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    Thread: Wow, a finished pond in my back yard for showing.

    1. #1
      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      Wow, a finished pond in my back yard for showing.

      Hi All,
      I am glad to share my new pond with you. After 2 years of planning, I am thrilled to see my backyard pond is up and running. It has been running for 6 months now, and I have enjoyed the ambient sound of waterfall, and koi-fishes dancing in the pond with minimum cleaning effort.

      This is a 2500 gallons pond (9'7" L x 6'10" W x 5' D), with 4" bottom drain , and 2" skimmer gravity fed to 165 gallon Settlement Chamber (3'9"L X 3'11" W x 2'D), which spill water via both 3" and 2" openings over to a 55 gallon pump tank. Then water is pumped by 4000 gallon pump via 2" pipe to the low side of a 55 gallon sand and gravel filter and overflow to a 400 gallon anoxic filter (5'4" L x 4'1" W x 2'6" D), and to 2 x 1 1/2" pipe returns.

      I put in 7 koi (4.5"-7") since 6/22/16, and 1 more in September and now they are in the (6"-11") size. I clean the sand and gravel filter one or twice biweekly, and refill the pond with collected rain water about 100 gallons.

      https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5tyi1amkd...5_uyniK6a?dl=0


      Enjoy,
      Last edited by Angelfish; 03-24-2017 at 10:55 AM.

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    2. #2
      icu2's Avatar
      icu2 is offline Administrator ~ WWKC President
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      Great job on the pond! Looks like a lot of thought went into the filter components and hope all works out well!
      Time is the best test.

      Nice looking herd too! Hope for updates as to how it all works out for you!
      --Steve



      Koiphen 2021 Koi Person of the Year!

    3. #3
      richtoybox's Avatar
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      If all of your water additions are rain water, I would highly recommend testing for KH, as rain water is essentially distilled water, having no minerals at all. The KH needs to be above 100 for pH stability, day to night. Without a good KH, you could end up with a pH crash and kill the bio bacteria and the fish. You might want to read https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showth...ns-and-Newbies if you have not before.
      Zone 7 A/B
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      Richard

    4. #4
      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      My Kois has survived - 1st Winter outdoor pond no heat!

      HI All,

      My kois are happy to be out of the winter weather, and they have started eating again. I took some pictures as attached, and I have lots of joys watching them.
      I am thankful to those people who have shared their anoxic filter system experience to me through their threads which enable me to make pond maintenance a lot easier.

      My kois were put into a 2500 gallon ponds with 4.5 feet deep, it has been filtered by a 400 gallons anoxic filter pond together with a 55 gallon sand and gravel filter and a sieve filter. I only clean and top up the pond once every one or two week ( I used mostly rain water with prime about 150 gallon each time). Up to now, I have added 25 lbs of Epsom salt into the pond. My koi eat organic food which I made for them with lots of vitamins and diverse ingredients. However, I am thinking to switch to commercial koi food; a decision I need to make (Making a healthy foods vs saving more time). I have started a small milkworm factory, but the worms reproduced too little for my hungry kois; it is only enough for my frog!!!

      After 10 months, the pond water was tested on 3/19/17 with the following reading: PH is 7.0 – 7.2, Ammonia is 0 – 0.25, Nitrite is 0, and Nitrate is 0. I have a picture of the reading in the link below.

      https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5tyi1amkd...5_uyniK6a?dl=0

      ________________________________________
      Last edited by Angelfish; 03-20-2017 at 01:46 PM.

    5. #5
      kevin32 is offline Inactivated
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      nice pond. well done

    6. #6
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    7. #7
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      Can you give me the details of your homemade food, please? I give my fish mostly homemade stuff and just supplement with pelleted food, so I am always looking for variations.
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      Ci


    8. #8
      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      Hi All,

      This is my 1st pond and my fishes ain't those perfect one yet because I bought a bunch of them and grow them out when they were littles. I want to learn first by set up a pond and gain experience before I jump into getting those nice ones. Hopefully one of these days, I will replace one or two beautiful koi as the opportunity arrive.

      The fish food i made I copied a recipe from youtube "DIY Fish Pellets - For the Serious Monster Fish Keeper". I also have added many other things besides, but perhaps those are just my personal preference. No, I have not looked into the KH yet; however, I was thinking if good food be good enough to offset the KH missing from rain water?

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      There is no food that is good enough to offset low KH. I promise you that getting a KH test kit ($5 plus shipping?) and adding baking soda will be the best money that you will ever spend on your pond. I have a Tancho that whenever she gets looking just a little rough or shows veins or "blushes" it reminds me that I have forgotten to check KH for a few weeks. I check it and sure enough it is low. I am adding about 1 cup every other week to my indoor QT and if I don't my Kh will get DANGEROUSLY low. Low Kh is just a ticking time bomb.

    10. #10
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      Yes, I agree KH and GH are important for my kois, and I am ordering the test kit and Calcium Choride from Amazon right away before I say sorry to my koi later. Thanks for your advice.

      Any thought about this question? I read someone from Koiphen mentioned to add one cup each of Epsom Salt, Calcium Choride, and Baking Soda per 500 gallon of water change. Should I be worry that my pond get too salty when using Epsom Salt and Baking Soda together?
      Last edited by Angelfish; 03-24-2017 at 11:33 AM.

