Koi pond! Really confused.

[JesseMoreira06]

Like this?

 

[GBBUDD]

I have a rather oversized set up and i built two bogs, for the last month i have shut down the main bog 18x10x6 and the small bog is the only filter on the pond it's like 6x8 by a foot deep and i have 30 koi from 27 inches long down to babies but mostly 12 to 18". And the small bog had some work to do as the pond is just recovering from the winter idle and the water got milky. Well even the small bog has been able to maintain the pond and it has a good deal of algae that had grown over the winter on the rocks that has already disappeared now that the fish are munching on the rocks and swimming around. I have been so pleased with the bog the redo of the matrix bog is going to run over 5k if your wondering why so much you can see my set up in the link below

 

[GBBUDD]

Is this an ideal picture to look at?

yes with the exception of the weeping wall. imo that defeats the idea. you want the water pumped to the bottom of the bog and you want it to stay there as long as possible . allowing the micro organisums and bacteria to do their job. so the proper flow through the right size bog is key.

 

[GBBUDD]

Like this?

YES . YOU GOT THE IDEA SKIMMER OR A INTAKE BAY . for the money and what it does give me an intake bay . though the helix skimmer is a close second in my book

 

[JesseMoreira06]

YES . YOU GOT THE IDEA SKIMMER OR A INTAKE BAY . for the money and what it does give me an intake bay . though the helix skimmer is a close second in my book

Awesome good to know, I will also take a lot into Intake Bat and Helix skimmer. Never heard of either or before.

also concerning the waterfall with the bog create enough water to do so?

 

[GBBUDD]

yes and works well

 

[poconojoe]

You're on the right track.

My bog is 14 ft. X 5 ft.

I kept all my piping within the pond and bog to prevent any water loss just in case something springs a leak. But that's up to you.

My pump is a submersible type and is 3600 gph. It seems to flow perfectly. Not too fast, not too slow. I keep it suspended off the bottom with a string attached to it and held by a rock on the ground. The reason for keeping it off the bottom is so it doesn't suck up any solid debris that may possibly collect there.

You can use an external pump if you like, but I prefer submersible since I run it all year, even in the winter. Plus if your pump and piping are outside the pond and you Spring a leak, you might empty your pond. It's my way of thinking. Some people here do use external pumps.

My pump has an 1-1/2" outlet. I ran 1-1/2" black flex PVC from the pump to the bog. The black flex PVC lays on the bottom of the pond. It can hardly be seen since its black and is covered with biofilm. The flex PVC goes over the wall of the bog, then I switched to regular ridgid PVC and increased it to 2" for perhaps better flow and less possible clogging.

I used a wye fitting and have two 2" pvc pipes 10 feet long as my manifold.
I cut slits in the manifold pipes 1/3 through them and spaced 1-1/2" apart.
Some have the slits facing down, but I faced mine up.

I used river stone instead of the reccomended pea gravel only because that's all I could get at the time due to Covid. The stones covering the manifolds are 12" deep.
I made my bog walls much higher than 12", just in case there's expansion or other unseen occurrences.

It's a good idea to use a union at the highest point of your piping. If you shut down the system for winter there's usually a vacuum that will force the water in the bog to reverse and flow back to the pond. That will empty your bog and overflow your pond. Crack open the union to break the vacuum. You don't want to empty the bog because it will kill the dormant plants if they dry out. It's fine if the whole thing freezes.

 

[poconojoe]

Mine is the simple basic gravel over manifold type bog.

The other type has a snorkel and centipede with aqua blox. It creates a void under the gravel for debris collection which can be sucked out through the large diameter vertical snorkel by dropping a pump down into it.
I think this type is good for larger setups.

 

[lvray]

Let me just pop in to add - if you are building a pond for koi, 2000 gallons is waaaaay too small. Think goldfish - comets, shubunkin,etc - and you can skip the bottom drain altogether.

One of our koi ponds is just over 2500 gallons and has a half dozen koi up to 24 inches, plus some goldfish. It is over 20 years old and I have never had issues with water chemistry. But it is a huge amount of filtration and I do routine water changes where the water from the settling tank is used to irrigate the yard. It also has 2 male turtles that eat the eggs & fry, so over the last 20 years we have only had a few of the goldfish make it to adulthood, and they just get moved to another pond or given away. So yes, you can have some koi in a smaller pond if you build it correctly. Not everyone has the space or money for a large pond.
We also have a pond just for goldfish and that has a bottom drain too. I would never consider building any pond without a bottom drain.

 

[Lisak1]

One of our koi ponds is just over 2500 gallons and has a half dozen koi up to 24 inches, plus some goldfish. It is over 20 years old and I have never had issues with water chemistry. But it is a huge amount of filtration and I do routine water changes where the water from the settling tank is used to irrigate the yard. It also has 2 male turtles that eat the eggs & fry, so over the last 20 years we have only had a few of the goldfish make it to adulthood, and they just get moved to another pond or given away. So yes, you can have some koi in a smaller pond if you build it correctly. Not everyone has the space or money for a large pond.
We also have a pond just for goldfish and that has a bottom drain too. I would never consider building any pond without a bottom drain.

