Our pond

Warning!

This is a long thread and there's a distinct possibility of boredom setting in before you reach the end.

First Pond 1976

This was my first effort, a pre-formed plastic pond I fitted into a brick-built “quadrant.”
The patio here is crazy terrazzo on a 5” thick concrete raft. Our soil is quite sandy, the houses too are built on concrete rafts and for our extension, the local authority made us have 8’ deep foundations.
I later removed this pond as I wanted a bigger one with a York stone surround so I also ripped out terrazzo and replaced it with matching stone.




Second Pond 1985

My wife wasn't too keen on giving up too much of the garden, so I was "restricted" to 12' X 9' pond while I was hoping for 15', that would have been a lot more water. But you have to compromise, don't you? The rocks would later form a rockery.





This is the second pond in construction. The easiest way to build a pond is to have a concrete collar, which means you can get all the levels right, then dig out the pond.
This one was a goldfish pond and only 18" deep. I'd started digging it out before I had the idea for a collar, it would have been better if I'd built the collar first, that would have meant less mess.

Note the DIY “rockery kit.”
A word on rockeries, it's best to arrange the rocks in layers like "strata" otherwise they can end up looking like a dogs' cemetery.

Rockery and waterfall under construction.


Bits of old pallets form the shuttering.



Collar complete ready for the liner. There's a fall of an inch in the collar away from the pool so nothing will run into it.

The edge is curved and I used a lot of damp newspapers to protect the liner.
It's best to unfold the liner and lay it out on the lawn to warm up a bit before attempting to fit it.






Fitting the liner and the coping stones.

There's an art to this, to avoid creases. You roughly fit the liner but don't have it touching the bottom of the pool. Place the coping stones loosely around the liner. As you fill the weight of the water will start to pull the stones towards the pool, if they're too heavy you can give them a nudge. This way the liner will always be under tension as the pool fills.






I found it best to paddle around in it making sure there were no creases, water is very heavy and it's very difficult to remove one by pulling on the liner, once there's six inches of water on top of it. You need the ability to do "hospital corners" if the pool is a rectangle. Job done. The imitation bridge was originally there as I was going to construct a shallow rill winding down to the pool to appear to enter "under the bridge."
But the War Department," decided it would be too much water.
I made the bridge out of concrete in a mold in the garage, with York stone facings. It's reinforced by a wire pan stand my wife wasn't using much at the time. She still doesn't know it's in there.



Job Complete.
There's a filter hidden behind the lamp on the left. There's an overflow to a house drain thirty feet away, the pipe is under the collar and the patio.






A 45 degree bend on the end of the pipe allowed me to regulate the level of the water by just turning it slightly, so I was able to "trickle change" the water at any time without the danger of it overflowing.
I considered this quite important as there can be times when you might want to change some of the water. By trickling in water overnight, you can restore clarity to a filterless green pond, without a sudden change in water quality which might be detrimental to both the fish and marginal plants. Anyway..Beats baling it out!







Third Pond 1986

I then got the “koi bug.”

Having taken advice from other koi keepers (the common thread always being; “If I were to do it again it wouldn’t be like this.”) I built an eight-foot square room in the back of the garage. In that I put a 300 gall “hospital tank" which has its own filter. I’ve also got a sink and hot and cold water supply. It also houses the main pond filters. The worst scenario for a “koi keeper” being coming home from work one dark and rainy night, to be told by your wife; “I think there’s something wrong with one of your fish.” …it's raining and all you’ve got is a bucket and a torch!



I then dug it the pond to 5’ including a bottom drain and pump sump. There are two pumps in that water butt which is set in concrete and connected to the bottom drain, one feeds the filter and the other is to drain it out to the drain outside the kitchen window. A 4” standpipe fits in a socket in the bottom of the butt while you empty it. When you pull it out, air pressure forces all the muck that collects in the bottom of the pool into the drain and up into the sump. You then replace the standpipe and pump it to waste.


