Greetings from Arlington, Texas

[retiredusaf]

I retired from the USAF in 1984 and from Vought Aircraft in 2001. Had my first pond built in Oct 2009. It is 11' x 16' x 30" not including the waterfall area. I have it stocked with 12 Koi at present. The largest is about 14", 3 about 10" and the rest about 4" to 6". Didn't want to overpopulate the pond. I've read that the pond can accomodate from 8-15 Koi, depending on which article you read and how big the fish are. My filter, an Aquasurge 3000, circulates the water twice every hour and I very seldom feed the fish and they have kept the pond free of algea so far, in fact, my weekly water tests have been virtually perfect. I keep it leaf free, have a few plants and a lava biofilter. It does have a rocky bottom so hope I don't have to drain it and clean it far a long time. Is there a place to upload videos? Would love to upload mine and view yours.

 

[DrDave]

Welcome to the forum. Most of us post them on you tube then put the link here.

 

[HIROHITO99]

Welcome to the forum. I live in Arlington as well.

 

[retiredusaf]

I noticed you finished your pond in May of last year and I finished mine in Oct and they are close to the same size. Have you posted a picture on this site? I have, if you care to see it.

 

[HIROHITO99]

I'd love to see a picture of your pond. Please direct me to where it is on here.

I haven't really taken any of mine since the grass filled in. Here's the last shot I have of it. This is about two months after it had gotten established. I have 8 koi in there currently.

 

[koikeepr]

welcome! welcome!

 

[retiredusaf]

Great looking pond. You can view two pictures I took of mine posted in the Gallery under "R". One is a picture taken to show night lighting and one taken during the day. I have 12 Koi in mine. All but three are pretty small, 2 are 8-10" and 1 is about 14".

 

[HIROHITO99]

Wow. Beautiful work!

I wish I had used the type of rock that you used instead of the rip rap that I ended up going with. I needed to keep my pond within a tight budget so I bought the cheapest stuff that they had at Whiz-Q. It looks alright but when I see work like what you've done I regret it every time.

 

[retiredusaf]

First off, I wish I could take credit for building the pond but I can't. We had it done for us. I told them I wanted "Moss Sandstone" because I thought the moss color on some boulders was pretty and it happens that Moss Sandstone is one of the cheaper ones. I just bought some supplies and a Water Calla and Water Lilly plant from Whiz-Q just the other day. I like to go down and look at their stuff and talk to Wanda and some of the others. They were cleaning out some of their ponds when I was down there and only had 3-4 very small Koi around the place. I'm interested to see how our pond makes it through the hot summers we have here. No Algae yet! So far the fish are eating what appears; hope they can keep up with it.

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the forum
I saw the pic the rocks and pond look good !!!

 

[HIROHITO99]

Last summer I had one algea outbreak that I treated and it cleared up within a few days. There's a lot of helpful advice on here as to what to do when you have them. Several people recommend barley balls but I've never used them. They only treat string algea (which I haven had yet) and they tend to turn the water a brownish color. Whatever the case, enjoy your pond! Maybe we'll meet at Whiz-Q one of these days. I'll be the tall spikey haired, 38 year old who's alone with his 4 year old daughter.

 

[koiguy1969]

welcome to our not always so humble meeting of the minds!!

 

[retiredusaf]

Hope to see you there --- I'll be one of the old guys that is by himself; enjoy the little one, she will grow up before you know it!