Other than Koi water garden question

[Ray Cover]

Hey all new guy here with some questions.

I am wanting to build a sizable water garden pond for fish but not koi. I am looking at something in the 30'x17'x6'deep range. I live in town and have a full 1 acre lot so I have plenty of room.

Here is my situation and vision. I am a back woods country boy who married a city girl. I would rather live so far back in the woods that NSA satellites couldn't find me. My wife would rather live in the heart of NY city. I know its insane but I love her anyway. We compromised and live in a small town and have a sizable yard.

After 20 years of marriage I have come to accept the fact that I will never get to live back out in the woods so I am planning to bring some of the woods to me. I am planning a Native Missouri forest garden and I am planting several trees to re-wood my backyard along with understory and ground cover plants like may apples, trillium and blood root.

For part of this forest garden I would like to include a sizable pond (we will call it a koi pond for the building inspector) that would be home to a couple catfish a couple bass some bluegill and baitfish as well as aquatic plants.

I can find all kinds of info on building the pond. I have every confidence that I can do that. What I can't find is the answer to this question.

Is there a way to set this pond up as a fairly self sustaining ecosystem? I understand that I will need some filtration and current to keep things from being totally stagnant. But I also beleive that having to pump the entire contents of a pond that size through a filter every 3 hrs is unrealistic. There has to be other ways to clean the water through the use of plants and a more complete ecosystem and maybe even a large slow sand filter like is used in third world countries to clean drinking water. That type of biological filter does not need to have constant flowing water over it as long as you can maintain a few inches of water over the sand layer. And that would be a good place to grow things like equisetum and other aquatic plants.

Most Koi ponds that I have seen and read about online seem to be treated like a huge fish aquarium rather than a real pond. I have one 75 gal aquarium in my house with a couple fish running on a biological filter that we have not cleaned, done a water change, or fed the fish in for about two years now and its thriving. I am sure If it can be done in a large aquarium there has to be a way of doing it in a sizable pond.

Anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish this?

 

[fishin4cars]

Bog filter, Natural and should be able to be incorprated into your plan very easily. Check out the DYI section here on the forum. You should find what you need there. But I would still try and consider turning the pond over .5 to 1 time a hour through a filter. It seems like a lot but really it's not that much and it can be made very natural yet still help keep the oxygen levels up. remember your not building a natural pond, your building a lined pond so some intervention is necessary.

 

[addy1]

Ray check my build thread, (down below is a link) I did what you are wanting. My pond turned over around every two hours, filtered by an upflow (pipes below pea gravel) bog type filter, the water stays perfect. I just put in a higher gph pump that was shipped to me. Now it turns over about every 1.5 hours or so. Made the change just because I have two of these really nice pumps now, why not use them lol. The pea gravel is planted with tons of plants. I don't do anything to my pond except clean the bottom now and then with a swimming pool net, and clean out the leaf basket of the pump and skimmer.

It is doable, I have goldfish and shubunkins and all kinds of other critters living in it. Tons of in pond and out of pond plants.

http://www.gardenpon...-started-42110/


And welcome to the pond group!

 

[Waterbug]

Is there a way to set this pond up as a fairly self sustaining ecosystem?

Dig a hole, fill with water and you have a self sustaining ecosystem. Nature does this for a living.

I understand that I will need some filtration and current to keep things from being totally stagnant.

Not really. Has to be a hundred thousand mud bottom ponds in the US, all "stagnant". Stagnant is not a term mud bottom pond owners would ever use because once you've been around these ponds you're quick to figure out they aren't "stagnant". More of a term used by city slickers.

Fish farms sometimes aerate their ponds in summer but that's because they have large fish loads and they're want max growth which higher O2 allows.

Most Koi ponds that I have seen and read about online seem to be treated like a huge fish aquarium rather than a real pond.

Yeah, those are Koi Ponds. There are also Water Gardens, Wildlife Ponds, Mud Bottom Ponds, all kinds of different ponds, all kept very differently. The only thing they all have in common is a hole and water.

Not sure if you're thinking mud bottom or liner. Mud bottom would be more self sustaining, allowing for plants which support a food chain. I had a mud bottom pond growing up and lots of neighbors had ponds too. I never heard of anyone feeding fish, they ate what grew in the pond. We had some very productive ponds with some monster bass.

If you want clear water you might want to stay clear of catfish, Koi, carp, or any bottom feeder. I have seen clear bass ponds that did have a few catfish (bullheads actually) but you risk having the cats take over.

Liner can be a problem in the type of pond you're wanting as muskrat can move in and dig right through liner. They'll probably move into a mud pond too but at least there's no liner to damage.

If you check with you local Ag or Fish & Game, they may have a program to help you out. There are also forums for mud bottom ponds like Pond Boss which I like.

 

[Ray Cover]

Thanks Guys,

Waterbug, I had not even considered a natural mud bottom pond. Living in town I just assumed that the building inpectors would require SOME kind of liner in the pond.

I need to check with city hall and see what I can get away with.

 

[Waterbug]

In the cities I have lived the building codes for ponds are exactly the same for pools. They're concerned with water depth and barriers to keep kids from drowning. So something like more than 18-24" deep they'd require a fence. They don't care about chlorine, filters, etc. Some cities have codes about mosquitoes too, but less common. And of course they'd check standard building practices like if a pond or pool was built too close to a foundation, electric, etc.