the water level will be at the highest intake point

Hopefully that should do the job of getting rid of large particles then polishing the water a bit before return.
 
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Skull gave some good advice there vegtable filters work very well. Consider building one into the top of your waterfall.

I would personnally recommend that you consider a vortex chamber and also install some gate valves at the bottom for a flush system.
 
My dad has kept Koi in his pond for years. His current ones were about 5 years old and were around 5-5.5lb each. He had 9.

And then 2 weeks ago somebody broke into the garden and stole them all, and the 2 Golden Orf, leaving a few bedraggled smaller Koi that were kinked. The pond was out of sight of every direction, except the upper stories of neighbours houses. Yeah i really miss the UK :/ Dad was heartbroken. Probably wont bother replacing them now, it'll just be inviting them back.
 
My grandparents have a very large pond and had roughly 20-30 beautiful Koi in there.

Some were absolutely huge, got a gorgeous gold/black iridescent looking one

Anyway, they woke up one morning and most of them were gone, stolen. It wasn't an easy pond to get to at the bottom of a long hilly garden. A couple were left dead at the side and only 4-5 were left but the gold one is still alive and kicking.

They must sell for quite a lot
 
I just wanted to give a bump for the green scouring pads. They look a little like jap matting but they don't cost o fortune, in fact they're very cheap. They're very durable so cleaning is easy. They have a great surface area to mass ratio and do a good job at catching small particles. Google the Skippy Filter. Of course if you're a person with cash you can spare yourself the weird looks in the supermarket as you buy masses of the pads and just get jap matting.
 
Aero said:
Skull gave some good advice there vegtable filters work very well. Consider building one into the top of your waterfall.

I would personnally recommend that you consider a vortex chamber and also install some gate valves at the bottom for a flush system.
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We have plants already in the pond, along a shelf, Bullrushes, Lillies and some grass type stuff. I'd like a vortex but modifying the filter tank or buying a new one isn't an option at the min.

@ Dampcat & Gatzi.

I know how your parents feel; we'd be absolutley gutted if any of ours were knicked or harmed, I remember last year sometime the local paper ran an article of recent koi and pond equipment thefts - they caught the people who were doing it but they were finding the people who had ponds using Google Street View.

And yes, if the type, markings, size and breeder are right they can sell for thousands!! I paid £15 the other week for a 3" long Asagi, hopefully it'll grow to look something like this http://www.champkoi.com/koi_for_sale.php?sku=09-K-202
 
Trouble is Koi only sell for thousands if you're a reputable breeder. That's what bothered me the most, Dad is not really even an enthusiast, he just likes to have fish in the garden, his Koi wont be worth much. A couple of hundred at best.

I'd love to build a pond here but it's just too damned hot. Might just invest in an aquarium instead ;)
 
I have had a keen interest in koi for years.

Unfortunately not long after setting up my pond I had to move so moved them to my uncle's pond and don't have the space to put a decent sized pond in my current house. Unfortunateley due to the cold weather all the koi died over the winter. Water quality was perfect and no obvious fin rot or anything like that which was a shame as i had some beautiful japanese koi. My favourites being a 9 year old Kohaku and Asagi.

I used the Oase Biosys 3 Set 2 for all my filtration,uv and pump needs.

it consisted of the Aquamax 10000 pump
(10000lph @ 0 head height and capable of operating at a head height of 4.3m effectively)
Bitron 25UV filter attached to
Biotec 10 filter box (2 compartments with layer of matting at the bottom and then 2 removable boxes each with 3 filter pads in them so easy to clean and replace when the need arises.

Obviously depending on where you are in the country there are some brilliant koi specialists knocking about who are more than willing help with pond rebuilds.
 
Kagemusha said:
Just interested in whether there are any forum members that keep Koi or ponds.
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My girlfriends' Dad is currently in the process of building a pond for Koi Carp. I'm a carp angler, so naturally very intrigued and can't wait to get my own place get a pond going.