I don't disagree with you - with good filtration, it can work. However, we had 14 big koi in our pond for a number of years and all was well... until our pump failed in the middle of a long cold winter. All but one of those koi died. It was terrible. The 2 dozen goldfish we had in the pond at the same time were unfazed. I will never put koi in my pond again, as much as I love them. And we managed those koi for years with only a bog for filtration - no bottom drain, no water changes, no settling chambers. Just a pond full of plants and fish.

What I don't agree with is the statement "not everyone has the space or money for a large pond". That would be like me saying I really want a St Bernard, and I live in a small apartment but I'm going to do it anyway because it's what I want. If you can't afford to house an animal - any animal - properly, then choose differently. Lots of dogs would do great in a small apartment. Same with pond fish. You can have a beautiful pond of any size that's full of colorful goldfish. Not every pond is suited for koi. If someone can't afford a large pond, then they probably can't afford extensive filtration either.

And the biggest problem we see on the forum is that people don't know when to stop - once they have six koi that are thriving but small, they want six more. The don't take into consideration that those koi are going to get bigger and require more space over time. You've managed to avoid that urge. It sounds like you have multiple ponds, so maybe that's the secret!

 

[Lisak1]

The maximum size I would be able to do is 10 by 8 by 5 which is 3,000 gallons but I am not building in as one big whole meaning there will be "steps" ect.. so I would say the maximum size pond I could put is 2,500 -2 750 gallons.

What is the recomended minimum size pond for Koi?

The "standard" wisdom has evolved to 1000 gallons for the first koi and 500 for each one after that. But honestly, all ponds are so different it would be hard to really nail it down.

Here's a chart I like to share that shows the difference between say 24 inches of koi (which is probably close to an average for koi) and 24 inches of goldfish:

Koi Length and Weight - Ammonia Produced, and Waste Produced

This chart also lists koi weight by weight and how much ammonia and waste they produce. Koi get heavier as they grow and produce more ammonia and waste.

russellwatergardens.com

You can see that four 6 inch goldfish (or 24 inches of fish) would produce about 80 grams of waste per day. One 24 inch koi would produce 1,255 grams per day... dramatically different! Mathematically speaking you could have SIXTY 6 inch goldfish or one 24 inch koi... so it's really a personal choice. A few big fish or a lot of small ones. And goldfish come in so many colors and sizes - long flowing fins or sleek bodied ones. Calicos, sarassas, deep orange... maybe not as dramatic as that big 2 foot long fish, but just as pretty as any koi.

 

[Lisak1]

There are so many great videos on YouTube that show how to build a bog - and there's not just one way, but there are certain principles that apply. Here's one series that does a good job of showing the various elements:

 

[JesseMoreira06]

Really do appreciate everybody helping out.
I want to make sure, I build the best pond possible given my yard constraints since well I am building it from scratch, it is a lot easier to do it right the first time then restarting or modifying it after.

I think I have the basic idea for a bog, was my size bog accurate given again I dont have a ton of room. A bog size around 5 feet by 5 feet?
Does the depth of the bog matter? Can I go as deep as I would like? is it a minimum depth?

 

[addy1]

Mine is around 2.5 feet deep, others 18 inches, others 4 feet deep. Go deep more media to clean the water.

 

[combatwombat]

So yes, you can have some koi in a smaller pond if you build it correctly. Not everyone has the space or money for a large pond.

To me, it's all about headroom and margin of error. You could probably keep 5 koi in a bathtub if you had NASA level filtration, but you'd be forever dancing on a knife's edge. When something goes wrong in my pond, I want to know that I have days—or longer— to fix it, not minutes. If I want to go on vacation for a few weeks, I don't want to have to find someone to come babysit my fish.

It's a lifestyle difference, I guess. I want my pond to help me relax every day, and that wouldn't be possible if I had that level of responsibility for the fish in it. Some folks are all about the koi, and don't mind that responsibility.

What I don't agree with is the statement "not everyone has the space or money for a large pond". That would be like me saying I really want a St Bernard, and I live in a small apartment but I'm going to do it anyway because it's what I want.

That's a good point.

A bog size around 5 feet by 5 feet?

If that's the space you can give a bog, that's how big I'd make it. I don't recall the dimensions of your pond, though.

Does the depth of the bog matter? Can I go as deep as I would like? is it a minimum depth?

I wouldn't go any shallower than 12" since plant roots could get down into your manifold and start fouling things up. You can certainly go deeper. @addy1's bog is 30" deep and all pea gravel. I have 30" of gravel as well, but chose to use graduated layers. I probably wouldn't go any deeper than that.