First Time Pond Owner From Portland, OR

[chameleoncaretaker]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Jessica and this is my first pond, the ponds been up and running for about 2 weeks. It is 263 gallons, I have 2 koi and 4 gold fish. I have a 500 gph pump hooked up to a sponge filter with a fountain coming up in the middle and I just threw in another 593 gph pump for extra circulation. There is no rock in the bottom. The water is starting to get cloudy and I have debris on the bottom that my manual skimming is not getting. I want crystal clear water!!! Help experts what do I do?
Thank you and I can't wait to learn!

 

[ididntdoit99]

Welcome Jessica!
Well you definitely have some circulation... I don't know if your picture is recent.. but it looks pretty clear to me. What kind of cloudiness are you seeing? color green, brown, whiteish?

One thing I notice right away is a lack of plants.... There are nutrients in the water, and if you don't have plants to use up those nutrients, algae is going to grow like crazy. Also, it looks like you've got yourself a decent mechanical filter attached to the pump, but you may want to research bio filtration.

Some recent pictures, more description of the state of the water (do you have a water test kit? can you tell us some readings?), and some more details on your setup will help us help you

 

[CometKeith]

Hi Jessica, I agree with above comments. Also something that you will learn is that crystal clear water is not necessarily what your fish want or need. Most new ponds need to get balanced or cycled first. It is very typical that they can get cloudy until the beneficial bacteria start working. Also it is not a big deal if there is waste at the bottom however I would recommend to only lightly feed until your pond has cycled because your ammonia levels might be high right now if there is a lot of fish waste. Bio filtration is the best way to get beneficial bacteria(BB) and to get pond to cycle. BB turns the ammonia into nitrite and then other BB will turn the nitrites into nitrates which is fairly inert and not harmful to your fish. You might want to get a test kit and take readings of ammonia, nitrite,nitrate,ph etc. These readings are much more important to your fishes health than the water clarity. Ammonia should always be at zero. Good luck and welcome to the forum!

 

[ididntdoit99]

. Also something that you will learn is that crystal clear water is not necessarily what your fish want or need. Most new ponds need to get balanced or cycled first. It is very typical that they can get cloudy until the beneficial bacteria start working.

Very true! honestly, if your pond looks like it does in the pictures above, something is wrong, lol. it should never be that clean, no algae growth on the sides, that looks like an uncycled pond to me, like you just filled it.

Again some pictures of the current condition will help us help you, but being is its only been 2 weeks, and you have no plants, and have added 4 fish, i would say the pond is cycling, and there could be an algae bloom.

 

[sissy]

#1 thing is take the hummingbird feeder from over top of the pond ,not a good idea ,nectar is a sweet sugar based product .I am guessing that pic is when you started your pond and it has not cycled and you added fish .Just hoping it is well water or is treated .You could do quilt batting in there to catch the finer stuff.I did this with my stock tank .I have the hose from the pump going into the basket on top of the crate and the basket has quilt batting in it .
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[j.w]

Jessica
Gosh your pond looks pretty clear to me. If you want to remove the fine stuff floating in your water you could use some white quilt batting in a plastic basket/pot w/ holes in it. Put the batting in the basket/pot and run a hose from your pump over the basket and when the batting gets dirty clean it off w/ a hose and put it back in till you like the clearness of your water. Nice to have more than one bunch of that batting so you can easily switch back and forth. You can use this technique whenever you feel the need and it's simple!

 

[chameleoncaretaker]

Thank you for all the info! I will get plants, get a test kit, and research a bio filter. Should I make a bio filter or purchase one? Pictures of Bio filters would be great. Thank you.

 

[sissy]

they have some here on the sight and you can see some built on you tube step by step

 

[chameleoncaretaker]

Just measured my PH for the first time and it's 5.8 :sad: What do I do to get the PH to come up? I'm going to the pond store to get some plants and supplies. Is there any plants I should avoid? I hate being a newbie, but I really appreciate all the help and advice.

 

[CountryEscape]

Welcome, Jessica. What type of water did you use to fill your pond? City water that has chlorine in it, or well water? I'm going to guess well water, with that low of PH! I'm not sure what to use to raise the PH, as that's REALLY low. Most people are trying to lower their PH. Goldfish/koi/carp like it in the 8.0 range, give or take. Ask at the pet store about the PH, but remember that adding chemicals to raise the PH will do so temporarily ... hopefully others will chime in about the PH.
As far as plants, lilies are nice and hardy. If you get one that is in a pot, put it in a shallow good sized pot. I used a 3.5 gal bucket cut off at about 5" deep. Put plain clay kitty litter (not the scoopable kind, the cheap stuff, not scented, just plain clay) and plant the tuber in that. Put some rocks on top of the clay so the koi won't dig it up. Lilies typically will grow and bloom the first year, so it's a good choice. Koi will wat some plants, like hyacinths and water lettuce. Ask wherever you buy plants, and hopefully they will know which ones are hardy and work well with koi. Your koi are small, so they should not do much damage this year.
Good luck!!!

 

[chameleoncaretaker]

CE, I used de chlorinated city water.

 

[addy1]

CE, I used de chlorinated city water.

did you use a test strip? or a liquid test kit. I found my test strips did a lousy job with reading an accurate ph. If it is a test strip make sure they are not dated i.e. old
Nice looking pond btw, agree with the comments above from the others.

Glad you joined.

 

[CountryEscape]

Oh, that may be why your PH tested so low! If not, then you will need to figure out how to increase it, I would think. Good luck with that! BTW, have fun looking at plants! There are so many fun ones. Find ones that are hardy, then you only have to buy them once, but sometimes the not-hardy ones are prettier and worth it to have them for the summer.

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forums Jessica, great to have you here! :wave:

 

[chameleoncaretaker]

I re tested my PH with a different method and now I find my PH to be high... I went to the pond store today and left with mixed feelings... I showed the employee pictures of my pond and all he suggested I do is add rock and give my pond some time. How do most ppl feel about rock in the pond or putting pvc under the gravel and doing recirculation that way? I told him I wanted to build a biofilter and he didn't give me much advice. I did get a few plants...