Bought a new house...have a pond with koi and need some help.

[blessedfamily]

That will look nice when you clean it up,post pictures when your done please.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Well I was able to clean it up a lot. I pulled the lillies out completely. There were like 5 pots in the pond and only one or two had anything at the surface. I yanked them and will add more later. Within days of my buying this house the two fancy gold fish and one small koi were dead. My water chemical levels are good and the other fish seem fine. I think the old owner might have added those fish in before we took ownership but I have no idea what happened.​

It's been weeks now and the other fish all seem very lively and look really good.​

Everything is going well now it seems.​

 

[koiguy1969]

glad to hear it whitenoise....good luck and continued success!

 

[j.w]

Sounds good WN and now you can enjoy it more since you have cleaned everything up and made it to your liking!

 

[WhiteNoise]

Well it's been a couple of years but I have more questions. lol

By the way....after getting advice from you all my pond came back. string algae was gone, water crystal clear up till this year I've had no issues...but...

I'm getting really tired of the filter unit I bought. It's better than the original unit but I'm having a hell of a time keeping the water clean. so much algae and the water is always green now and the filter gets all mucked up within a few days. So I've decided to buy a 55 gallon plastic food classed barrel and I'm going to make a DIY filtration system. I have done a lot of research and have settled on how I will build it so thats not an issue.

The problem I'm having is finding a pump that will work better. Right now I have a little 750 gph pump that just died the other day. I'm using an old pump to get me by but I need a replacement asap. My pond is around 1200 gallons and the pump needs to be able to handle that and work with the 55 gallon drum. I don't really have any extra money at the moment so I'm trying to find something that will get the job done for at least a year until I can look into spending more money if need be.

One issue I've had with all the pumps Ive used so far is they all have a small intake with a basket around it to catch any big chunks from passing through the pump. This means that I'm having to pull the pump out fairly often to clear the basket. Pain in the butt.
I have a decent amount of sludge (green algae and what not) at the bottom of the pond. I have no way to take the fish out and drain/clean the pond so what I have been doing is draining it really low and filling it up with filtered water while the fish are in there.

questions:

1. Are there any affordable pumps out there that I should know about?
2. Are there any pumps that don't need a intake basket/filter that can pass all the algae through to the filter outside the pond? Or is this just something I have to deal with?
3. Can I get away with a pump that pushes 950 gph? (I think my little pump wasn't able to push the water fast enough)
4. Is there anything I can do about the sludge at the bottom of pond? I was hoping my 55 gallon filter system will take care of that for me actually.

I may have mentioned this before but this is not something I ever wanted. I think koi ponds are beautiful but I wasn't ready to take one on till I moved here and just had one that I have had to take care of. I have around 4 Koi in there with a couple of very large gold fish and a getting damn big fancy gold fish (I had no idea gold fish could grow this large lol) and my fish are important to me. Never wanted any of this but the little guys depend on me so I do my best.

Oh and my largest koi actually comes up to the surface so I can rub his head....he loves it. lol so do I.

Any help appreciated as always.

 

[sissy]

welcome and it looks very zen like .You can buy one of those prefilter things colleen and jw have that goes on the pump in the water .I think it was a bio type filter .Pumps you can check out on ebay .I bought laguna and energy savings and 4 year warranty from webbs is what sold me .Koi are very friendly but the get very large .i love my aggie and bert

 

[Dave 54]

So the last owner left their koi in the pond when they moved out. (I'm related to the seller). She moved over seas and is not available for help. The pond is concrete with a sprayed on black liner. There is no drain system installed from what I can see either.

I have no experience with garden ponds but I do have around 4 years of experience with indoor aquariums. Still; my knowledge is limited to freshwater aquariums and I admit I'm not sure what should be done about this pond.

The first thing I did was pull out my water testing kit and make sure the water is good. It is. A bit on the hard side but all in all good. Taking some quick measurements that pond seems to be around 987 US gallons. It's inner measurements: 17 feet long, 3'11" wide and ONLY 2'5" deep. Is the depth okay? Most ponds should be like 4 feet deep shouldn't they? Living in southern California means I can get away with a shallower pond maybe? At this depth though I'm concerned about big birds....like the crane that seems to hang out from time to time. So I figure I should net the top of the pond now too.

