I
am Jaco from South Africa. We live in a town called Pretoria,
in the Gauteng (meaning gold) province, and we have the ideal
climate for Koi and pond building. I have just finished building
a pond. It is filtered by an outside filter filled with rocks,
foam and bio-rock (lava rock). Its been up and running for
only a short while. I have 7 koi living there already, Tancho,
Kohaku and Kojaku. |
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We
started digging in winter, around June, July. This was not the
ideal time as the earth was rock hard. However I could work around
that by wetting the ground the day before I dug further. I could
have waited for summer but it would have delayed work considerably
because of all the rain and nevermind the heat!
As it were it delayed me during the latter stages of building. |
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I
enlisted the help of one of the local informal building contractors
called David. He was very useful and had much advice, he did
the most backbreaking work without complaint.
Some advice I think to other prospective pond builders is to get someone with
building knowledge to help you or advise you in certain areas. Having a partner
also helps when you're feeling tired or despirited and you can help each other. |
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I used almost
1300 bricks in the construction of the walls, the pond is approximately
1m deep. I thought of doing a double brick wall, but decided
against it for cost reasons. Single turned out to be quite adequate.
Starting building when I did turned out rather fortunate as the cement need sun
to cure properly and as little rain as possible.
One must also take into consideration the amount of soil you have left lying
around after an excavation of this nature. Luckily I am fortunate that it could
be absorbed back into the main garden and around the pond. |
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After
the brickwork was done we did the floor of the pond with reinforced
concrete.
This had to stand for a week or so to set and I had to wet it regularly to prevent
it from cracking.
After it had set we could start the plastering process.
Plastering I think is almost the hardest part. It has to be smooth and without
cracks. It also needs setting time of about a week or even two if the weather
is rainy, by this time Spring had arrived and the Pond kept filling with water
and I had to empty it each time so the cement could set. At least I could see
that it wasn't leaking anything major.
Anyhow after a long wait I could finally do the painting of the inside. I used
a waterproof paint made specially for these types of jobs called "Water-Blok".
One thing I found though is that it is quite soft and can damage easily if one
is not careful. So keep that in mind when painting - AND DON'T GET IT ON
YOUR CLOTHES! |
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I
use a .75kW swimming pool pump to drive the water and find it
a bit to strong, but divert some of the water into the pond via
a submersed spray bar at the one end of the pond.
The
filter compartment I divided into three parts. The first compartment
is the intake section where the water flows through a UV light into the
filter compartment via a spray-bar which is essentially a PVC pipe with
quite a number of holes drilled in the bottom part.
It then travels down the first compartment through some sponges and plastic woven
bags and enters the second compartment at the bottom. It then flows up into the
second compartment through bio-rock and concrete rock which is contained in more
plastic woven bags. It the enters the 3rd compartment which is also filled with
more rock. The water which comes out into compartment 3 is crystal clear. |
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I decided
on using the outside biological fitering system, it was the best
patent I could find anywhere.
Everywhere
I went people had different variations on this same theme and I decided
to go with it cause the results spoke for themselves.
The water filtered through one of these was always crystal clear. I also looked
at the option of using a swimming pool type of filter but seemed overly expensive
for something I'm not sure would work as effectively.
Its filled with concrete stones 2" in diameter and also what is locally called "bio-rock" which
essentially I think is only lava rock. Jaco |
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