Help! New House with Koi Pond!

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

I just bought a house with a koi pond! I do not know anything about keeping koi. I have had aquarium fish before so I bet it can't be much different. Except the whole outside thing and lack of a decent filter. Please let me know if you see anything I should be concerned about or what kind of issues I may be facing.

This pond was filled in with dirt. My wife and I dug it out. the lady who owned the house before could not take care of it being 90. I have power washed the pond. the pond has stone that goes up the sides to hide the concrete which I have removed for cleaning. Now that the pond is empty I am going to seal it and put the stone back. It has a water fall at the far end and is surrounded by house on 3 side. All the plumbing goes down to the basement.

Here are the pictures attached. I have others. Thank you.

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

:biggrin: Sorry about the rotation.

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the forum
what size are your copper pipes they look to be about 1" to me..?
Your pump is just a recirculator pump
with a new pump and a home made filter you will be ready to go

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

The pipes are 1 1/2 inches. Do they make a filter that can be used below water level in my basement? I worry if I make something the pond would drain into my basement. Would a pool filter work for this? Maybe 3/4 horse power?

Tonight I bought a screen to keep the leaves out for the winter and I applied the first coat of drylock. I hope for good weather so I can add a second coat when I return from work on wednesday.

Does anyone have an idea how I can calculate how many gallons this might be? Thank you.

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

1st coat of drylock. Going to do brown tonight.

 

[koiguy1969]

if you can go black instead of brown i would !! having the filter in the basement is definately gonna limit your selection a bit. is that a waterfall weir built into the concrete at the one end?

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

Yes the waterfall is. I'll get a better picture posted. Painting the pond black was not an option because the paint will only take 2oz of pigment and it starts off white. The paint guy had to take paint out of the can to prevent it from overflowing just to get it a darker brown.

Does anyone know if this pond can handle a few plants or would it be to shaded? I'll try to get a picture of the area around it also to give an idea where it is. Thank you.

 

[stroppy]

lilys wouldnt be any good in shade but im sure others might be ok ..does it get any sun at all ?...to work out how much water you have you need to measure pond then look at this link it works out your amount of water for you . http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.antonio/antoniokoi_005.htm

 

[newday3000]

To figure out the volume. You can also use a stop watch and time your hose filling a 2 gallon bucket. Then fill up the pond (when your done). Then calculate GPH of your hose.

3600 seconds / (seconds to fill the 2 gallon bucket) multiplied by 2 (gallons of the bucket) = GPH of your hose.

now you can time the filling of the pond and use the GPH to calculate the volume of your pond exactly.

 

[koiguy1969]

u.s gallons............ average length x avrage width x average depth x 7.48 = volume.......

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

The pond gets more narrow as it goes to the bottom so the seconds to fill a 5 gallon bucket might be good. Thank you.

 

[newday3000]

This method accounts for all shapes and sizes of ponds.

 

[koiguy1969]

thats what i did when i filled mine up too...to check against my calculations there was only a 15 gallon difference...your shelves are real close in heigth and width.. measure your middle shelf and use full pond depth and i bet your really close.

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

Here are some more pictures.

 

[BB-Koi-Keeper]

Anyone want to guess at how many gallons untill I can figure it out?