The 4" X 2" uprights are screwed to the original concrete collar and there's a screed of concrete on the bottom which falls towards the centre drain. Roofing ply panels wrapped in heavy duty plastic are attached to the cling film covered posts. There's a layer of old carpet and cardboard between the panels and the liner. There's no degradation visible in the liner, even after thirty years.








Job done.
This photo is from 1987, after everything had settled down and I'd built the pagoda and the tea-house.



This from last year. Nothing much has changed other than the height of that conifer on the rockery, a new more substantial pergola and granite sets used to form the balustrade on the bridge.

 

"I purge the drain twice a week in the summer, but otherwise less frequently."

Can you explain that a bit more pls?

 

Glad to.

This is an old photo of the sump, the water butt you can see in an earlier picture before it got encased in waterproofed concrete. (it's slightly different now as there was a by-pass to a small waterfall, but I no longer have it going as the birds bathed in it and any parasites or whatever, washed off them and went into the pond). The original rubber lid is usually fitted over the top.




The main filter submersible pump hangs near the top and pumps water into the filters in the garage. The water level remains the same height as the pond as there's a pipe of the same diameter connected to the bottom drain in the middle of the pool. (It's covered by a 15" diameter dome which sits about an inch above the bottom.
That piece of pipe (it's the same diameter as the one on the back of your loo) fits into a socket at the bottom of the sump.

Here's a picture of the bottom drain "kit" with its dome top, the dome is the only thing you can see at the bottom of the pond as it's connected to that long pipe buried in a waterproofed concrete trench below the level of the bottom of the pond. You can also see the bend which attaches the pipe to the sump connection via short length of pipe and there's the stubby looking socket that fits above the connector in which the standpipe sits. the standpipe has an "O" ring around the bottom to make it a tight fit.





The precedure is to turn off the main pump and fit that piece of pipe into the socket. I then turn on a second pump that sits at the bottom of the sump. When the thirty-odd gallons or whatever, has been pumped to waste there's always some leaves and stuff in the bottom of the sump. When it's near as damn it empty, I turn off that pump and pull out the standpipe. Air pressure on the pond forces water down under the dome into the drain, along and up the connecting pipe and into the sump until the two levels are the same again. A lot of muck comes up with the water from the bottom of the pond. I can then replace the pipe in its socket and repeat the procedure pumping out the muck and water. I do this a couple of times until the water rushing up into the sump is relatively clean. I then turn the filter pump back on again and the job's done.

 

To purge a pond, filter etc is a "posh" way of saying "To pull the plug out of the pond plug hole" (But the plug is often not in the pond) The object being to get the "lumps and stuff out."

Koi fish are also known as "poo machines" they do produce a lot and it has to be removed, a more modern approach is to have a bottom drain connected to a vortex chamber.

As the name suggests a vortex chamber is where the water goes round in a spiral, any "heavy objects" fall to the bottom of the chamber and the chamber has it plug pulled as and when required.

A bottom drain is a clever invention. In short it makes a pumps "suck" better than by just having the pump alone.



The above is a closer picture of an actual bottom drain

 

Err... Sorry, I didn't think the word "purge" was posh.

Yes , you're right in what you say, but I think my system works as well as a vortex chamber, (which can be very expensive). Most of the solids in mine come up the pipe and then fall to the bottom of the sump. The filter pump being a couple of feet above the bottom of the sump. I'm quite happy that the returned water from my deliberately over-size filter is as clear, colourless and smells no different to tap water, though I wouldn't drink it!


As W.C. Fields said, "I can't stand water because of the things fish do in it.

As well as "poo" koi excrete twice their own weight per day..in urine.

 

You are the first real koi enthusiast to mention and show pictures that I have seen on this forum. I thought I would enlighten those who do not know anything about koi

I never said there is anything wrong with what you have, I merely pointed out that as what you have is "old" most people now when designing a koi pond will have the bottom drains going to a vortex chamber, and then I mentioned what a vortex chamber does.

