building a small fish pond

[chrisusvi]

I am going to switch to a 4" block instead of the 8". It will create double the water volume and room for more fish.
Before I start laying the blocks do I need to need stub in a tube at the bottom through the wall that will connect to the pump? Or can I mount the filter somewhere else? Where should the filters go?

 

[koikeepr]

huh? "stub in a tube"?

me no understand what'chu say! LOL!

 

[chrisusvi]

Hey, it's a construction term.

It means to put the pipe through the wall before putting the wall in.

 

[koikeepr]

well, that all depends on what your plans are for filtration and pump. You haven't mentioned any of that yet. you've just given us pond dimensions on what sounds like an above ground pond that is very small.

What do you figure your new pond volume will be now that you are going bigger? 400 gallons? That's still fairly small, so I would still stick to the idea i gave you earlier and still a few goldfish--no koi for that size still. 6.5' feet is just way to small for a koi to turn around and swim in--they need lots of room as they are river fish that get big.

 

[chrisusvi]

By switching to 4" blocks, I calculated that the pond will be about 309 gallon now.
The pump that I am thinking of using is the Laguna Max-flo 600. Could you please re-iterate the filter that go with the Laguna Max-flo 600. I won't be keeping koi fish but just an outside fish tank. It will be a focal point for a future deck that will be a part of it.

 

[koiguy1969]

if it were me i would build a 70 gallon stock tank skippy filter..the tub sits 2' high and set on a couple of cinder blocks would give you a nice 8 to 10" drop of return water.for aeration and you fill the top with water hiacynths for additional veggy filtration and to hide the filter...your water parameters will be of a superior quality and the hiacynths will gobble up the nutrients that otherwise would feed alge.
as much filtation as your pond would ever need ...but you just cant have too much!!

 

[koikeepr]

I think koiguy's idea is a good one if you have a place to hide the stock tank and want to DIY your filter. Can you hide a large DIY fillter behind your pond?

If you don't want to DIY it, you can couple the maxflo 600 (be sure to put it on a brick or two in your pond), then I'd go for the smallest pressure filter they make--the pressureflo 700. It will be very small and easy for you to hide. You can even bury it in the ground right next to the pond up to it's cover. I have the largest one as part of my filter system and I just lay a flat piece of slate stone on top and you can't even see it. It also comes with a built-in UV light to prevent green water. You will need to worry about that because in a small pond like yours things will get warm quickly and you can get algae bloom. I also have a 55 gallon skippy as well, tho.

It's all about what you're willing to do and if you've got a way to hide things. You could dry-stack block around the stock tank koiguy suggests and that could be nicely hidden as well. My first suggestion is always to DIY, but I offer an off the shelf idea for those that aren't interested in that. I happen to have a combination of both because my pond is in an open area where it is not possible to hide things, so I have to rely on burying everything. Therefore I have built a filter pit to hide all my mechanicals. I can't use the stock tank that koiguy is suggesting to you because I have no way of hiding it. You can see my old threads on what my filter/pit/pond look like.

He is 100% correct in that the more filtration the better.

 

[koiguy1969]

my filter is built with a waterfall weir not pipe so mine is hidden in my waterfall mound. right at ponds edge...and is virtually invisible