So looking at the pond it seems somewhat neglected to me. Lots of leaves resting at the bottom of the pond and a ton of green stringy algae on all the side walls. I know algae can be good but I wonder if this is too much. It's quite long. Should this be removed? By hand? By chemical?

There's a couple of plants in there as well. one looks like a Lilly type plant but it looks mostly dead. The other is...well I don't even know. It looks like its doing okay but could be better. Should I be adding plat food to this pond? I had live plants in my indoor aquarium and I had to add nutrients to the water every so often. Should I do the same now?

Looking over the filter and pump system I'm not too impressed. There is a fairly large shallow box with screen and filter that lays at the bottom of the pond; a water line runs up to a pump that is designed for a small water feature not a pond of this size but I could be wrong. From there it was pumping water back into the pond via another tube but I put together a small water fall fixture and ran the tubes up on it to get more oxygen in the water. This is only temporary but will get me by for awhile.

The pump IMO is too small for this pond and I think I should upgrade. I'm having a hard time finding info on it but the name is: Buddy L EEF150 (swimming pool pump)

Other than the foam type filter that in that shallow box I don't know if the pump itself has any filtration built in. Should I add pebbles to the bottom of the pond? Or leave it as is? So if someone could point me in the right direction on any of these concerns of mine I'd be very grateful.

I'll take some pictures as well.

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Welcome to the forum we have 27 years experiance of koi keeping but we know where your at about now as it was oly five years ago we took our koi from their huge 200 gallon imperial 6 x 2 x 2.5 aquarium .
From what we can see the pond needs a little TLC and a new filter "external" plus UV-C your 987 gallons will need to be verified for any future tretments you need but it isnt far off our own 1.000 galon Imperial pond.
How much do you know about keeping koi ?

Dave

 

[Nepen]

I think you should post your new questions in a separate post

Anyway, for the muck, you can use the fishing net/pool net to clean them up. that's what I used.

Also, you can try to have 2 smaller pumps than one big one. 2 pumps will help when one fail then you will still have pump. You can place it far apart.

Dont put your pump at the bottom of the pond, raised it a bit, that will prevent any loss of you ever have a leak and the water get pump out of the pond (that happened to me a few times). This will help your pump from collecting too much gunk too. Just use the net to scoop up the muck.

Harbor Freight Tool (store) has cheap pump, I use one from them since last year (620 gph - about $40) you can use 2 of them. But also check the cord, this tend to have short cord



Welcome back!

 

[WhiteNoise]

I think you should post your new questions in a separate post

Anyway, for the muck, you can use the fishing net/pool net to clean them up. that's what I used.

Also, you can try to have 2 smaller pumps than one big one. 2 pumps will help when one fail then you will still have pump. You can place it far apart.

Dont put your pump at the bottom of the pond, raised it a bit, that will prevent any loss of you ever have a leak and the water get pump out of the pond (that happened to me a few times). This will help your pump from collecting too much gunk too. Just use the net to scoop up the muck.

Harbor Freight Tool (store) has cheap pump, I use one from them since last year (620 gph - about $40) you can use 2 of them. But also check the cord, this tend to have short cord



Welcome back!

Hey thanks for the reply. After reading the first couple of responses I realised I should have started a new thread as I think I only confused them. lol But you caught on. Thanks!

Seems dumb but I never even thought about raising the pump off the floor of the pond. Sheesh that alone would have made a nice difference. So I'll use some stone and get it lifted. I Have a pool net that I have been using so I guess I was already on the right track there.

One question though....if I use two pumps do they run inline with each other or would they run to a 'T' bracket and then single line to filter unit? I wouldn't mind a couple pumps anyway.

Thanks!

 

[Nepen]

I ran one to my waterfall then the other to my container bog. I think it's up to you how you want it but to have them join in a T, your water pressure might be effected by that. You can have more than one filter, you know

I have 4 container bog filters in my little pond. Just love the ability to grow plants and also filter my water at the same time. It should be almost maintenance free too. There are other people who's building it right now and Addy has a great bog building thread. I have pictures in my pond showcase if you are interested.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I've seen those filter systems using small stones and people growing plants on the rocks. Pretty cool but I'm not going to go that direction. I will be using my algae that is filtered out of my pond in my gardens though.

Thanks again.

