Hi there,
My name is Ed and I'm a 21 year old from Shropshire. I spend most of my time training as a Student Paramedic and at university studying Paramedic Science. One of my hobbies has been to restore my pond, which was originally dug as a wildlife pond in 2000, when I was 10 years old. 18 months ago, I decided my fish needed to be moved from my tank as they were outgrowing it and I couldn't take them with my to university, so I decided to overhaul my pond.
Over the last 18 months I have slowly worked to transform it from the deminished wildlife pond into a nice, aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable koi pond.
The Old Pond
Since the pond was in a state of complete disrepair, I decided to drain it and reline it with a new liner. I also took the opportunity to increase the depth of the pond by 1.5 ft to a total of 3.5 feet, by covering the raised wall around the pond with old carpet from a carpet fitter and lining over this.
I was amazed to find these guys:
I rescued over 200 newts from the pond, which took my over 12 hours across two days of filtering through the mud and silt by hand. It was very messy and time consuming, but I would hate to knowingly kill even one living creature, so I had to get the newts out. I established a small and secure holding pool for them on the side of the original pond, to house them temporarily. I also purchased chlorine neutralising chemicals, as I new some of them were likely to migrate to the new pond the second any water hit the liner. I was right and overnight, most had found their way into the new pond (despite sitting happily for 3 days in the holding pool!)
Last summer I had a huge knock back, since the pond was hit by algae growth and blanket weed. I was away when the blanket weed arrived, and it sadly overwhelmed my beautiful sterlet, which left me devastated! I also lost some beautiful koi due to oxygenation issues and through increased levels of ammonia. This was a really sad error on my part as I believed my filtration system (10000 UVC pressurised filter) to be adequate. I have now installed a large air pump with four air stones, plus I have added another pressurised filter, a Hozelock Bioforce 12000 with Hozelock 6000lph pump. This should hopefully help, but I will be asking for advice on a new filtration design shortly in the appropriate section of the forums!
I added some lighting for barbecues and the such in the evenings, which is lovely. Below are some more pictures of the pond during the restoration, but not when it was finished. I look forwards to learning from you all!
Thanks,
Ed
My name is Ed and I'm a 21 year old from Shropshire. I spend most of my time training as a Student Paramedic and at university studying Paramedic Science. One of my hobbies has been to restore my pond, which was originally dug as a wildlife pond in 2000, when I was 10 years old. 18 months ago, I decided my fish needed to be moved from my tank as they were outgrowing it and I couldn't take them with my to university, so I decided to overhaul my pond.
Over the last 18 months I have slowly worked to transform it from the deminished wildlife pond into a nice, aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable koi pond.
The Old Pond
Since the pond was in a state of complete disrepair, I decided to drain it and reline it with a new liner. I also took the opportunity to increase the depth of the pond by 1.5 ft to a total of 3.5 feet, by covering the raised wall around the pond with old carpet from a carpet fitter and lining over this.
I was amazed to find these guys:
I rescued over 200 newts from the pond, which took my over 12 hours across two days of filtering through the mud and silt by hand. It was very messy and time consuming, but I would hate to knowingly kill even one living creature, so I had to get the newts out. I established a small and secure holding pool for them on the side of the original pond, to house them temporarily. I also purchased chlorine neutralising chemicals, as I new some of them were likely to migrate to the new pond the second any water hit the liner. I was right and overnight, most had found their way into the new pond (despite sitting happily for 3 days in the holding pool!)
Last summer I had a huge knock back, since the pond was hit by algae growth and blanket weed. I was away when the blanket weed arrived, and it sadly overwhelmed my beautiful sterlet, which left me devastated! I also lost some beautiful koi due to oxygenation issues and through increased levels of ammonia. This was a really sad error on my part as I believed my filtration system (10000 UVC pressurised filter) to be adequate. I have now installed a large air pump with four air stones, plus I have added another pressurised filter, a Hozelock Bioforce 12000 with Hozelock 6000lph pump. This should hopefully help, but I will be asking for advice on a new filtration design shortly in the appropriate section of the forums!
I added some lighting for barbecues and the such in the evenings, which is lovely. Below are some more pictures of the pond during the restoration, but not when it was finished. I look forwards to learning from you all!
Thanks,
Ed
