Building a 9'x25' pond

[mrunlucky07]

Thanks Guys.

UV

The packaging inspector

Didn't meet her approval

2 weeks later

55w UV and size 12 feet

Started staining the deck. Of course after months of dry the rain is back. No hurry though.

A few from tonight:

Upper pond: Found a local supply of cattails I will visit in the spring, and a few other plants.

Some of the residents that will brave the first winter

And my pond feeding buddy

 

[zennzzo]

Nice UV... I love that long fin Koi too....regular ham that one is...

 

[perfect_prefect]

nice. you should stock it with some true monsters. throw on a good heater and keep pima's would be amazing to see some monster pima's swimming around right next to your feet.

 

[Yanbbrox]

Looking good, monster UV

 

[djarmstrong]

Nice butterfly Koi you have , i have 3 myself about 4inch at the moment .

 

[loogielv]

just read this all the way. great read. wonderful looking.

do you have any updated shots of the whole thing? i'm especially interested in the plantlife and how the plants look against the whole pond. Like some full pond shots etc? THAT would be awesome. If you got the time that is. Thanks

 

[nitrofish1]

thats a huge uv sterilizer, i did not know they could get that big

 

[hitemup4u]

wow!

 

[random fish guy]

awesome setups

 

[mrunlucky07]

I figured I would give a winter update. We are having one of the coldest for southern Va in quite awhile. Dropping into the teens the last week or so. The pond is staying around 45deg though.

I brought the UV inside, bypassed the waterfall/trickle tower and turned off the flow to the upper pond. I am still running the pumps through the BD and skimmer. I was pretty impressed by the skimmer. There are many large trees nearby and the water was covered with leaves during some windy days. I didn't bother netting it to see how it turned out. Basically I had 50 gallon drum from the skimmer full of leaves each week, but very few on the bottom and none made it past the first filter chambers. Then juat drained the skimmer/bd on weekends. There are still a few leaves on the bottom that didn't make it to the BD, not messing with them until spring. The UV took a bit to clear the water, I was running too much flow through through it at first and once I slowed it down the water cleared right up.

I had hoped against preadators since the water is deep and with no edge for easy fishing, but I think a heron figured it out. I noticed poop on the edge of the deck and pond wall at the deep end where the fish hang out. I noticed my white butterfly koi dissappeared, then my other butterfly, and then a large comet, all around 10". Frustrating. So now the pond is netted until summer. Anywho, a few pics:

Icy Spitter, I found this marked down to $20 at lowes, came with a 9w UV, pump, spitter and tubing so i couldn't pass it up. Have not ried the UV with it yet.

Winter sky reflection

Almost snow, but just sleet.

The prison

and prisoners

Night shot

Also a few of the new kids, 3 diamonback terrapins. Pretty Rickey, Ferdinand Magellan, and Little Bit.