This is new addition to our backyard. We got rid of our backyard swimming pool (Oct 2010), relandscaped our garden and built a pond instead. It took me 3 days to design the pond, 30 days for the full works of emptying the pond, breaking down some bits, drilling holes and for the garden landscapist to help us fill it with 90 tonnes of soil, shape and fill the pond (Nov 2011) and another 30 days for the pond to establish itself prior to adding the fish (Nov-Dec 2011), and 6 months for the rock-garden and plants surrounding the pond to mature a bit more. Phew!
The pond is shaped in a figure 8, and has a bridge running across the middle of it. We made use of the odd terrain and created a mini-cascade for water aeration.
I also use a hozelock UV filtration system and Titan pump fit for 5500L, and simple water pump for a statue fountain we found lying around the garden, left behind by the previous home-owners. We have stocked the pond with some simple koi fish, goldfish and calico shubunkins. I named ALL the koi in order to keep track of the fish.
As an addition, I joined the Koi Society of Australia, and they adviced that I should’ve joined them BEFORE building my pond and not after. A bit late for that, but I did do a lot of research on the internet prior to building my pond… and there is no perfect pond out there, only one that we’re individually happy with and that reflects our personality. I suppose that it is a good idea to get ideas from fellow-members and learn from their mistakes and experiences before embarking on a major project especially if one is going to spend heaps of money on it. We did not spend very much on our little pond. Also, in the old days, people did not have access to as much information and had to depend on books, the community and clubs for information. Nowadays, information is easily accessible on the net through websites, forums, supplier sites, blogs, articles and more.
I have used very cheap baby koi to start with (much to some members’ dismay that I acquired my non-award non pedigree $3-$5 hardy koi mainly from the Sydney markets and some from Ledora – Ledora’s koi is not as hardy I must say as the majority from the latter did not survive) and 5 pre-auction 15cm baby koi from a member at KSA for $50.
Twelve months on and 90% of my fish have survived, some have disappeared (possibly from predatory kookaburras), and I had 2 surprise wild fish (1 minnow, and one wild goldfish that is an olive brown colour) of which possibly hatched from eggs stuck to some pond plants I purchased from Ledora Water Plants 12 months ago. The minnow is now still about 6 cm long (seems like the maximum size as it hasn’t changed for a while), but the wild goldfish has grown from a mere speck to 16 cm in 12 months!
