hello and dreaming

[dakydd71]

I was dreaming of building at least 1000 Gals of Koi pond.

Lets start by discussing where does bottom skimmer water drains too?

 

[HTH]

By my thinking 1000g is smallish for koi.

You can use a bottom drain to pull water from the bottom and feed it to the filter. Or you can use it to flush the bottom of the pond now and then.

Skimmers pull water off the surface and catch what might be floating on the water.

 

[j.w]

dakydd71

 

[addy1]

to our group

For koi you would probably want a bigger pond

 

[Becky]

Hey there welcome aboard! :wave:

 

[dakydd71]

What will be typical gallons for Koi?

HTH, do i need bottom skimmer or not?

 

[HTH]

Well maybe not in the pond

HTH, do i need bottom skimmer or not?

Gallons is too simplistic. Surface area and the filter also need to be factored in if you want to max out the pond load. Easy solution is to run a lightly loaded pond.

Drains go on the bottom. Skimmers on top. Both are good. You can live without both.

Sort of like asking if you need a wife!

 

[Carolyn22]

Welcome dakydd71

How large can you go? Typically when people put in a pond, they always wish they could have gone larger. Go as large as your space and budget will allow -especially if you want koi.

 

[addy1]

Both are good. You can live without both.

Sort of like asking if you need a wife!

Of course you guys need us Wifes! you would be lost without us!

Larger is better if you want koi, they do grow big and have babies.

 

[capewind]

Welcome to the group ...

1000 gallons is small for koi unless you really have a great filter set up. Too many variables to quote fish volume to gallons, but a basic rule of thumb with a decent filtration set up is 1000 gallons for the first koi, and for each 200-300 gallons of water there after, you can add ONE more koi. People DO stock their ponds much heavier than this, and in a new pond, it may work for sometime, but a tipping point will come.

 

[Carolyn22]

Welcome to the group ...

1000 gallons is small for koi unless you really have a great filter set up. Too many variables to quote fish volume to gallons, but a basic rule of thumb with a decent filtration set up is 1000 gallons for the first koi, and for each 200-300 gallons of water there after, you can add ONE more koi. People DO stock their ponds much heavier than this, and in a new pond, it may work for sometime, but a tipping point will come.

That tipping point occurs generally after they start spawining :biggrin:

 

[addy1]

My goldies are chasing, the feeding is stopping until they drop this first load of eggs and have a good time snacking on them. Population control!

 

[Carolyn22]

There is nothing wrong with responsible birth control :cheerful:

 

[addy1]

Works for me, we get a few small ones every year. The first summer we had 4 original fish, added 20 small ones, like 1.5 inch size, the next spring we had around 200 fish.

A lot of water room very few fish = babies that survive. Now with the number of fish, they snack on eggs as they drop. Still have a lot of room for more fish, but slowly is preferred.

 

[Dave 54]

I have a 1,000 gallon UK Imperial former koi dealership QT pond now retro fitted to a pond.
Its filters are designed to take Quite a few more koi than I have in it at the moment but with the size filters we have it will take a large amount of koi.
The pond has a 4" bottom drain going to four large filters the first a vortex.
The second and third with Jap matting zelotie and Lithaqua...
The fouth filter is my bio filter filled with k1 aqua one bio balls and other bio balls it has two airtec 40e airpumps one supplying the spindrifter bottom drain cover only.
The other supplying three of the filters, with three airstones in with the Jap matting.
Then six airstones in with the bio filter .
It has an Oase 3500 inline filter and an Aqua pond 36 watt UV-C


rgrds

Dave