Our next article was not written by us, not by accident. We want to provide as much space as possible for enterprising pond builders like the author, Beatrix Sima. She and her partner have embarked on the construction of a rather large – perhaps even they didn’t realise how large at the beginning – garden pond. They gained a lot of experience during the construction of the pond, building two ponds, planting plants and stocking fish. Beatrix’s example shows very well how, even with so much work and sometimes some annoyance, building a garden pond can still bring so much joy and wonderful results. Our sincere congratulations to them! 🙂
It is important to mention that Beatrix entered her pond in our January competition. If you like it, don’t hesitate to vote for it (go here), and if you feel like writing a similar one, contact us at info@lotuszliget.hu!
We’ll pass the word…
I entered this picture in the competition. But how did I get here? That’s what I’m writing down for you :).
In the spring of 2010, my partner came up with the idea of building a garden pond. To be honest, I wasn’t very keen on the idea, but I knew there was no way I could talk him out of it, so I started to prepare myself for the mysteries of pond building. Luckily, I had a “pond farmer” in my circle of friends and they were very helpful. We started work that summer. Digging, lining, salting, planting plants and fish. We used 1.2 mm PVC film.
We had to solve the problem of keeping the water clean, so we bought a factory-made filter and built an “engine house” for it. Of course, we didn’t want to stare at a concrete block next to the pond, so we created a small waterfall and a rock garden next to it.
By August, we had pretty much completed our first pond – a 10 cubic metre pond. There was still a lot of work to be done, but we were over the worst of it.
It was a fantastic experience to see the first residents arrive a few hours after filling. Within a couple of hours, there were millards, chickadees and dragonflies. A few weeks later we had newts.
The frogs also arrived very quickly – I just wish I knew where they came from… 🙂 I was a bit worried about them, because they were making a terrible racket and I didn’t know how much the neighbours would tolerate it. Fortunately they were very happy with it, so I was reassured.
Then the fish came. We bought pond fish from all the shops in the area. Goldfish and koi filled the pond in a couple of days. Along with us, we also got goldfish and 2 nice goatfish. At that time we had no idea about quarantine and fish diseases. Fortunately, no harm done.
Winter has come. We knew that we needed to put ice on the pond so that the harmful gases produced when plants rot could escape from the water. To do this, we purchased a low-powered fountain pump. We didn’t have to. Unfortunately, the continuous flow of water moved the water so much that the water became too cold, the koi froze and died. When the ice melted, we couldn’t resist removing the carcasses. We were pretty desperate, but we didn’t give up. At that time, the idea of another pond was already in my head – I was kind of hooked :). My partner was in the same situation I was in before. Now he had to be convinced.
In spring 2011 we built our second pond. The result was a small pond of about 5.5 cubic metres with a small filter and a small sedimentation stream. For this pond we used 0.8 mm PVC foil. From the larger pond we transferred all the goldfish and some smaller koi. Of course we also planted a lot of plants to improve the efficiency of the biological filtration. It worked beautifully too, the water was crystal clear despite the constant sunshine. We used a small 3000 litre pump to circulate the water up into the filter pond, from there into the stream and back into the pond bed. Vegetation and zeolite were added to the filter pond. It has to be cleaned out once a month from spring to autumn because it has 20 cm of silt. Of course, the garden plants love that sludge, it makes them grow like mushrooms. 🙂
Of course, in the clear water, the curse of every pond, the filamentous algae, appeared almost immediately. We didn’t want to treat it with chemicals, so I hand-picked it almost every day. I have since realised, of course, that it’s a never-ending battle and the nematodes will win. There is a fish-friendly rennet, so I use that instead of constant smearing.
Autumn came, and then in the winter the thought popped into my head, what if we could merge the two ponds? My master wondered when I had become so wicked? I told him the whole plan in headwords: drain the ponds, take out the gravel, plants and fish, bring back the linen, dig it up, bring in the linen, and then bring it all back.
He said I’m not normal… 🙂 Of course we did it anyway. And that’s how we made the sausage pond aka two in one. 🙂 We added 1,0 mm PVC foil between the two ponds. This way we had a 15 m long, variable width, 25.5 cubic meter pond. I was looking for new hosts for the goldfish, because I was fed up with their reproduction being on the level of rabbits and by then I had fallen completely in love with koi. The koi loved their huge habitat.
Of course, the filter pond and the factory filter were no longer enough for a koi pond of this size, so we started making a filter at home. We bought the ingredients (tanks, filter media, pipes and pump) and assembled it at home.
Perfectly clear, slightly teal-coloured lake water is the result of filtration without chemicals and literally lots of plants. I have to thin it out regularly, because if I don’t, after a while you can only guess that there’s a pond in the garden somewhere 🙂
Then in the summer of 2012 the big “koi disaster” struck, in the form of caterpillar disease and other parasites. I irresponsibly put some new koi in the pond without quarantine. Unfortunately I trusted the dealer who said that the fish had been treated on arrival. He was not telling the truth… The end result was that 95% of my stock died. Both big and small. We tried in vain to treat them, unfortunately nothing helped as they had so many problems. The few remaining fish were then – in the spring of 2013, as the water warmed up – hit by the crayfish disease again. We were able to successfully treat them out of this and they have been healthy ever since. They are fed good quality food and vitamins – in the form of fruit. As I also keep goats in cages, I use both sinking and floating feed to keep everyone well fed. Feeding the koi with sinking food is a bit of a hassle as they are very greedy, but not impossible.
There are currently around 50 fish in the pond. Mostly small koi, 3 goldfish, some gold and wild compo, 2 large goatfish and 3 small Siberian sturgeon. Not a small number of fish, but the pond can comfortably support them.
Thanks to this pond-fishing hobby I have made a lot of new friends and some of them have become very good friends. We try to help each other when we have a problem and together we rejoice when something good happens. I love the pond in the garden and all the people in it. It is infinitely comforting just to look at them. I love that they get to know me and come to me when I call. Unfortunately they don’t eat from my hand yet, but it’s just a matter of time and patience. In principle I have both, so it’s not hopeless 🙂
