koi pond

[apedroza]

Our pond is about 1.5' into the ground and it keeps it pretty warm in the winter. The part above ground is what freezes, and only then I have only seen it form a small sheet of ice.

[mathias]

maybe Ill do 4 to 5 feet with a liner.... and try chiclids they are hearty and will spawn a lot....


think about doing river rocks on the bottom for babies to hide when hatched... and some lighting under water to help see through while viewing? anyone want to help dig a hole that big lol...

[jc]

4 or 5 feet! That sounds like swimming hole not a pond.

[jc]

I'm not really concerned about the water temp in the winter with 2'. I might get a deicer to keep a hole in the ice or maybe use a bot of hot water. What I'm worried about is whether the fish can grow and thrive in that depth. I was hoping to keep at most 5 koi.

[jc]

Update on my pond plans. I could not find any information online that said you could keep koi in anything less than 3 feet of water. When I asked one fish store they said the depth wasn't a big deal as long as the fish had plenty of room to swim. I guess the major point of having 3 feet of depth is that it allows the pond to freeze over and the fish to not compete for the remaining air. Also, another big point was that koi kept in shallow water develop a pot-belly look since they can not swim up and down as much. Other people I've spoken to have kept koi in small ponds and just trade them in when they get too big. I think I will try that with 1 or 2 koi. I'm going to stick mostly with comets or wakins if I can find them.

Old pond: 7' 1/2 X 6' and 18" deep. 270 gallons.
I read that water lilies would not thrive in 18" of water. As you can see that is not what I experienced. Later on the water was almost entirely covered by the pads and I would get 7 blooms at a time.


New pond: 11' 1/2 x 10' 1/2 and 18" deep. 1,355 gallons.
I still need to clean up the sides of the waterfall and replace the dead grass. I hope the algae will cover the pvc pipe.

[jc]

I would have liked to go deeper but my back protested to much.

[RayAllen]

Its a pain to dig here in SA and Austin in worse, and it looks good.

[erikharrison]

That's a pretty pond bud!

[jc]

I think I dug up more rocks than actual soil. Thanks for the compliments.