Hi Cliff

Very nice I like it and will also do mine similar story next year.

Hi Cliff,

is your pond full of water yet, fish swimming?

Hi Neville,

Took some photies this morning but saw that the sun glare on the pics was just too hectic.....will take better pics tonight and post.

Where I am at the moment is I have tiled the top of the pond and done 2 coats of waterblok. I will be finishing the 3rd coat this afternoon. I will then complete the side tiling on wednesday, connect up the pump and filtration on wednesday as well, then on friday I will start adding water.

Bobby......I remember you added your water and fish quite soon afterwards, please could you confirm the route you took from adding water to your pond to adding fish........thanks

The koi dealer around the corner from me has crystals which one can add that removes the chlorine from the water, but know that Neville told me that after a day of running the chlorine is removed in any case. So when I fill up with water I was thinking of running the pond for a few days before adding the kamikaze's (the undesirables from current herd)........just want to know for how long and what I shud add to the pond for the run in process. I will be PP'ing my bio media and adding new sand to my filters so I dont have an active bio system in place at all.

I am also looking at replacing the media in my ultra zaps with alfagrog so my filter setup is going to be completely 100% immature.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Hi Cliff

This was the way I did mine,Ran pond for two days made sure all was running ok, put in the vortex 6 egg yokes to start up system- works like a dream then put in 2 koi (tester fish) and run for a week then added another 2 and ran for a week ,then added 8 and ran for another week and lastly the other 8 after a week this method i had no nitrate spike and no problems. no shock to the system

Hi Joe.....and if I dont have vortexes?...should I just chuck 6 egg yolks into the pond or weir itself and let the cycle take care of itself??

Hi,
Why using "test fish" ? If the pH is below 8,5 after running the pond for about 4 days, it will be save to add your Koi.

See New Pond Synndrome (NPS)

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Hi Cliff

Anywhere as long as the pond water flows biofilter also good

Hi Cliff

I like Joe's method, but thought it is the white of the eggs, maybe Joe can just confirm.

A good bacteria startup is also not expensive and readily available.

I am sure in this cold weather you will be fine either way.

As Pieter say's PH is your biggest problem now and then you must monitor the nitrites after adding your fish.

When adding municipal water you should spray it in that also takes away most of the chlorine.

Keen to see you pic's

Hi Pieter,

They're fish in my current herd which I dont mind losing........so just to be safe will add them and give them a couple of days before adding the others.

Yes Joe, please just confirm between egg whites and egg yolk........also Neville, are you referrign to bacteria one buys in a bottle or bacteria from another system currently running???

Cliff

I got good results with BaoBio Clear. It is cheap at around R80 for 200mL and you only need to apply 2mL / 1000L and repeat it 48hours later.

With the sealer you using you should get a stable pH since you won't (hopefully) have water contact with the plaster. Sometime ago Wayne reported that his tap water had a high pH and I went to test mine only to find out it was 9.2 compared to the usual 8.2 (10 times higher than normal)
Just test it for incase the municipality stuffed it up again.

No the stuff you buy in a bottle, There is also one that looks like river sand works very well. put it in luke warm water about half an hour before adding to filter, stirring or air rating the bowl. But you must buy the correct type from a Koi shop.

Cliff wrote:

They're fish in my current herd which I dont mind losing........so just to be safe will add them and give them a couple of days before adding the others.

Yes Joe, please just confirm between egg whites and egg yolk........also Neville, are you referrign to bacteria one buys in a bottle or bacteria from another system currently running???

Cliff, I added my own kamakazi's for a week, for peace of mind. I also use Bao Bio and still do, like Marius recommended and you only use the egg white. Although all these remedies play a valuable role you have to be patient and do not over feed.

Hi Cliff

Sorry the white of the egg,believe me you will see quick results,I had no problems with PH or Nitrates,Nitrites your algae will also grow at a fast rate,the secret is not to introduce to many koi at one time be patient and rather introduce them slowly over a period of at least 3 weeks.how many koi do you have?

Hi All, thanks for the replies......Joe, I currently have 14, but should be selling off 5 this weekend. I have a hi shusui and a goshiki that lost all it's beni that are in the 18cm range that I will use as test pilots.

Do you guys think it would be a risk doing the bao bio clear, egg whites and koi clay (is it the koi clay you are referring to Neville?)...would it be a risk throwing all these items in together????

