Thinking about building a koi pond in backyard any advice?

[Rickdareefa]

Hey guys I have a good opportunity to set up a koi pond in my yard as there's already a huge hole in my backyard. Was gonna fill it in with dirt but thought hey, I could make this into a pond instead any advice? What's the best filtration? Ease of maintenance? Good materials, filtration, liners, words of caution, best sources of knowledge, etc. Anything helps I've never done a build like this b4. I've seen guys post pond builds on here so I'm sure someone has some great advise. Thx in advance! I'll attach a picture of the area I want to build for reference. Its pretty big. Maybe 18 ft long 8 ft wide and already 2 feet deep at the deepest part so I wouldn't have to do a ton of digging.

 

[scuba steve]

Lookup Aquascape Designs, best pond designs and builds around. Filtration works with nature.

 

[jcook54]

I think there are quite a few folks on this forum that also do Koi and I'm curious to see what folks say. I've always thought about adding a koi pond but I have way too many pine trees and can't imagine what kind of maintenance it would take to keep the dang thing clean. The only experience I have is with a family koi pond in NC. The biggest issue we have is leaks. It seems like every few years we need to have a pro come in and patch the liner. I have no idea how old it is but I'm assuming there are better way of lining the things than there were when our pond was made. At least I hope so because leaks are a real pain.

 

[Rainblood]

If your pond is only 2' deep you may run into problems with winters and herons (or other predators).
I would recommend oversizing your filters and UV.

Koiphen.com has a construction forum where you can peruse some pond builds. Mine is on there somewhere.
I'd recommend scanning the forum and figuring out what type of pond and filtration you want to build before you start digging a giant hole in your yard

 

[globalbutterfly]

I am moving to a farm and have been researching this exact topic. Look up “bog filters”. My husband didn’t understand what I was talking about but I got it immediately. It’s basically a giant sump for your pond.

You pump the water from the bottom of the far side of your pond up to the bottom of a secondary pond or vessel that is ~ 12” deep, filled with gravel and planted with aquatic plants. The water travels up through the gravel, through the plant bed and then goes back into the main pond (ideally with maximum flow and turbulence.)

Any of this sound familiar??

 

[globalbutterfly]

For messy occupants like koi (or ducks) the bog filter should be >= 30% of the surface area of the main pond. SO, if I read all the articles correctly, a 30’x30’ pond = 900 sq ft of surface area which would require a bog filter of approximately 300 gallons.