The pond design and construction

I laid out the pond design for our do it yourself Koi pond, with stakes and string. I laid down 3" PVC pipes to pump water from the lower pond to the top pond. I treated the block wall with asphalt paste as I piled dirt against this wall. I stacked 4 railroad ties two layers high in an L shape to make the front edge of the upper pond and to make the water fall.

I then made a 1/4 circle ridge from the ends of the ties to make a small middle pond where water would roll over the full 1/4 circle edge into the bottom pond. I dug the lower pond about 18" deep putting most of the dirt into the retaining walls of the upper two ponds. I covered all the ponds with a PVC liner that I cut and glued to fit.

I originally bought a 1/5 horse power above ground pump with a 2" inlet and outlet. This pumped the right amount of water to get a good flow over the water fall. The problem with it was that I had to keep priming the pump if the inlet pipe would suck air.

I finally found a submersible 1/2 horse power pump that was OK to use in a Koi pond. Check the fine print, some pumps cannot be used in a fish pond. I found this out after about 6 months when I tried to get a replacement pump.

Well some blue herons spotted them also and came a calling. They brought frog eggs on their legs again and again. These frogs eggs hatched and they grew up, the sound in our back yard got up to about 90 decibels. Our neighbor would complain, but it was a melodious sound.

One night something didn't sound right so I went out and checked the pond. The PVC liner was floating on the water. The blue herons had poked holes all around the bottom edges of the pond.

I had used large river rocks around the edges of the pond plus I had some extra rocks, so I placed these rocks on the PVC liner to try and get it back down so the Koi would have some swimming area.

The next day I filled up the kids wadding pool, it was about 9' diameter and 30" high, let the chlorine evaporate for a couple of days and transfered the Koi to this temporary pond. I put a small fountain pump in here to keep the water aeration for the Koi. We lost the crayfish, they scattered and left, the neighbors thought they were scorpions.

I drained the ponds, removed the rocks from the bottom and covered the PVC liner with 2 layers of chicken wire for a new pond design. I then covered the whole pond area with about 1/2" of cement. I used about a 1 to 2 ratio of cement to sand as this is suppose to be more water proof.

I added a 3" PVC pipe drain and plug in the upper pond design because each spring of the year I need to drain and clean the upper pond. I also remove about half of the water hyacinths as they grow so fast during the summer months. The water hyacinths are excellent filters and keep the water very clean.

After the cement has dried for a week or so, I wash the ponds with muriatic acid, the same acid as used on swimming pools. This reacts with the excess cement on the surface of the pond and cleans it. The cement in a new pond will get in the gills of the fish so they cannot get oxygen from the water.

We've had this pond design for about 15 years, we have had good luck with this design and the raccoons and egrets like it too. I haven't put any crayfish in there so the blue herons haven't come back.

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