Planning for the Future: Building a ~10,000 gal pond

[Sheepish]

Hello hello! It's good to be back on here after a few years; I had to give fish keeping a backseat for a few years because not only does my college allow a 10 gallon maximum tank limit in dorm rooms, but it was also a pain to transfer that back and forth every couple of months. Now that the end is in sight, though, I can start thinking about starting a couple tanks back up for my apartment next summer and, looking at the bigger picture, start thinking about the biggest project I've ever dreamed of.

I've wanted a pond for a very very long time. Of course I've done a bit of research already to get the broad ideas going in my head, but I figured there's no better place than here to ask for some first serious help. So I'm not going to beat around the bush; let's get right into it, 'cause I've got a whole lot of questions.

Let's start with what I'm looking for:

Size: 10,000 gallons is not a strict limit. My first estimate was right around 12,000 for a 18x18x5 foot pond, but obviously it's not going to be a perfect box-shape and I'm not certain how the volume translates over. I live in Maine and would like it to be at least five feet deep at its deepest part, but I'm not sure how much of it would have to be that deep to be acceptable for the fish. As far as I'm concerned, bigger is better until it gets too big that I can't take care of it.

Stocking: While I originally wanted primarily koi, I think at this point I'm leaning more towards other options. I think I am still going to shoot for around 7 koi and then fill up the rest of the space with goldfish. I know next to nothing about either species (are fancies good for ponds?) and would definitely consider other fish too, just because I haven't the slightest idea what my other options could be! I know some people like mosquito fish, but other than that I'm clueless. Would a turtle or two be appropriate for a pond like this, even?

Waterfall/something similar: I would LOVE either a waterfall or some sort of small river flowing into the main pond, though I'm not sure the latter is even viable. Could someone let me know about that, or any other aesthetic water constructs? I'm dying to know what goes in to setting that sort of think up.

Stone boundary: Pretty much, where would I be able to find the nice big round stones to put around the edges?

Bridge/Island: I would absolutely love to have some sort of "walkable" construct through part of the pond. My three main choices are a wooden bridge or the center, a small series of stepping stones through a shallower portion of the pond, and a large boulder to serve as a sort of island-type thing. That last one is sort of a long shot, I'm sure, but I figured I'd include it anyways! If anyone knows anything about this sort of thing I'd love some advice, because I'm sure there would be some problems with the lining and such. I'm just a really big dreamer.

Plants: I am a huge fan of plants and would love to have more than a little green in my pond, though I know koi fish love chowing down on them. Are there any plants that koi and goldfish will stay away from, or is there a way I can portion off a small section so that my plants can grow without being munched away?


That covers about all of my "necessities," so now I'll get into the questions that I'm absolutely clueless about.

Assuming I end up with a 10,000 gallon pond, how much filtration will I need? How much space would it take up, and would I be able to build a nice-looking wooden box for it so I don't have ugly filter stuff out in the open?

What sort of liner is best, and where's a good place to get it? How difficult is it to install the liner? What are the pros and cons of rock-bottoms, mud-bottoms, or any other bottoms?

And lastly...what major things am I missing? I'm sure there's bound to be a lot, but cut me some slack; this is still a relatively new dream, and so in my excitement I'm bound to have overlooked quite a bit. What's the deal with pond skimmers and drains, wintering, the whole works! Aside from what I've said already, just assume I know nothing.


Thank you for anyone that's willing to provide a little help to a novice fish keeper and a total newbie with pond stuff! Happy Holidays!

 

[myswtsins]

Hello. Welcome back to the forum and to the world of dreaming about ponds. Nice to meet another big dreamer! Reality and budget might not always agree with the size of our dreams but aim high anyways!

Research, research, research! Let's start with the fact that it seems like you have not done much research on your own yet. I know it seems counter intuitive for a forum to tell you to "figure it out yourself" but honestly building a pond of the magnitude you are talking about is a HUGE project and involves so many intricate details that we couldn't possible cover them all here in the depth that you would need. But with that said I'm gonna do my best to help you out without completely over loading you. I found lots of books at my public library that were helpful and well as lots of info on the net of course. I researched for 4 years, on and off of course.

Location! Where this pond is going to be located will probably determine some details immediately. You mention a future apartment so I'm guessing this pond will be at your parents house or something? How many hours of sun will the location get? Too much sun creates algae, too little sun limits plant selection among other things. Are there a lot of trees nearby? Leaf litter will be a major determining factor for your filtration. Never put a pond in a low part of the yard where run off may get into it. Will you be able to dig in this location? Do you know where all the power, water, gas etc lines are? Location etc etc etc

Size. 10k is a great size for koi and they will enjoy the extra depth as well. Only a small section needs to be that deep for them to hibernate in the winter. The depth can also help regulate the temp year round.

