It's been a while

[ididntdoit99]

Hey everyone! I don't think I've checked in or posted any updates since last spring. Last fall/winter was a disaster for my pond. Things at home and work were just so crazy that I completely neglected everything that needed to be done and I lost every one of my fish this winter. Not to mention the cold of the winter, which many people around us had frozen pipes and went without water, the freeze much much deeper than normal. So, I learned some very important lessons, too bad that it came at the expense of losing some very nice koi, some of which were 5 years old now.

So this spring come new beginnings, I added a bog to the pond last year, but then never got to use it because there was a leak in the liner (used liner and rock I got for free for helping someone tear out a pond)
This weekend I drained the entire pond, dug all of the rock out of the bog, replaced that liner, and refilled everything. (and was smart enough to fill the bog with water and let it run a few days to check for leaks before putting all the rock in, something that sure would have saved me a lot of time the first time)

Very soon I hope to start checking out koi at the local stores and breeders, and find some decent looking pond quality koi (nothing too expensive for me, I'm not made of money) This time we are going with all koi, as before we had a mixture.

Here is a couple of pictures from this weekend, the teardown, and i'll see if i can post a video here in a minute i took last night after I finally finished.
I was telling the guys at work that this tracker is like haveing a John Deere Gator i can drive to work. Its so small i came in the yard, maneuvered around all the stuff in my yard no problem, wrapped a chain around the end of my liner and closed up the other side with a tow strap and just yanked it right out. Sure helped my back not having to dig as much.

Here I had the bog filled up with some water, and had just drained the pond.

 

[Big Lou]

Good luck in your rebuild!

 

[ididntdoit99]

Here is the video of it mostly completed, water is a bit brown from the dirt on the rocks, will take a little bit to settle, and I have some batting just sitting under the fall into the main pond right now to try to catch some of it.

Oh and i noticed in my first picture... i don't normally have black snow fence or a giant blue tarp making my yard look ugly. Our 2 year old pup suddenly decided she is interested in the neighbors cats, so i just threw that up one day to keep her in the yard when we are outside. It is slowly being replaced with the same 4 foot wood fence that i have around the pond. I did a third of it this weekend, just have to do a little at a time as my budget wasn't expecting putting up a fence. And the blue tarp was my temp roof over the kennel which is going to be replaced soon.

I have a larger pump coming for the waterfall (my other 900 gph pump broke) so this is just a little 200 gph one i have hooked up until that comes. and as you can see, I didnt get around to digging up my cannas last fall either, so i need to dig thos all out and clean up all the junk i have laying around. Then a couple bags of mulch to finish covering up the liner and I'm set.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152408362461057

 

[j.w]

99
Sorry that you lost all your fish. Hope you get it up and running soon w/ nice new ones. The weather kicked a lot of peoples butts this year and some are still getting kicked. Oh what we learn by ours and others mistakes when building a pond
Oh and can't view the video for some reason due to privacy issue settings on facebook.

 

[ididntdoit99]

hmm, that's kind of bogus, it says this right above my link when i copied it.
"You can use this link to share this video with anyone, even if they don't have a Facebook account. Anyone with the link will be able to see your video." I did just set that post to public, maybe that helped?

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152408362461057

I tried uploading to photobucket and it failed. anyway, I'll get some actual pictures tonight.

 

[ididntdoit99]

And you are sure right about the weather, it snowed again after I started working on it this weekend. I spent a good hour on Monday knee deep in the water while it was only about 33° outside.

 

[j.w]

Now your video is working and looks like your pond is all nice and ready for your new fish. Hope you get some nice weather soon so your fish don't have to go into cold water.

 

[sissy]

Good luck and nice looking rebuild and good luck with your fish hunt .I think we are all sick of this past winter

 

[ididntdoit99]

Petsmart, Buy 4 get 2 free right now. So we have 6 koi in the aquarium downstairs waiting for the pond temp to rise. Local koi breeder isnt open yet, but we are.going to try to get over there for at least two more koi.

One of these (the one I picked out)is just beautiful, you can see a slight blue coloring in the pictures, and has pronounced metallic scales. I dont know koi names at all.

 

[j.w]

Pretty be'be's

 

[ididntdoit99]

Done! At least for now. There are some things I need to change with the plumbing, and I threw together a little 5 gallon bio filter for the small pump, the big pump goes through the bog.
If I finally decide I like my filtration setup, I'll go to hard lines and hide them. But it seems I'm always changing something so I use flex line.

 

[j.w]

All ready for the fish now if the weather co-operates. I like that big sitting log a lot and your metal dog critter's cool too. Just have a bit of a crick in my neck trying to view the sideways pix

 

[addy1]

Great looking fish and great looking pond

 

[ididntdoit99]

Yeah, posted from my phone, I couldnt figure out how to fix it.

 

[j.w]

Hey a couple aspirin and a neck rub and all is good