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    11. #11
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      Unless the GH is low, I wouldn't add any epsom salt or calcium chloride. If the water in your pond is all rain water, water that has come from a water softener, or deionizer, then you may need the epsom salt and calcium chloride. There are some natural water supplies, like one that I am familiar with in NC and another in WV that have zero or near zero GH and have to make additions. If your water is this low in GH then additions would be necessary but the additions should be in response to changes in the GH. A certain amount of calcium is needed to react with the carbonate released in the process of baking soda neutralizing acids in the pond to keep those carbonates from driving the pH up, by making a precipitate of calcium carbonate, a form of limestone, chalk, marble, etc, which are not soluble at those pH values. For my 4000 gallon pond, I add about 5 cups of baking soda with every water change which accompanies the filter backwash each week.
      Zone 7 A/B
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      Richard

    12. #12
      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      HI Rich,

      I have added 1 cup each of calcium chloride, baking soda, and a cup of epsom salt according to recent 500 gallon water change before reading your post yesterday. I retest my water today after my KH/GH kit has arrived. My KH is 57.3 ppm, my GH is 10x that at 573ppm. PH is 7.6. Is my GH too high, should I do 20% water change with rain water (we get a lot of rain lately in Northern California) again to lower it?
      Last edited by Angelfish; 03-28-2017 at 01:34 AM.

    13. #13
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      You could do a water change to remove some of the calcium and magnesium, but normal water changes over time will bring it back down to normal levels. It needs to be around 80 to 100 ppm, or so I have been led to believe. The KH needs to come on up. I would stay with the cup at a time until the pH is stable around 8 to 8.3 and then add as much as needed to bring the KH value up to 150 to 200.
      Zone 7 A/B
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      Richard

    14. #14
      kevin32 is offline Inactivated
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      off topic . but there is a show in San jose this weekend. will you be attending?

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      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      HI Rich,

      I did a 20% water change, and cleaned my anoxic filter pond. My pond's KH is now 71.6 ppm. GH is lower to 447 ppm. and PH at 7.36. I guess my GH level is not too bad for now. Would my GH increased so much even though my PH remain at 7.0-7.6? I guess I need to check my water salty level too. My local tap water source has KH at 89 ppm, and its GH at 160 ppm.

      Hi Keven32, I got works to do, if I get them done in time, I may go.

    16. #16
      richtoybox's Avatar
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      Continue bringing the KH up. It makes for a more stable pH which is good for the fish and the filter bacteria. With you tap GH, I would not make any more adjustments to it by addition of calcium chloride or epsom salts as the GH is usually pretty stable, not consumed very much and with the tap at those levels, simple water changes will add all that you need.
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      Richard

    17. #17
      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      Hi Rich,
      I have been testing my pond's pH level in different time of the day. It was 7.78 at 8 AM, and 7.6 at 4PM, the fluctuation is within 0.3. I have read that people who have used anoxic filter system to raised koi shared their experience, that KH in AFS will not fluctuate much in their ponds and they prefer not to use a lot of salt for buffering. The main reason behind that is because many Japanese Koi farms have raised their kois in low KH. While this statement was true or not, the main concern is pH swing. I will try to monitor my pH swing and see what happen for now. Since my kois have lived happily in low KH condition for 1 year, and my ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 0. I assume they will do ok in low KH for now. That do you think?

      I went to the koi show today, and it is nice to talk with people who have experience in koi. We enjoy talking about something we have in common - love koi.
      Last edited by Angelfish; 04-01-2017 at 07:01 PM.

    18. #18
      richtoybox's Avatar
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      If the pH is fairly stable, that is what you want, and the KH is insurance. The pH will climb during the day (normally) due to the photosynthesis of the algae in the system, consuming carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is carbonic acid, so photosynthesis is reducing acid, which increases pH. At night, on the other hand photosynthesis stops and the algae stop producing oxygen, stop consuming carbon dioxide and instead create additional carbon dioxide, increasing the amount of acid in the pond, making the pH go down. If the pond has algae, whether green water, string algae, carpet algae, or any of the many other forms of algae, the above processes are going on. If there are submerged plants, the same processes are going on. The lowest pH will be right at sunup, and the highest pH will be right at sundown.

      Your pH values went the opposite way to what I would expect, but weren't that far apart, so if it works do it, and if it needs tweaking tweak it.
      Zone 7 A/B
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      Richard

    19. #19
      Angelfish is offline Junior Member
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      Thank you Rich for your explanation. It makes a lot of sense to me. I tested my pond water again, and it is mostly pH about 7.6, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate 0. KH is 71.6 and GH is the same. Temperature is 66 degree to 70 degree in April. May be my pond set up has in someway keep this level?

      I currently have 10 smal kois, just added two more about 9" in a 2500 pond with 4' 7.5" deep , with another settlement tank, pump tank, sand & gravel filter, and 400 gallons AFS (anoxic filter system) pond.

      In the pond there is no plant at this moment. Above my pond is a pergola with roof that let in 1/5 of sunlight; it is raised 2 feet high from the ground and covered at night. My Koi pond and my AFS pond which let in 1/3 sunlight both have low algae growth (I used a wide brush to clean out the walls of koi pond quarterly to make it look nice!). I have 5% water change weekly to clean out S&G filter, and to maintain water level of pond. Would you think this set up may help in some way?

      ______________________
      P.S. I took one of my red koi out to a quarantine tank to check if her right fin has white spot. But it seems like it is a carp pox according to a website I searched. I put a picture of her in the quarantine tank in the link of my 1st post. What do you think?
      Last edited by Angelfish; 04-07-2017 at 01:26 PM.

    20. #20
      richtoybox's Avatar
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      It sounds like the system is working, and that is what you want. As for the fish with the spot on the fin, have you touched it to see what it feels like, or are you going by looks only? Carp pox is hard and waxy to the touch. If it is soft and fluffy, then it is probably Sap, a fungus and it can be readily treated with Proform C or similar formalin/malachite green treatments, or it is Columnaris, a haystack type of bacteria and it can be treated with oxolinic acid or Tetracycline. Not seeing any fin fraying of fins or other symptoms, I would start with the Sap treatment and see if that takes care of it.
      Zone 7 A/B
      Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
      Richard

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