http://www.koiphen.com/forums/ Everything you ever wanted to know about mud ponds! en Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:19:24 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.koiphen.com/forums/images/misc/rss.png http://www.koiphen.com/forums/ http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?138279-Mud-Pond-v-Filtered&goto=newpost Sun, 09 Jun 2013 14:27:52 GMT I'm sure you've all discussed this before, but being new here thought I'd post it anyway.
We all know the benefits of a mud pond for our koi, yet most of us keep our fish in well filtered, clear water,and are always striving to improve on clarity and water quality.
I have a feeling we all do this for our own benefit - to be able to see and admire our koi.

Having travelled this route for years as I thought all koi keepers did this, I changed my views.
My main pond (4000 galls) is filtered separately by a veggie filter, and an Oase box type filter with uv, but heavily planted.
Incidentally the uv is only about 11 watts.
This gives me good viewing, but as the fish constantly dig around amongst plants, it's never perfectly clear.
This doesn't qualify as a bona fide mud pond such as I've seen on here, but my fish are healthy, and I don't have to keep adding chemicals to keep them that way.

I also run a much smaller pond timber framed, above ground which has a mud substrate, and filtered by a small pressurised filter to add circulation, about 400galls - no uv, to which clay is regularly added.
Obviously, i can only house a small number of fish in here, but it's great for growing on fry - my main interest.

Because I have only a garden to utilise, space is limited, so realistically couldn't house a full blown mud pond.
For me, small scale is good and easy to manage, and I don't have to worry about netting a large mud pond.
Don't misunderstand, if I had the space, I'd probably have a large mud pond too!

I wonder which the fish prefer?

Incidentally I also run several small 1000ltr fry tanks, some of which have undergravel filters pre the normal filters, but that's perhaps another thread to explain how I avoid localised build up of anaerobic bateria in the gravel........
It works for me, hope it's not too controversial.

Happy Koi keeping ]]> The Mud Pond Forum skidad_2007 http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?138279-Mud-Pond-v-Filtered