You have to admit, most people think for koi you just have a big pond.

 

I haven't disagreed with anything you said. Vortex chambers were available when I designed and built this pool nearly 25 years ago, as were more sophisticated filter systems. But these are far more expensive, probably even now, than some plastic domestic cold water tanks and a rainwater butt. I joined a koi society before I converted this pool and visited a lot of set-ups to gain ideas, some of the more affluent even having dedicated full-size domestic gas boilers to heat the water in winter!
Mine was a deliberate choice, based on what I'd seen and what I could afford at the time and what I decided would work and it still does.
As for holes in the ground, you're right. I often feel sad when I 'm buying fish pellets and see people buying koi who would appear not to know much about them and you know that the poor things could be going into a set-up which is totally unsuitable and they won't live long. They don't realise it's not about keeping koi, it's mostly about "keeping the water."

 

Deleted

 

I've "bumped" this as I noticed that the photos were missing in my original post, I must have deleted them from Image Shack when I was having a clear out. But as pond construction has come up again and they may be of help I've posted new ones.

 

Fish are brighter than some may think. But not that bright.

For example, if I’m using the long small net for removing the ever falling wisteria blossom, they ignore it; in fact they sometimes get in the way.
Same with the long brush I use sometimes, to sweep any detritus towards the bottom drain that hasn’t gravitated towards it. But if the big net comes out, then they’re off in a bit of a panic until they’ve worked out which one of them I want to catch, then the others aren’t so bothered.

They can be quite inquisitive. In the past if I’ve been doing some work on the pump connections or whatever at that end of the pool, they’ll sometimes line up and watch for a bit. Their inquisitiveness is basically one question; “Can I eat it?”

You can actually train fish (a bit) you know.

Mine have learned that if I’m just walking past their pool, I’m not likely to be going to feed them, though they do “keep an eye on me,” sometimes swimming slightly on one side to get a better view, just in case I change my mind...

But if I stand at the rail and bang on it…. They are there before the food goes in.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK8XIOkh4Ow"]YouTube- P1030067[/nomedia]

 

what happens if you dont bang, but stand there?

 

They will if they see or hear me, swim from wherever they are, but it's only a leasurely glide. But as you can see they respond much more quickly if they hear me bang on the rail, that's before the food goes in.
When they arrive they even try to eat food that isn't there yet!

 

what would happen if you had a large stick, stood out of view but banged in the same place? or if some one else stood there and banged, i wonder would they still come like in the video

 

An interesting thought, but they aren't that bright. Although come to think of it, if I have a visitor and I show them the fish who the fish can see, the things seem a little reluctant to "perform" unless I chuck some food in.
I always enter the garden through the door in the side fence. This involves unlocking a padlock and sliding back a heavy bolt. They can hear this, particularly if the wind is blowing and the door bangs behind me, so they "hover" a bit at that end of the pool. The food is kept in the "fish room" at the other end so they do follow me down and hovver at that end near the bridge, but don't get excited unless I bang on the rail.
Two very large koi that I had for fifteen years that sadly died, were quite bright. I used to keep the food in a coffee jar which I kept on the rail against one of the posts. Large fish and I mean as these were around 24" aren't as active and didn't take much notice of me passing the pool. But if they saw me pick up the jar, they were "there."

Edit.

Before I took the video I'd stood at that end of the rail for a couple of minutes until they'd completely lost interest in my presence.

 

Hi D/R, some nice fish you have there I've just started on my second pond. I'm having something of a dilemma. I've settled on a bead filter, but not sure what to use as a pre-filter. The sieves look good, but I'm put off by what seems to be high maintenance. My first pond was very basic, a pump fed 4 bay filter thingy. My readings were always good and the water clear. I'm half tempted to go for a tank filled with brushes. Any thoughts ?

Cheers...Freddy.