Here is the section on the way my bottomdrain in Pond #1 works.

I installed a normal 110mm waste/stormwater sewage pipe and fittings in the floor of the pond and it exits into the first trough of the series of troughs. The final trough only has a 50mm outlet the runs by gravity and spills into Pond #2. The reason for the small outlet was to constrain the volume of water that flows through the bottom drain. If this flow is too strong it will affect the stream between Pond #1 and #2 too much. I can also adjust the height of the 50mm outlet in order to cut back or increase the flow.



The primary trough is clean except for two plants and some quarts rock to give it some visual style I have also provide an extension to the inlet 110mm so that I can stop the bottom drain if I need to clean or flush the troughs.

Once everything was in place I blocked the outlet and allowed the troughs to balance with the Pond Level. I then trimmed the inlet to be on the same height as the stream outlet in order to ensure that if the power should fail the bottomdrain will not drag the pond level down too low. Next I chopped the outlet 15mm below the inlet height and that was it.

All the troughs has bags of stone and pots with plants in. All plants was planted directly into the pots with only crushed stone. I use Yellow Iris, White Varkoor and Olifants Oor plants in the troughs.

Up to March 2009 I had to supplement the plant feed with liquid kelp and earthworm tea because the fish did not produce enough food for the plants.

There are 46 koi ranging from around 180mm to 280mm in the pond now and the plants are doing well. There is also a number of stray goldfish, vlei kurper and mollies in the Pond #1 System. This year I might go and find a healthy big Blue Kurper to predate the strays.

The maintenance on Pond #1 is limited to cleaning the grid at the stream inlet and occasionally sweeping some dust and debris towards the drain. We flush the bottomdrain weekly and flush the bottom drain troughs once a month.

There are no complex routing or bio balls in the system and all water run over, through and past stone and plants. The water in the outlet trough is crystal clear.

I can also see some suspended bio material in the water and it provides food for the mollies, platies and kurpers in the vegetation pond.

Up to November 2008 I tested my water regularly, almost daily and the last test was done 18 November 2008. Since then I check the condition of the plants and look at water clarity.

I am comfortable that Pond #1 is healthy and the fish are growing well and seems happy.

This pond is around 1400mm deep and my kids use it to float in when the days are hot. No jumping or diving.

The volume of the pond is around 40,000 liters. The initial koi stock was placed to give me around 1,000 liters per fish.

Hope this is of value and please feel free to comment or ask questions. One of my mission objectives was to get a pond system going that runs as close as possible to nature and do not have massive maintenance issues.

Thank you.

Well a week ago I replaced the two broken Leader pumps with a .75 CRI submersible and my koi was very impressed with me.

7 days later and the water is looking black ehrn I look through my study window. I will pull the little ESPA out too and add a .56 CRI in it's place. That should give me a substantial increase in volume over what I had.

Have fun

Although the Koi is what this forum is about, I thought it time to share with you some of the non-Koi activities around my ponds.

I am a keen photographer and do enjoy shooting the birds in my garden. This passion was one of the factors that inspired me to build the ponds.



We chased the bird whenever we saw him and my Jack Russel also chase him. Later on I reverted to shooting around him with the pellet gun. Then one morning early I see him eating something next to the veggie pond and decided that it is not worth it ... I pulled the .22 out of the safe and as I got him in the scope I saw clearly that he was eating a frog. Well that saved his life.

After that one incident of the fish being injured slightly I have not seen any koi being bitten. I have seen him working the filter boxes and little streams and taking the frogs out. He has found out where the frogs hide in the stream and once a day he is here and he picks up a few frogs.

The koi notice him and sink down to the floor of the pond ... way out of his reach.

I assume he is going to get a goldfish or two and may pick up some kurpers but it seems like he is way more interested in the frogs.

Baie mooi fotos. Is dit 'n Canon kamera in gebruik?

Marius Bezuidenhout wrote:

Baie mooi fotos. Is dit 'n Canon kamera in gebruik?

Dankie ... ja hierdie shots is almal met die 40D en a 100 - 400 lens gedoen.

WOW

Baie goeie kamera. Hoop ek kan eendag een bekostig. Hier is 2 fotos wat ‘n vriend van my geneem het in Rwanda. Ook ‘n Canon

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

wow @ Marius......thats a once in a lifetime experience that!!! Something I would treasure for life!!!

Very special shots marius but they can do with some Post Processing

Today I am going to show you some more of the activities around the ponds. As you can imagine there was a huge amount of ground work to be sorted out around the ponds after the construction and here I also tried to minimize the future amount of maintenance that will be needed.

Here are some of the flowers that were employed ...

Some more flowers ...



I hope you have enjoyed this little walk through the system around the ponds.

Here are a few more birds ...



Enjoy.

