Set Up and Maintain Koi Pond

Koi pond is indeed one of the most beautiful attraction to grace your home garden. If you are a fish enthusiast and have a large open space area, you should consider setting up one of your own koi pond. The effort will always pay off because the koi fish swimming in it will provide endless hours of fun and relaxation for the mind.

Koi pond can be constructed by expert builders or you can also setup your own from scratch. I do not have the necessary experience to build everything on my own because there are quite a lot heavy things to move around, not to mention doing it all alone will surely takes time. There is a lot of piping works that need to be carried out including drainage so I decided to leave it to the experts. Once the pond is ready, it is up to me to get the right pond supplies like filter,fish food, and then taking care of the pond maintenance.

Let’s look at some of the basic things, which you need to know regarding the overall setup and maintenance of the koi pond.

1. During the designing and construction stage, it is always a good idea to get an expert builder who has the necessary experience. Don’t worry about finding the right one because you can always get a good start based on recommendation from friends or local koi pond associations in your neighborhood.

2. Depending on the buildup area that you have, ensure that the pond is as large as possible and a good surface area should have at least 16 square feet for every koi fish that you intend to rare. Depending on where you stay, you should also ensure that the pond must be at least 5 to 6 feet deep to prevent the pond from completely become frozen during the winter. Deeper ponds will also allow better growth and development of the fish and to hide from predatory birds but anything deeper than 6 feet is not recommended since it will be hard to view them and to catch the fish if required.

3. Get the best pond filter, which you can afford and check carefully, what is the volume and the amount of water the filter is able to treat. A good guide should be around 2000 gallons per hour and that also depends on the size of your pond.

4. Other pond supplies like heater and UV sterilizer will come as handy to ensure you have a healthy fish.

5. Consider getting and planting water plants like lilies to add beauty to the koi pond. They will also help to provide a shade during summer. However avoid building your pond under a tree because falling dead leaves will pose a problem.

UPDATE: Finally, after learning all the tips and tricks with the input coming from fellow koi hobbyist, I finally managed to set up one of my own with the help of my brother.