Underestimated my water volume

[Shdwdrgn]

I never had an actual measurement of the water in my new pond. The best I could do was breaking it down, shelf-by-shelf, using online calculators, which gave me a estimated 1400 gallons of water. Since I had a comet die for no apparent reason, I thought I would do a water change. I took my water level down about 6", which still left water standing in the stream, and then noted the time I started refilling. I used a stopwatch to see how long it took to fill 15 gallons of buckets from the hose, and then figured out my total gallons for the 49 minutes it took to bring the pond back up to full again.

440 gallons of water, in only 6" of depth...!?! Making a rough incremental reduction of volume as I progress downwards, that still puts my pond closer to about 1800 or 1900 gallons... quite a lot more than I ever estimated. If my pond ever gets horribly dirty, I might take the water level way down and get a better measurement of the full volume. I wish I had thought to do this when I originally filled the pond.

 

[bean6924]

this makes me question my estimation of water volume. when people say they have a 1000 gallon pond, does that mean the pond AND the streams AND the bog filter AND the settlement chamber, or just the pond?

This would be important to calculate turnover.

 

[addy1]

I have no real clue, would have to add the two preforms, the lotus tub, the shubbie tub, the deck pond the stream ponds...............and the big pond.
It would be important if you need to medicate or add salt, which I don't do.

To be accurate all of those would need to be added together. Empty and refill everything, lol

 

[Dave 54]

The best way to find out how much your pond and filters take is to use a water meter to mesure the water going in when you've first completed the build, guestimates in our hobby treatment wise can prove to be both inefective if you dont know your gallonage to leathal if you guessed wrong .
The other way of doing it is to work out the volume of your pond and go it from there but you may well be wrong if your math isnt right .
I know that the exact amount of water in our setup is 1,000 gallons imperial and am safe in the knowledge that due to the meter I am spot on with my treatments to the exact gallonage..


rgrds

Dave

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I thought about draining and refilling, but I don't think my fish would be very happy... :yikesu:

I'm not worried about treatments. I've never used salt or any medications. The chlorine neutralizer I use is dosed at 1 tbsp per 5000 gallons, so 1/4 tbsp is overkill for water changes and refills. I really just want to know because people ask me how big it is. I also think I underestimated 'overstocked' as it appears by the look of my swarm of fish that I could easily double the number, assuming my filters are up to the task.

 

[addy1]

I get asked how big our is, I now say no clue, I think I over estimated the size. Even with the 200 plus fish, it does not appear crowded still plenty of water room for fish, if fry survive we get more, if not we stay stable.

 

[Rugar458]

Titration, buy a salt test kit, test your water, add a known amount of salt, test again, do the algerbra to get your volume.