Today I am going to tell you a little story ... a story that does have a moral and conservationist message in it ...

The lead character in the story is a big brown bird ... in South Africa this bird is known as a Hammerhead and from his picture you will clearly see why.




Hi, my name is Julius and I was born in a tree in the Uitkyk valley. Shortly after I was born our tree was hit by a terrible storm ... the branches danced like snakes and every now and then one would snap with a sharp crack that sent my mother into a flutter. Suddenly there was a loud crack and a blinding light and the tree next to ours exploded in bright blaze and my mother shot into the air ... the giant cold drops of rain hit my semi naked body and pounded my bald head. The nest was swinging and swaying like a small boat on an angry sea. I remember my sister shrieking and squeeling as another gust of wind ripped through our tree and then she was gone ...

Suddenly I felt the warmth of my mother's body as she settled back on the nest and I was cut off from the angry environment. Soon I was asleep.

Morning broke to a crisp and clean sky and the first rays of the sun filtered through the leaves. My parents were busy repairing the damage to our nest and I heard them talk about the loss of my sister. I craned my neck and peered over the edge of the nest ... 10 meters down I could see her ... she was battered and covered with dirt ... her neck twisted in a weird way to one side. I could not understand why she was not moving ... death was something I did not understand.

Pretty soon my mother brought me some food and it dawned on me that with my sister gone there was more for me. As my mother hopped onto a nearby branch I looked down again. My sister was gone.

Days turned into weeks and my body became covered with feathers. Both my parents were bringing food to me and I gulped it down and screamed for more ... flapping my wings and stretching my neck. One morning this wing flapping nearly got me killed because instead of just making a noise my feet lifted from the nest and I almost fell out of the tree. I could see my dad nodding his head as he watched this.

Something changed that day ... instead of bringing the food to me they just dumped it on the edge of the nest and flew off. Initially I just screamed but soon the hunger made me peck at the dead frog ... with some struggle I managed to get the thing into my throat and when they dropped the next offering it was down my throat in a flash. Little did I know ... this was the sign my parents were waiting for. The rest of that day nothing came by way of delivery and only late the afternoon my dad brought me a small fish.

I don't know what happened that night but the next day was horrible. My dad brought a frog to the nest and before I could snap it up he jumped onto a branch and hopped a few meters away. He just sat there with the kicking frog in his beak and watched me. After a while I stopped squealing and took a jump towards him ... more by luck than by design I landed on the branch and did not fall off. To my horror my dad glided down to the ground. He sat there and watched me.

Hunger was driving me and I closed my eyes and took a jump. To my surprise my wings flapped and I did not fall ... well to make a longs story short ... that is how they got me out of the nest. For the next few days they still fed me but I was with them on the river bank and watched how the gathered food.

Pretty soon I was catching enough food for myself and learned the hard and wet way that water can be of different depths and I also mastered the art of flight. Then the next catastrophe hit me. The day broke bright and clear and I glided out of the tree down to the riverbank where my parents were foraging for food.

My golly ... I did not know what happened ... but as I landed they both turned on me and my father attacked me with his big black bill. My mother was dancing around and slapped me silly with her wings. Another few pecks from my dad and I realised that they were going to kill me ... more by instinct than by anything else I fluttered up and then away from them. I landed around 20 meters from them. still totaly confused and to my horror I saw them both charging towards me. This time I was not going to meet those bills and wings again and took flight.

As I gained height I could hear them behind me and I kept on flapping my wings. Soon I was high in the sky and saw that they were no longer following me. I circled around and set down in a big tree.

What the hell was wrong with them ?

An hour or so later I took off and circled ... I could see both parents down on the riverbank and they were feasting on the frogs. Thinking that their tempers may have subsided by now I glided down to sit down across the river from them. This was obviously a mistake because in a flash they were both in flight and coming straight for me ... well obviously they don't want me there any longer.

For next 10 months I traveled around the valley and picked up food wherever I could find it. Every pond, stream or marsh had a Hammerhead that claimed ownership of the water and my body is full of scars of fights and skirmishes.

By know I was fully grown and beginning to win a skirmish every now and then.



One spring morning I took a bit of wider loop through the valley and to my amazement I saw three lovely ponds below me. I landed in a big Maroela close by and began to survey the place. There was a house near the ponds and three dogs roamed around on the grass.



I hopped out of the tree and on silent wings landed next to the pond. Suddenly the big bright fish just wiggled their tails and to my dismay I saw them sink down to the bottom. I was sitting on the rocky ledge next to the pond and there was no way for me to get hold of those big bright fish. Not so stupid after all I thought as I looked around.

There was a man watching me through a window and I made a note to keep an eye on him as I walked towards the pole that was floating on the water next to the waterfall.

I saw the man taking some pictures of me and I made sure to show him my best side. I met photographers on a previous trip to the Botanical Gardens so I knew what a camera was.