Stocking. What you are describing is called a hybrid pond and it is one of the more difficult ones to have total success with. Only because Koi and goldfish will want 2 different things, if you start adding in other things like turtles and such you are really complicating matters. A true koi pond is typically designed to be super clean with minimal plants, high turnover rates and even jets to exercise the koi and facilitate waste removal and the focus is all on the koi. A goldfish pond is more "natural" with tons of plants. In my researching I found a VERY small number of people who have success mixing the 2 for an extended period of time, one always does better than other. Can it be done? Of course! But why make it so hard on yourself? I would recommend picking one between koi, goldfish and turtles. Once you have decided that it will answer a lot of other questions. Turtles can unintentionally injury you fish with their claws, enough of a reason for me to not recommend mixing them any big fish.

Waterfall and stream. Great additions to any ponds for aesthetic reasons and aeration/filtration. Hands down the hardest part of my build though! Just getting my head around the concepts was daunting. Let's just come back to this later since we don't have a lot of details about the location yet.

Rocks. Look for local rock yards. Even quarries or landscape supplies but the latter is more expensive. Just to give you an idea, my 5k pond used about 30 tons of stone of varying sizes.

Bridge/Island. With a 18x18 pond this is only really plausible if you place it over a corner and not over the whole thing. The stepping steps you describe can be done with the use of concrete but if you've never done concrete work this isn't the place to start. A bridge over the stream works great. And a deck or something over/in the pond is another option. If I didn't have so many lilys I would add a floating island made of styrofoam and filled with plants. Again what you add will depend on location and setup.

Plants. Plants are great filters as well as pretty looking. If you go with koi you will want to minimize plants IN the pond cause they will eat them or damage them at the very least. They make plant protectors for lilys and floating baskets and stuff to get around this though. A bog filter is a great option for any kind of pond. You can also add plant pockets around the edges.

Filtration. This will depend on what type of pond you setup, what you plan to stock, how much money you wanna spend, what kind of space you have, how much work you are willing to do (initially and for maintenance) and the list goes on. There are numerous ways to filter any pond and the best systems implement several of them.

Liner. Typically people use EPDM rubber liners or concrete. There is a long list of pros and cons for these 2 which I'll let you look into yourself. Most people use the EPDM liner though. You get it from pond supply stores, online or maybe even a roofing company. Also not gonna get into pros and cons of rock or mud bottom ponds vs bare liner cause that list is even longer and a highly debated topic.

Other stuff. Oh there is tons of stuff we didn't touch base on and that's why I encourage you to go out there and find ever ounce of information that you can on the topic of ponding! There is so much to know and it's all connected to each other.

This video tour of my pond when it was being built will show some of the things I was talking about.

It starts at the waterfall filter to stream to pond to negative edge skimmer to basin/pump vault then splits back to the waterfall filter and to the bog filter. I have changed the skimmer area, added a deck and much more since this video. But in newer videos there are so many plants it's hard to SEE the pond. I technically have a hybrid pond myself but I only keep goldfish.

At the beginning between the big water fall and the next one, to the left you can see one of the plant pockets (I added a ton more since this). The thing at the end with all the small rocks is the bog.

 

[Sheepish]

Heyo! Your pond is absolutely awesome, even if it's more than a bit outdated! I know I'm a heck of a long ways off from knowing what to do, but I've got to start somewhere. You've definitely set a standard for me, though! The stream you've got is exactly the type of thing I'm looking for and the bridge over the stream is an excellent compromise to what I said before.

I had no idea about the differences between koi and goldfish ponds, so that's something big to think about! I'm eventually planning to live in my mom's house, once she and my stepdad move out, I'm done with school and such. There are LOTS of trees so that will definitely cause some issues, but that doesn't deter my excitement at all!

I'll keep doing research on some of the things I don't know diddly squat about. Thank you very much for the first look!

(Also, I never would have imagined that much stone is needed. Holy cow!)

 

[pbeemer]

Ah, to be young again! Just thinking about digging up 55 yards of rocky dirt makes my back hurt.

A couple of things:

- you need to plan how you're going to use the gigantic pile of dirt left over from the hole you dig. you can use this to build the hill for your waterfall / river runs, and to hide your filter system.

- you can also use this dirt to reduce the amount of dirt you have to dig up; if you only dig an 18x18x3 foot deep hole, you can use the dirt you dug up to build a 2 foot high berm, 5 foot wide, framing your pond. this gives you the 5 foot deep pond you want without actually digging out the last 2 feet of it. believe me, that's a lot of work saved, even if you are using a skip loader or back hoe. and the deeper you go, the more rocks you'd be hitting

btw, what part of ME do you live in? I spent 2 years in Bangor/Orono to see how the other half lived; that's where I learned to hate snow.

myswtsins , very nice looking pond. and excellent music choice on the video

 

[pbeemer]

btw, this source https://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/threads/illegal-fish-thread.80538/page-2 says that koi are illegal in ME. you should probably check into that before going that way.

have you considered stocking native (to the US) fish?