***The Pond Discussion Thread****

NickK said:
Hey look like hybrids - carp/goldfish/orf. The shoulder is quite koi/carp like.

Quite often a mix is introduced, they breed and you get the longer life with what appears to be goldfish features and the original goldfish parent dies off or is taken by a predator.

Black is often the outcome of spawning - the reason you don’t see that in koi is due to the selective process. The less desired colours combinations, forms and black end up as fish meal.
Each quality koi is the result of 1000s or even 10000s to one survival/culling more when you consider lineage.
Natural spawn/selection ends up less genetically stressed so hybrids will last longer than imposed selection stress.

Although having said that the longest living goldfish was 43 years!
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Yeah they have been spawning the last few years in the summer when we have noticed, they go into this frenzy lots of splashing :D

Talking of predators, we did have 15-20 at one time and lots of frogs, the latter have vanished altogether the past few years, our garden and pond was a frog haven at one point.:(

Thanks for the help, I will pass this info on to my dad.
 
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Well I gots a problem.

I was wondering why the pond was overflowing (through the chute) and the pond didn't have any out flow.. following back it turns out that my drum filter wasn't turning and the spray cleaning jets were simply spraying through the mesh but the motor wasn't turning it.

I've checked for shorts - seems there's a low resistance path between two wires - in the order of 1 ohm or so, but the drum motor is known to suffer from water ingress problems.. so it was only a matter of time I suspect.

Now off to email Draco..
 
So the new stepper motor and gearbox has arrived. So I temporarily connected up to check it work and also to check the variable speed adjustment:

The old gearbox was a 19:1 interplanetary so the entire thing sat inside the drum interior. The new one is a 40:1 and will sit exterior. The test of the speed controller allows this to operate at the same speed as the old stepper and gearbox.

Next up is some DIY support structs and a waterproof box etc
 
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Day off work today so decided to give the side of the pond a lick of masonry paint :-)

Had a bit of a panic yesterday, the wife knocked the main inlet hose off the filter and flooded the wooden shed......she said it just fell off (had nothing to do with her trying to drag the lawnmower out) :-(
 
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I now have the motor all connected up and the filter is back up and running :D Not that the fish liked the commotion that disturbed their sunbathing!
 
I took the winter covers off the pond today. That is the last winter for the fish in this pond. Time to upgrade :D I will miss cleaning the nexus 220 in the summer but not in the winter. :p
Shame my mind your own business died off but it did that last year too and grew back better than ever. We shall see.

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Paid the Koi Tax today - 10Kg of Hakari Gold for this season like last season. They've woken up and are demanding food at the window - so the remaining wheatgerm isn't going to last long. I will have to put the netting out too to stop the local magpies from gorging themselves on the food at the edge. Last year we had 7 of them, oddly they looked very colourful and got rather fat.

@Simps - nice and clear! Cat TV!
At some point I will have to polish the inside of my glass window to remove the blue stain from an anti-algae dye I tried season before last. I was hoping that it would fade on its own with the window cleaning. Not sure what they used in the dye :/

In other news, the drum filter is back to working nicely over the last week and the water has cleared nicely.

I've also worked out what I think will be a better water level sensor based on a set of temperature sensors side by side, potted to water proof. Then the water temp and air temp boundary then creates a gradient inflection point on the readings of the sensors. A small ardunio should be enough then to simply detect the water level and it also gives a nice water temp reading at the same time - even allowing detection of ice.
I'll order the bits and make up a sensor to see how it goes. It will then help sort out some of the issues I have with varying water levels and flushing that the old single level water switch has.
 
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Summer food arrived today.

I normally split my food to keep it fresh, I have closed plastic food bin with enough for a couple of weeks, then I decant 5Kg into a resealable container and then reseal the remainder in the 10kg bag. That way the food remains relatively fresh and they don't loose interest.
So I've mixed in 3:1 gold:wheatgerm to start getting them used to the switch over and use up the remaining wheatgerm whilst we still get some cooler weather.

Fed them a sample and they were on it immediately. They definitely prefer the higher protein gold and tolerate the wheatgerm after complaining for the first week on it..
 