DampCat said:
And then 2 weeks ago somebody broke into the garden and stole them all, and the 2 Golden Orf, leaving a few bedraggled smaller Koi that were kinked.
Click to expand...

gatzi said:
Anyway, they woke up one morning and most of them were gone, stolen.
Click to expand...

The lakes that I fish for carp have the same problem. We've got some very large carp - proper old English carp that range from 25lb - 35lb+ and we've lost a number of good fish to fish thieves. I know they've been moved as I walk the lakes fairly regularly and have seen fish from my waters being landed in other lakes, 2 minutes down the road - and they didn't have legs!

We're currently fighting a large gang of fish thieves that are in the club, but can't find which members are moving them. It's such a shame really.

gatzi said:
They must sell for quite a lot
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Carp are very expensive, particularly large carp. Koi carp even more expensive. I landed a 17lb Koi Carp from a private lake a few years ago and that would sell for over £2000 on the 'black market' to a greedy fishery owner - a 30lb carp would probably be sold on for around £5000 - £8000. Carp are stunning fish and koi are just lovely, colours, the lot.
 
Happy days. got the go ahead from the gf so this bank holiday is going to be a visit to Wickes to price the plumbing gear then round a few pond suppliers looking at gear. :)
 
Don't particularly have any advice but my Grandma and her husband (Not my grandad :D) Collected fish and won a lot of shows and I mean tons, they had their carp nicked a few times too, they had three pools, small medium and large and the buggers cut through the greenhouse type plastic that covered the medium one and swiped a load of fish :/ Put them off it and they retired soon after, now they've moved out from there, was in a cemetary actually! They had a gigantic one called Charlie before they sold it, collossal!
 
Currently thinking about making a decent size pond... possibly in the 6000-9000 litres size range. That might need to get scaled back a bit though when I start pricing things up properly.
 
DampCat said:
My dad has kept Koi in his pond for years. His current ones were about 5 years old and were around 5-5.5lb each. He had 9.

And then 2 weeks ago somebody broke into the garden and stole them all, and the 2 Golden Orf, leaving a few bedraggled smaller Koi that were kinked. The pond was out of sight of every direction, except the upper stories of neighbours houses. Yeah i really miss the UK :/ Dad was heartbroken. Probably wont bother replacing them now, it'll just be inviting them back.
Click to expand...

Gutted for your father, hate that kind of thing, some real lowlifes knocking about. Couldn't help but smile at the relation between the story and your forum name, anything else you'd like to share? :p
 
You probably want to look at some kind of netting to go over the pond as well (it spoils the look) but my parents and our neighbors both kept Koi. However, a heron would fly over now and then and eat them. So we have got none left these days and my mother felt that having netting really spoiled the look too much.
 
Any pics?

Anyone got any photos? I just want to get a grip on how big you reckon the minimum size roughly is for a pond to keep a few koi in? I have a very small (I reckon roughly 1500 litre) pond at the moment with a few shubunken in, which measures about 6 feet by 4 feet by about 2 feet deep. But in the next two weeks I am going to redig it (also has anyone used any decent power tools for digging? Ive reached the stage at that depth where the soil has more or less become solid chalk and spades and forks aren't effective any more).
 
meady100 said:
Anyone got any photos? I just want to get a grip on how big you reckon the minimum size roughly is for a pond to keep a few koi in? I have a very small (I reckon roughly 1500 litre) pond at the moment with a few shubunken in, which measures about 6 feet by 4 feet by about 2 feet deep. But in the next two weeks I am going to redig it (also has anyone used any decent power tools for digging? Ive reached the stage at that depth where the soil has more or less become solid chalk and spades and forks aren't effective any more).
Click to expand...

My new pond is 2800 litres (old one was 1104 litres) and it's just over 2 ft deep. We don't really have amazingly cold winters and I know we have just had our coldest winter for 32 years but this is unusual plus all my fish survived it.
 
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