 

[sissy]

I would say in a way my filter is like a bog since I use lava rock in my stock tank and grow grasses and plants in it

 

[Shdwdrgn]

It sounds like you're looking for something with practically no maintenance, and what you're suggesting isn't going to help. Some things for you to consider...

• Keep in mind that despite anyone's best efforts, your pond is an unnatural environment, and requires you to do the work that is normally handled by more natural processes. There is no place to flush out waste and toxins, so you will have to do some maintenance to keep the water clean.
  
• If you have a pump in the water, it will suck things in and require occasional cleaning. The basket around the submersible pumps is to prevent the pump from sucking in something that will damage the pump. The only other option is an external self-priming pump (which can be expensive) with a coarse filter ahead of it, and you would still need to perform regular cleanings of the pre-filter so that the pump doesn't run dry.
• 750gph for as 1200 gallon pond is way too small. You are likely getting sludge buildup because there is so little water flow through your pond. Personally I would at least double your pond capacity as a starting point for your pump size. My pond is around 1500-1600 gallons, and I run two 2900gph pumps (one pump to each of my two 55-gal barrel filters). It keeps the water clean, but that doesn't do anything for the algae. Because of the size and shape of your pond, I would probably start with a 2000gph pump and split the output so only half goes through the filter (you want good flow from one end of the pond to the other to help break up sludge, but the filter doesn't need quite so much running through it).
  
• I only did a quick scan of this thread, but I didn't see much about plants. Do you have any plants in the water? If you want less muck, plant heavily. Plant roots are the best source for breaking down the junk in the water, but again you need some water flow around the plants.

Bog filters seem to mimic natural processes most closely and probably give the most all-around benefit for keeping the water clean. The 55-gal barrel filters are pretty good at biological filtration, breaking down fish waste and such, but they do very little for algae cleanup and control. You can get a UV filter to purify the water, but that is mostly only effective against green water (I believe) and won't help with the bottom sludge or string algae.

As for pumps, I've been pretty happy with my Laguna Max-flo's. It only takes me about 10 minutes to clean both filters, and they push a nice flow of water over my waterfall. You mentioned a small intake on your pump... mine have 1.5" intake and outlets on them, and I ran 2" pipes from each pump back around to the waterfall.

Hopefully this gives you a lot to think about. For the most part, pond maintenance is easy (except for the Fall leaves), you just need to improve your setup with the right things to tackle the specific problems.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Thanks Shdwdrgn.

I know I can't get away from maintenance but with my current setup I have to clean the filter and pump inlet every few days or once a week if I want a really bad mess to clean up. My goal is to run the 55 gallon drum filter using large gravel, medium gravel and peat gravel in layers with bio balls on top. I have a feeling this system will not need to be cleaned nearly so often, (except maybe the first month which i figure I might have to clean it multiple times at first until the pond gets under control) which is my goal. I picked up a small pump to get me by while I build this thing and am currently looking for a second pump so I can run two. The pump I bought earlier today is rated at 975gph and I'm looking for a 1000 to 1200gph pump to go with it. My thought is I could use the the smaller pump for my fountain or for use it at the other end of the pond with a 1 1/4" vertical pipe that will fan out the water on the surface or something. I'm not sure how will go about this yet. The larger pump I plan to use for pumping to the 55 gallon drum filter.

When you suggested using a larger pump and splitting the output did you mean that one outlet would just open up to the pond itself passing water through to to get the water moving more? while the other heads to the filter?

I looked at the Laguna max flo's but the only one in my price range is the Max Flow 1000 (960gph) But I also looked at a Danner PondMaster2000 magnetic drive pump (2000gph) Would either of these be fine to use with the new 975gph pump I just bought? I was already planning on running two pumps but now I'm worried that I won't be pumping enough.

As for plants I only have one very large plant in at the moment. I do have plans for that though. The Wife and I were talking earlier about picking up a handful of lilies to add to the pond. We plan to wait till I get the pumps and filter up and running. I wasn't aware the plants would help with the muck. So thanks! I will plant heavily now that I know that.

I currently have a UV light setup and have been using it for around a year now. Its a cheap model though and I don't think it's doing much but what do I know....

I was also planning to build a canopy to extend out over the pond as it is under direct sun light all year round in the summers it easily gets up to 110F here which means my algae just thrives.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I bought a 2000gph pump. So i should be good now. On to the build.