The waterfall was making a lot of foam on the water and I stood patiently on the log. Suddenly a white and red fish was visible just under the foam and like a flash my bill shot forward.

I heard the man swearing and at the same time realised the fish was too big for me and watch in dismay as he slipped out of my bill. There was big gash on the one side of the fish where my bill sliced some scales off and I hoped that he was mortally wounded. That will make him come up and give me another chance.

What happened next gave me a flashback of the night my sister died ... there was an angry whining sound and then a loud crack. I felt something buzzing through the tuft of feathers on the back of my head and the bang made me jump high into the air. I noticed a long thin black thing protruding from the window and the man was shouting. In this chaos I did what any self respecting bird does ... fly away.

The next day I went back to those ponds ... the big red fish made my mouth water and images of them drew me like a magnet.



I stayed away for the next few days and then late afternoon on the third day I came back. This time I sat down at the small pond at the bottom of the garden. In this pond there were small fish and I saw some wild fish amongst the coloured fish. Problem here is the same as at the other ponds. The edge is too high for me to get close to the water and the fish sees me and flees to the middle and bottom of the pond.



While watching the fish and thinking I noticed some movement on the grass about six meters from me. Huh ... it was an ugly long brown snake. Now I have no issues with eating a small snake but this thing was too big and I made a note to keep an eye on him. I could see the man with the camera.

Movement from the window caught my eye and with a shiver I realised it was that thin black thing again. By now I have become wary of it purely because it makes such noise. The buzzing through my feathers was annoying but harmless ... or so I thought.

The loud bang made me jump but I did not hear the buzzing sound this time and looked around. To my horror I saw the big snake's head had exploded and he was cringing and curling in a heap of coils.

I could hear the man shouting and I saw a man come running towards the ponds. I hopped into the air and landed in a tree a few meters away. The man collected the snake in a bucket and walked away.

For the first time I connected that thin black thing with death and I flew away.

The next day I was back at the small pond and I kept myself hidden behind the garden wall and amongst the plants. The fish was too clever for me and the pond too deep to wade. Suddenly a movement against the one pot plant caught my eye ... a frog ... in a flash my bill shot forward.



With a wary eye on the man I hopped onto the edge of the pond and nothing happened. From where I stood I noticed another frog at the inlet of the stream and in flash he was in my beak.

Again nothing from the man ... just photos. I sat on the edge of the pond in clear view of the window and began to clean my bill. It was covered in the slime from the two frogs but I was quite happy. My stomach was full and I could see more frogs in the pond as well as hear some of them in the stream.



Could it be that me and the man has reached an understanding ... I stay away from his fish and he keeps his hands on his camera ... who knows ... who will ever know.

For now I am eating frogs and he takes photos ... every morning I get a frog or two and every afternoon. My life is good ...



Well what can I say ... me and Julius have been watching each other now for a few weeks ... I have never seen him take a fish and he has learned where the frogs hide in the streams and in the filter boxes of my ponds. I see him almost daily eating frogs and as long as he keeps his part of the bargain I will keep mine.

Who knows ... can they learn or understand ... what is more important is that we take a chance and see if they can learn or understand. Had I followed my instincts on day one, Julius would have been dead and my garden would have been the poorer for it.

PS ... I will post a series of shots of Julius in action next ...

Here is a series of shots with Julius catching, preparing and finally eating a frog ...

Hi Colyn
It's quite obvious that your ponds are about so much more than Koi. When I started my pond I read your thread from A-Z and that was such an inspiration. Amazingly enough, 4 months later I notice all the other little developments in my urban, residential property. It can obviously not come close to matching your eco-system, but nevertheless exceptionally rewarding! I have tried to encourage bird life in my garden, and have had a pair of Cape wagtails (kwikkies) (passed the Groot Trek fitness test) nesting in a Petrea near my pond. They have three chicks, and the first flew from the nest this afternoon, with frantic parents calling after it.
You are so fortunate with space to embrace the 'bigger picture'. I'm sure your ponds at Rhenosterkop will provide so much joy to you and other participants -human and other- in the future.

Jack Bach wrote:

Hi Colyn
It's quite obvious that your ponds are about so much more than Koi. When I started my pond I read your thread from A-Z and that was such an inspiration. Amazingly enough, 4 months later I notice all the other little developments in my urban, residential property. It can obviously not come close to matching your eco-system, but nevertheless exceptionally rewarding! I have tried to encourage bird life in my garden, and have had a pair of Cape wagtails (kwikkies) (passed the Groot Trek fitness test) nesting in a Petrea near my pond. They have three chicks, and the first flew from the nest this afternoon, with frantic parents calling after it.
You are so fortunate with space to embrace the 'bigger picture'. I'm sure your ponds at Rhenosterkop will provide so much joy to you and other participants -human and other- in the future.