Well here are updated pics.......the sides are being finished off today.

this is the view from my passage
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Hi Cliff

I also used clay with the egg no problem, I would use your 2 test koi for a week then remove them if all is well put in 4 for another for a week and the rest the week after like that the filters will handle the load

Did you put some membrane on the joint between the old and new pond ?
I would.

Hi Jaco,

I did a pure cement bond, I then also did a cemcrete permastop bond between the 2 joins. The guys doing the pond are pretty adament that this pond will definitely not leak.......time will tell I guess.

well, all I can say is that I am very pleased with the end result. Very very happy and think that it looks absolutely beautiful.

Now to connect the piping, filtration and pump tomorrow and then start filling on friday. I still have to get my head around the water return feature, not sure what to do, the corner of the pond near the house corner was thinking of doing a short wall which pyramid tapers into the sides with 3 x 76mm stainless steel pipes returning water back into the pond.....any other thoughts on a water feature I will take into consideration.....really confusing the kak out of me with what to do here.

anyway, here's the pond pretty much complete bar the water feature return.

I love it!!!!

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Cliff, ek is mal oor jou edging. Dit lyk baie goed.

Hi Cliff
Really looks good. As Jaco says a membrane - as extra insurance - on the joint would not do any harm, and requires minimal effort.
Is that sandstone you've used for the cladding? Nice finish.

Hi Cliff

Yes it all looks very nice to me and am sure once summer comes and your garden catches up it will look good. Pleased to see your wall is a bit up from ground level it brings your fish closer to the eye.

Yes I think you can put all those things in together no problem but for a start I will wait with clay.

The "bio bao" startup is mostly a liquid and is readily available at your koi dealer, I would just go with that and the egg whites for now.

As for the joint, well it would be easy to do a repair should you pick up a leak later, so dont worry for now it may well be fine.

thanks all........looking forward to the weekend, putting in water and having the safety net put on sunday. Pity that I have to put a net on, looks so nice open, just have to seeing I have little ones.

Planned on having around 25000lts but seems I may well be close to the 40000 mark.......go big or go home!!!!

Cheers

Sorry Jack....it is sand stone......Mazista sells this rock, known as sage chunks and only needed 7 squares @ R145 a square

Hi Cliff,

Your pond looks great. Very exciting.

One of the best ways to kick start a biofilter is to get some filter media from another mature biofilter, you only need a handful or two. So long as the other filter has been running for a long time it will have a lot of bacteria growing on it in the bioflms.

These bacteria will spread rapidly through your filter media.

It is winter now and the fish are not eating much and consequently the bacteria in the biofliter are slowing down and even shutting down. I suggest you add everything and let the bacteria begin to grow naturally and slowly on the media. When spring come along you should have enough bacteria to cope.

As others who have posted here say keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrate - especially in spring. Use the Bio Bao - excellent.

If ammonia starts to climb then seed the filter media.

Do not over stock your pond in the beginning. This is the main cause of early problems. The ammonia produced from the fish builds up quicker than the few bacteria in a new biofilter can handle. You then have a knock on effect with ammonia levels rising this causes stress or even death and prolonged stress is a basic cause of disease out-breaks.

With regards your returns. This can result in clear water or be a disaster.

Stand at the edge of your pond and imagine water movement inside your pond. You must have water movement or circulation within the pond. Firstly you have water movement from top to bottom - i.e. the surface to the bottom drains. This is very good.

Make sure that any return is nowhere near your bottom drain. Filtering the water and then returning it to the surface over the bottom drain means filtered water is gong more or less straight back to the filters again.

I suggest you experiment with your returns. In other words don’t glue the final bed at the pond and make sure if you have a water feature that the water is directed along the walls (more or less). In this way you can generate a circular motion within the pond. Make sure there are no dead areas in corners or in the elbow of your pond.

As I suggested stand at the edge of the pond and imagine where the water will go when you push it with a return or a waterfall or both.

This is an interesting and fascinating part of pond design.

Regards,
Chris

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your reply. I have a return near the pond wall join of my pond which I will have circulating the water anti clock wise in the small section of the pond. Then on the wall below the window in the big section I will add a short wall at the corner with 2 stainless steel pipes protruding from the wall keeping the anti clock wise circulation going.

Have thought about the dead areas and have decided that if I find areas in the pond collected dirt more than the other areas that I may then add air stones into the pond......However this is a last resort as I dont want my pond to be too "busy" inside, want it to be as tranquild for the fish as it is for me.

And you are 110% correct...this is very exciting, go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it!!!