Building a pond – Ponds & Waterfalls: Layout & Excavation

First of all: know what you want. If you need some ideas, visit the library or your local book store and browse through landscape books, garden and pond magazines. You can also search the web and read and study as much as possible.
Layout is the most important phase of the entire project. [...]

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Building a pond – Add a Koi Pond to your Landscaping Project

Landscaping your lawn could entail a number of things. It could be as simplistic as having several plants and shrubs surrounded by various rocks and woodchips or even a water garden complete with fountains and flowers. The largest, most elaborate form of landscaping is a Koi pond.
A Koi pond is a project that [...]

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Building a pond – How to Make a Koi Pond

We’ll just start out by digging out the Koi pond. Most people like to have small waterfalls to keep the water circulating for the fish. If that’s the case, you may want to stack some of the dirt taken from the Koi pond and make a sloping hill for the waterfall.
 
Once we have [...]

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Building a pond – Adding a Koi Pond to your Home

One of the newest crazes that are catching on with homeowners is the koi pond. Koi ponds are in ground water gardens that contain koi fish and are deep enough to support life year round even in colder winter climates. Many homeowners are finding it to be a great addition to their front [...]

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Building a pond – Koi Pond: Water Chemistry

The most basic conditions of your koi pond water chemistry are the pH factor (which stands for potential Hydrogen) and water hardness. These factors alone can determine the life or death of your koi pond’s inhabitants (I call them the “Fam Fam”).
The pH of the koi pond water is measured on a scale of 1-14, [...]

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Building a pond – Koi Pond: Biological Filters

Contrary to common belief, biological filters do not process or filter the solid waste of fish in your koi pond. They continue to build up and putrefy, creating a breeding ground for harmful species of heterotrophic bacteria which are pathogenic to koi fish. As stated, the biological filtration process utilizes Nitrosomonas bacteria to break [...]

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Building a pond – Pond Liner: Buyer Beware

Do you waste your money on lottery tickets? Feed your hard earned money to the one-armed bandits in the casinos? Drive without a seat belt? Then a pond liner is for you. You obviously like taking chances and are not too concerned about the outcome. Well, when someone spends thousands of dollars on a [...]

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Building a pond – Koi Pond: Finding a Contractor – 18 Important Things to Know

Because there is such a wide range of information to be learned on this topic of koi pond and waterfall construction and so much technical information out there, you may decide to seek professional assistance to complete part or all of the water features. Before you proceed, here are 18 extremely important facts you [...]

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Building a pond – Koi Pond: Dispelling Myths About Concrete

What do some liner promoters and salesmen say about professional pond installations using concrete and rebar, plus mortar to hold the rocks?
(1) “One problem with concrete and mortar construction is that of cement alkali leaching out for some time after construction, poisoning the pond water with high alkalinity. It also leaves unsightly white [...]

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Building a pond – Koi Pond and Waterfall Builders: What you Need to Know

Before installing a water feature you need to ask yourself several important questions first:
What is your budget? How much can you spend on the entire project? You could spend $3,000 on a water feature and find out you still need an additional $1,000-1,500 for plants and amenities, such as a deck, gazebo, walkways, [...]

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