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Building Koi Ponds


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The article is about Building Koi Ponds. Have you ever been to a back country nursery buying flowers for your gardens in the spring and summer. All the beautiful colors wash over you giving you that wonderful feeling of tranquility. Then you pier over to the back corner of the greenhouse and you see all the products for koi ponds. It catches your imagination and you stroll over to admire the colorful fish.

Building Koi Ponds

You start to wonder how great it would be to add koi ponds to your garden. Building koi ponds is not really as difficult as you may think it to be. All you need to do is decide whether you have the time for the initial construction and maintaining a water feature. Once you’ve built your pond the possibilities could be endless.

Where to locate

The first and most important thing to know when you decide to construct a koi ponds is the location. Placing the pond in the best place where maintenance will be minimized. Where you have the least amount of water runoff from rain, will your location be good for a waterfall (could be along a small hill that levels out), where you are away from trees and shrubs (this will prevent excess debris clean up). Sometimes you have to manage with a not so perfect location. Koi ponds do need shade, fish need a place where they can get out of direct sunlight.

Choosing a liner

Next you want to decide how big or small. Koi ponds generally should be built as big as you can fit in to your budget (besides you will probably regret it if you go to small). Choosing a liner to hold the water can de difficult. Of course you can’t just dig a hole in the ground and expect it to hold water. There are a few types of liners, preformed hard liners, flexible rubber liners (which you can get in just about any size), and permanent in ground concrete liners (like you would us in a swimming pool).

Preformed hard liners

These are used mostly for smaller koi ponds, although they can get pretty large. They are more rugged and are harder to get a leak in.

Flexible rubber liners

These are used mostly for moderate to large size koi ponds. You have the ability to make your pond any shape you would like it to be, there can be more creativity. You need to be sure you place a soft underlayment to minimize the risk of developing a leak (like a good sand bed).

Concrete liners

First and foremost this type of liner can be very expensive because in most cases you will need a contractor to install. This is much like an in ground swimming pool. But with a lot of cash the possibilities of very extravagant koi ponds can be created.

FILTRATION AND AIRATION
Filtering koi ponds properly keeps it clean and healthy for your fish. A good concept to keep in mind is to use a mechanical filter combined with biological and UV filters. It usually takes two to three months for a bio filter to mature. You can also use a chemical filter but we think this will take away from the organic aspect of koi ponds.
The main thing to keep in mind is that you want to accomplish the removal of solid waste, like fish waste, dead leaves or pine needles and other forms of solid waste. Also removing natural occurring chemicals like ammonia, which is produced by rotting debris. Good filtration leads to better aeration. To further aerate the water you can add a fountain or waterfall.

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