I am using up the last of my wheatgerm, will be ordering the Gold at the weekend.
Will mix some gold into the wheatgerm until it is used up.
I have just ordered x2 new 55w UV's, as noticed the pesky blanket weed starting (I usually change them at the end of April) and the filter start gel.
Expensive time of year for the koi ponds innit lol
 
I've long admired this thread. It's finally my turn to get a wildlife pond as part of a garden refurb - but on a much smaller scale than most in here.

No fish planned. Keeping it shallow (~50cm at deepest) with a slope for access. The old pond was full of frogs, so hoping they'll make a return from the neighbour's pond once this is ready.

It's a work in progress - but thankfully not reliant on my time.

Hole with sand:
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Lined and filled:
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A few boulders starting to go in around the outside. I'd like some kind of water feature at the back corner - ideally water trickling down a few rocks or similar.
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I need to decide on a few things:
  • Water feature in the back corner - I was thinking pump through a filter and create a bouldery mountain for the water to run down. Thankfully I'm not the brains behind the operation. The concern is ending up with an algae mountain instead. Anyone know how to avoid this? The trellis is on the south side, so hoping I'll be able to grow something up it to shade the pond.
  • What to do with the inside. I was assuming shingle the inside rather than just leaving the liner visible, which isn't particularly pretty - but may be irrelevant after a couple of years. I used to have a pond with a stream and both just got covered in leaves, which were then a nightmare to get out from under the shingle. Will a chemical treatment be enough to resolve that? Any alternative suggestions?
  • On the outside, the plan is to put smaller and smaller boulders in then switch to shingle. There will be plenty of plants around the whole garden, with more planted behind the pond.
Any thoughts and advice appreciated!

I'll post about the wider garden refurb separately.
 
As long as it's kept out of the sun, and the leaf litter is kept cleared out then it should help.
Put a little ramp in for wildlife to get out. I remember once, my old pond didn't and I found a large rat in it floating dead.

Algae = Sun + Nutrients (ie leaf litter and any animal waste). Planting nitrogen fixing plants will mean you should find the plants suck the nutrients out. However it will bloom and die depending on the variables.

This place is near to me, I've visited and used their plants before: https://www.lilieswatergardens.co.uk/ There greenhouses don't have fish and in summer they're full with dragonflies, damsel flies and at during the short season mayflies.

I would suggest, if you have not already, put down a pond under-liner and double it up.
 
NickK said:
As long as it's kept out of the sun, and the leaf litter is kept cleared out then it should help.
Put a little ramp in for wildlife to get out. I remember once, my old pond didn't and I found a large rat in it floating dead.

Algae = Sun + Nutrients (ie leaf litter and any animal waste). Planting nitrogen fixing plants will mean you should find the plants suck the nutrients out. However it will bloom and die depending on the variables.

This place is near to me, I've visited and used their plants before: https://www.lilieswatergardens.co.uk/ There greenhouses don't have fish and in summer they're full with dragonflies, damsel flies and at during the short season mayflies.

I would suggest, if you have not already, put down a pond under-liner and double it up.
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Thanks for detailed answer. The garden centre is reasonably close - it would have been just a 5min detour on my plans this Sunday but unfortunately it’s closed on Sundays. I’ll do a bit of research on the right plants though.

In terms of the ramp, the plan was the pond slope would be enough. It slopes all the way into the middle without any large steps (excluding the shelves). I can’t figure out who to grab the right imgur link from my phone so an image will need to wait until I have my laptop out.

In terms of the liner, it has a protector under the liner - just 1 liner layer though. Again, I’ll grab a photo.

@Nigel Kingdon that looks great! Good idea.
 
You may get green water initially. Tap water has nitrates in it, so it will often cause a bloom with sun due to the nitrates feeding the algae. It can be cleared simply by a chemical additive in the case of a small pond like this but it may come back. A UV clarifier doses the water passing through it with UV light to kill the green small algae (it doesn't stop blanket weed). However a natural pond will eventually reach an equilibrium.

It's worth learning about the nitrogen cycle: https://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/good_water_guide__pt_15.html this should arm you with understanding about the nitrogen cycle so you can see how this will work with plants. Note that the may need nutrients added periodically if there's no animals in the pond (unlikely!)

Running water is good for a sound effect too in addition to moving the surface of the water to allow oxygenation.
 
Just had a long look at the bottom of my wall skimmer - there's lots of nymphs and even caddisfly lava.

I think I may try to move some to the rear chamber. They're basically living on the edge of the 110mm pipe that goes straight into the drum filter!
 
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