Use these koi pond design fundamentals to accomplish these four major tasks in order to be successful. When it comes to building a koi pond there are many differing opinions about koi pond design.
If you were to have 10 different pond designers plan your pond you would likely find 10 completely different koi pond designs.
Yet although these designs might differ, one designer may prefer to use a different pump or filter system and so on, they would all incorporate the same design elements in order to be successful.
Four Basic Koi Pond Design Fundamentals For Efficient Koi Pond Design
The first basic fundamental of designing ponds deals with esthetics and fitting the koi pond into the surrounding landscape and its environment.
This will largely depend on the amount of space available and what the pond owner is trying to accomplish. Some owners will want a natural looking pond that blends into the landscape while others may prefer a more formal type of koi pond.
Koi Pond Design Fundamental Number 2 – Taking Out The Trash
The second critical element in any successful koi pond design involves removing solids from the pond. This includes fish poop, leaves and basically anything else that winds up in the koi pond besides the koi themselves.
While experts may argue over brands or types of equipment or placement details they would all agree that a skimmer is needed to deal with surface debris and a bottom drain or drains is required to remove solids from the pond bottom.
Koi Pond Design Fundamental Number 3 – Separating Solids.
Again there would be disagreement on the best way to accomplish this, but all would agree that once you have collected all this debris you need to get it out of the water column.
Skimmers sweep the water surface and collect floating debris in a basket to be removed manually. But what about everything that either sinks to the bottom or winds up there?
Bottom waste is pulled up by the bottom drains but you do not want to send it directly to a pump where it will be pureed and made almost impossible to remove. You also don’t want it going to your biological filter where it will clog it up. There needs to be a way to separate these solids from the water column.
There are various ways of doing this. The water may be sent to a settlement chamber like a vortex which slowly spins the solids out or through a prefilter with screens ahead of the pump. What is important is that the pond design achieves this objective and not what kind of equipment is used.
Koi Pond Design Fundamental Number 4 – Final Filtration
Once the solids have been separated and removed it is time to get the water over to the final filtration system. This is where nitrifying bacteria will take care of ammonia and nitrites.
There are many ways to do this but all methods use some type of filter media for these bacteria to colonize. As the water passes through finer particles and other pollutants are converted into less toxic form by these bacteria before the water returns to the pond and starts its cycle over again.
Putting Together Your Koi Pond Design
As you can see there is a lot of room for choices in designing a pond. As long as you design your pond to accomplish these tasks you will have a healthy and thriving koi pond and your upkeep and maintenance will be greatly reduced.
When designing a koi pond many people focus primarily on esthetics and skip over the other fundamentals. But what good is a well landscaped pond if it is sick?
By incorporating all four koi pond design fundamentals together you will be guaranteed to have an attractive and successful koi pond.
