I'm new to the forum. I posted something on another page before I found this one which is what I was looking for. Anyways, I got into diy ponding about 8 yrs ago after attending the home and garden show. We had just bought a house with a dinky pond in the humongous backyard. So, typical me set out to build something monumental. 3 years later a pond with four stage filtration measuring 18 x 20 ft @ 8000gal. At it's peak I had 23 high quality koi. was pretty hilarious. The koi guy came straight from Pearson with 20 imported from Japan. Real beauties. If it wasn't for the every dropping Linden tree right over the pond it would have been perfect. Nevertheless, lots of enjoyment but constant skimmer cleaning and bead filter back flushing. Then the divorce 
