Assessment/introduction

[brokensword]

Thought Pandora might have been a blonde, no? Heh

Better not encourage me :lol:

 

[brokensword]

Good to know, JW; currently, I have planned a shelf about a foot down, two sides of the pond(s). But as the digging continues, you never know when there suddenly might occur even more shelves!

Koi are earth movers, then? Btw, anyone use a plecostomus to help with algae? I don't think they can survive below, 50 degrees or so, might have to take any inside to overwinter, providing I could catch them...and do the fish eat any snails that might also find their way to helping graze on the green edibles?

I've got shelves but I made them 18" deep and never have any problems w/ any predators standing in there. But then I have goldies and can put the plants in there w/o having to deal w/ the koi rearranging the furniture :lol:

 

[brokensword]

I have pics proving I wasn't even in the room at the time...I mean, there was a bog in my way; how could I possibly get past that?

Lol, Michael opened it. It's where I keep all my animated gifs :lol:

 

[j.w]

Careful there, you might get turned into a toad

 

[brokensword]

had a flat once...then had to be toad...so, been there done that...

Careful there, you might get turned into a toad

 

[j.w]

Hope you don't get a flat tire tomorrow cuz I'm not taking the blame for it. Now how come your not sleeping back there in Michigan cuz you are 3 hours ahead of me here. Only 11pm here but 2am where you are

 

[addy1]

Laughing jw.............think he went to sleep!

&&& If your bogs are bottom fed, I'm assuming that IF there were a clogging problem, that there's still someplace for the water to go so that there's not a lot of back pressure on the pump, right? Or is it that the area is so large (the bog) and there IS NO clogging that this means that the pump operates more or less normally?
I don't figure to get any leaves as the outside world will be 'screened' out. Not to say I won't get something but I'm figuring it won't be much with my current plan.

If there is a clogging problem, it could be in the pipes, if in the pea gravel the water would just find a different path. The clean out pipe are to removed any obstruction. We used 2 inch pvc to decrease any chance of that happening.

My pump goes just into the bog, and mine bog is large, I watch the water coming off the water fall, it lets me know when to clean the leaf basket, a slight slow down of flow.

My pond and bog and 3 mature trees within 20 feet of it. Therefore the leaf basket lol

I have shelves, between the bog and pond, made it easier to make the wall for the bog. My shelf is around 2 feet down, it is working great for the lilies, iris and other plants. Deeper than most predators would like.

Koi will trash almost all pot and floating plants, goldies / shubunkins, don't seem to, at least mine don't.

&&& yeah, I see this now; would be much better to feed the plants right from the pond. I was only working to fit the bog where I'd already had a 'river' planned. But I'll rethink this and see about relocating the bog. Looking on my project earlier, I don't think I have quite 5' of area as I thought, so moving the bog might be better for this reason as well. Do you think if I had a deep channel instead of a wider, shallower area, that this would be commensurate? Is the bog filtering a volume metric or do I need to be worried more about square footage (area)?

With a bog you are better with a wide shallow area. My bog is deeper than most of the net information says it should be, but it is also wide and long, 4-6 feet wide, 27 feet long.

The surface area you have planted is what helps with the filtering along with the pea gravel.

I don't have a bottom drain (cut in liner drain) but my pump does draw from the bottom. I have only used external pumps, prefer them over submersibles. I do have a skimmer, we still need to get it hooked up, esp before the trees start dropping their leaves. I bought a pool skimmer, hayward, large weir, large leaf basket, could even hook up a hose to vacuum via the skimmer if I want to.


Koi and plants

koi and frogs

Big fish and fry

 

[addy1]

Darn edit time!

I have some very shallow shelves, the water comes and goes up over the shelf depend on if the pond is full or not. On that shelf I have rock which hides the liner as the water level changes. The fry, frogs love that shelf.

I do have a skimmer, hayward pool skimmer, it has a 18 inch weir, large leaf basket and I can even vacuum the pond via the skimmer if I desire to.

If you want koi and plants you need to protect the plants, floating planter rings, rocks in the pots etc.

 

[CometKeith]

Michael, Surface area is another way to determine your stocking level. The old adage is 1" of fish per sq ft of surface area. Now some people are suggesting for koi and other large fish that you can have only 1/2" of fish per square foot of surface area. The reason is that a 20" koi would weigh significantly more than for instance 10 2" fish and need more O2 and need more surface area. So getting back to shelves; They are essentially spreading your water out to give you more surface area. The actual depth of the pond may have some benefit for the fish like keeping them warm in winter or a way to escape predators, but the surface area actually influences their health more than anything. That is why people have waterfalls etc because it moves the water around. When water is moving it allows the water to get oxygenated. In the same way the more surface area you have the more dissolved oxygen there is available for your fish.
So if you have a 6'x6' square pond that is 2' deep then you have a pond at 538 gallons. So at 5" of fish per 100 gallons you can have about 27 inches of fish. At 10" per 100 gallons you can have about 53" of fish. If you split it in the middle at 7.5 inches per 100 gallons you can have about 40" of fish. If you take the surface area of 6'x6' then at 36 sq ft you could have 36" of fish at the 1" of fish per 1 sq ft ratio which is pretty close to the 40 inches of fish using the 7.5 inches of fish per 100 gallons. For a second pond that is the same volume at 4'x4' square and 5.4' deep would allow you the same amount of fish (40 inches) using the volume system, but by using the surface area you now have only 16 sq ft of surface area and can only have 16" of fish. In this 2nd pond the extra volume didn't support the extra bioload if you used surface area measurement as your rule of thumb and realistically it can only support half the amount of fish as the first pond. So you can see that by building shelves you are expanding the surface area and the pond can support more fish. Someone can always argue these numbers, but the concept remains the same; "the more surface area you have the more fish your pond can support". Also by digging your pond deeper where your shelves are you are not adding any real benefit in terms of the pond supporting more fish. I hope this helps.

 

[brokensword]

Thanks, Keith; yes it does help. I'll have this in mind when I get to the fish acquisition stage!