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How to construct a water garden koi pond.

by: BruceContryman
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I designed and built this Koi water garden pond after visiting Japan a number of times and admired their water gardens with Koi. The design has three ponds, the top pond is filtered by water hyacinths that float on the water, the water is crystal clear. The middle pond has a waterfall from the top pond and aerates the water. The bottom pond is the largest and holds about a 2000 gallons of water.

It is very soothing and relaxing to sit beside the pond listening as the water tumbles down a small water fall. The dragon flies are darting in and around shrubs and plants, crickets are chirping, bees are buzzing and humming birds are flittering around. I can sit for hours in a lounge chair listening and watching this while the Koi swim lazily around in the pond.

We have about 6 water lily plants with large pink and red blossoms in the bottom water garden pond. They cover almost all the pond in the summer time but they die off back to their roots in the fall and re-grow in the spring as the days get warm and long.

I have about 40 Koi in the pond, it is hard to get an accurate count as they never stop swimming. I purchase small Koi, 2 to 3 inches long and place them in the pond. They will grow to over 10 inches long.

We have had a lot of visitors to our pond. The most frequent ones are egrets. They land on our roof or the neighbors roofs then swoop down to our patio and wade into our pond. If I or the grandchildren see the egret, we let our dog out and he scares the egret off. He won't jump into the pond.

We have also had raccoons play in the pond and try to catch the koi. We watched a mother and 3 baby racoons try to catch our Koi.

I used stakes and strings to outline the pond design for our do it yourself Koi pond. I placed 3" PVC pipes from the pump in the lower pond to the top pond. I used an asphalt paste on the block wall before I piled dirt against it. I placed 4 railroad ties two layers high in an L shape to make the front edge of the upper pond and the back edge of the middle pond for the waterfall.

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 started with a 1/5 horse power above ground pump with a 2" inlet and outlet. This provided a good flow of water over the waterfall. Sometimes it would lose its suction and I would have to re-priming the pump.

I finally found a submersible 1/3 horse power water 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.

I have rebuilt our pond about 3 times but we have had good luck with this design and the raccoons and egrets like it too. We've had this pond design for over 15 years.

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About the Author

Do you want to build your own water garden or Koi water garden pond? Check out Bruce Contryman's web site for directions on how to plan and build a water garden pond. How to build a water garden pond How to plan a water garden water garden pond  

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