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This is where the two 4" drains come up into the filter bay. The filter I had purchased was the Nitritech 5000 which can easily take the two drains. I know I've now got a 6200 gallon pond, but it was supposed to be 5000.
Bit like the chicken and egg, you don't know the exact gallonage until the pond's filled up, and by then the filters are installed etc. Running 2200 gph is just enough, as I am not going to have high stocking levels.
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| If the worst comes to the worst I can always add a fluidised bed filter. |
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| 'Mick the brick' from down the road built the wall over 2 weekends. With not a straight line in sight he made me cut every brick in half in order to make the wall look decent. I was also his gofer, that kept the cost down a bit. It's worth ringing round as the quotes varied by 200%. |
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What can't be seen, because I forgot to photograph it, is that I lined the bottom and the side of the pond with 2" polystyrene sheets.
Over the top of that is the Trevira Geotextile Underlay. This is really strong stuff to stop stones etc. I couldn't even push a pair of scissors through it.
TIP. The polystyrene on the walls is a good idea, but it should not be laid on the base in case you want to walk on it. |
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I chose a box liner as it almost makes the installation creaseless. This not only stops dirt etc. being trapped, it also looks nicer. I cut a template out of blue plastic sheeting using the inside of the pond collar as a guide and sent this off to Discount Koi Supplies who made the liner for me. They also put a collar on the top of the liner wall so I could hide it under the top two courses of bricks. Mick came back after the liner was fitted to finish off the wall. |
![[Pouring the concrete]](img/steve13.jpg) |
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| The pond is now finished enough to put the koi in. I filled it up using a water meter so I know the exact gallonage. The filter bay is on a concrete base with half round posts set into the concrete. I wanted everything to be quite low level, so the top of the bay is just covered with bamboo screening. The Nitritech filter has it's own lid so they are just for show. |
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