Thank you Jack. The ponds forms part of my vision. I think sometimes the we allow the ponds to become the vision and that is when things usually gets out of hand. Frustrations and irritations. For me every challenge in the ponds makes me think about the solutions ... I try to let nature takes it course whenever possible.

During the past few days we had an abnormal amount of rain ... close to 300mm ... now that is almost half of the annual average. You can imagine how many litres that added to the ponds. I had to dump water twice to maintain my sump levels. Today the sun is out and by this afternoon late I could clearly see that the single cell algae is going to come back with a vengeance.

All I will do is to cut back on feeding the fish and I know that in a week or so the system will sort itself out.

Good to hear about your Kwikkies ... I don't have them here in my garden but I saw a new specie related to the kwikkies earlier in the season. You should consider to find a few open spots in your flowerbeds and sow normal mixed birdseed in there. By late January you will have some seed for the visitors.

For me the pictures are important because not only do they give me a record but they are also an inspiration to keep my eyes open.

I am glad you found some value in the thread and I am maintaining this thread simply to show people what can happen if you just keep a cool head and don't panic.

Thank you for your kind words.

Hi Colyn, stunning photos, great stories, thanks for sharing. Want to pop in some or other time. Just a pity that you are probaly 1700 km from here.

It has been a while since I posted here. Here is a bit of history. During December we had over 600mm of rain with many power failures that lead to lots of water loss and subsequent topups, combined with 600mm of rain placed me in a position that I had to cope with virgin water and 96 fast growing kois.

Add to that a literal population explotion of the vlei kurpers in the veggie pond and I ended up with peasoup like in the beginning.

Problem was that I spent a lot of time away from home and my wife and garden engineer could not manage the water.

In middle January I started with some remedial action and this week the water finally cleared up and I could see my ponds' floors for the first time this season. I also saw the extent of the kurper invasion clearly and that lead to some drastic action ... I will tell that story later.

Tonight I just want to show some of my fish.


Hopefully I will tell the story of the the kurper management soon

Looks good Colyn, i always had some reservations on whether your Huge pond volume combined with the slow turn over rate and adhoc filters would work but as you are showing us now your kois are healthy and have grown and the pond water seem clear even though you had a spot of trouble.

How many kois do you have in there now?

Why do you loose water when the power goes down?

Wayne ... I made a mistake in the original design and underestimated the sump volume that is needed to hold all the water that is in circulation. So when the power fails my sump is overrun and I loose around 1,000 liters of water.

Now if that happens twice a day it is 2,000 liters to top up. In the weeks to come I will make a "boereplan" toe stop this loss, I just need to sit a bit longer under the trees and meditate on it. I need to catch that water and it must flow back into the system with gravity when the power comes back on.

I am pumping around 15,000 liters per hour currently and that means I turn my water roughly once every 8 hours. In your view it is a low turnover rate but I do not think it would be economical to increase that.

Currently I have 96 koi in the system and I am beginning to think that I should reduce them. The biomass is getting big in the system and the added load of the kurpers has really stretched my filtration capacity to it's limit. The bio filtering is fine and I think it is far from it's capacity but I am struggling with the mechanical filtration.

On Paul's advice I refurbished the two 500 liter tanks and filled them with bio-balls ... that made a difference that was noticed within 10 days and from there on the system improved dramatically in clearing up. The problem was that I still battled to get the dead algae and fish waste out of the system.

I will take some pictures tomorrow of my current polishing systems. This must be addressed properly in the weeks to come because the temp installations proofed what I suspected.

As for the fish health, I am really happy ... my fish all seems happy and they look good. The butterfly koi is impressive. Yep there are some spectacular fish among them but as in all families I also have the strugglers.

I must see if I can find a home for some of my fish.

I have been feeding Shogun for the past 5 months or so and I must say the fish are eating like crazy.

Thanks for your comments.

Colyn,

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night and most of this morning i have achieved exactly ZERO thanks solely to you and this thread !

A HUGE thank you from me personally for documenting the entire process in great detail, it has given me a huge amount to think about...

You have inspired me to use the principals of nature and not follow the norm because it is the norm !!!!

I am particularly impressed with your construction philossophy of single brick and brick force .... i am planning something very different from the normal ponds seen around SA and hopefully will be picking your brain about various things in the future !!

Thank you again !!!!!1

Thank you Neil.

You are a great story teller and a fantastic photographer ....

Thank you.

Chris

Here is a series of shots that I posted on another forum where we have a game called "Time goes by ..."

**********************************************

Hier is 'n reeks fotos van my Veggie Pond ...

Over the past weekend I noticed that some of my fish are flashing ... yesterday I added 200kg salt ... no jumping and no flashing since I came into my office.

Just wanted to share this with you.