Hello from Salt Lake City, Utah

[CarpCharacin]

Hello. My name is James and i have a 1500 gallon koi pond. The fish are in the pond, but it is not finished. I still have to fine tune the filtration system. I am a kid and i just finished 6th grade. I have a 5 gallon tank and i got my koi when they were less than 2 inches long and now they are all over 18 inches. I had the koi in the 55 gallon, but that way too small so we built the pond.

 

[Dave 54]

Hi James we have been keeping koi for the last 30 years may I ask what filtration you have on your pond ?
one of the lessons I'd like you to take onboard to give you many years happy koi keeping is water quality , do you have any water test kits as of yet ?
If so could you give me an idea as to the following are Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Ph do you also know if you are in a soft or hard water area ?
Another most important leason you must take onboard is koi heath , the best way to do this is read .
Weve been collectiong fish health books for many years now and have a library of over 100 books please read this following article in which I have provided Book Titles Authors names and those all importan ISBN numbers :-

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/articles/our-updated-library-with-reviews.11/

One of the books I'd like to bring to your attenion is the following :-

The Interpet Manual of Koi Health ISBN 1842860992. Keith Holmes, Tony Pitham.

This is the book that started my partner and I on a successfully 30 years of koi keeping , the other books you can purchase later most are available cheaply on either Ebay or Amazon Books .
Remeber this leason never for whatever reason add a new koi to your pond its not worth it allways Quarentine them for 4 - 8 weeks prior to them going into your pond please PM me should you need to ask any questions and please read all the articles in the articles section at the to of the page many are to help the novice koi keeper into things such as safe netting routines Winter care , putting together a koi first aid kit, how to use a microscope , do scrapes etc

Glad to be of help

Dave

 

[CarpCharacin]

Hi James we have been keeping koi for the last 30 years may I ask what filtration you have on your pond ?
one of the lessons I'd like you to take onboard to give you many years happy koi keeping is water quality , do you have any water test kits as of yet ?
If so could you give me an idea as to the following are Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Ph do you also know if you are in a soft or hard water area ?
Another most important leason you must take onboard is koi heath , the best way to do this is read .
Weve been collectiong fish health books for many years now and have a library of over 100 books please read this following article in which I have provided Book Titles Authors names annd #those all importan ISBN numbers :-

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/articles/our-updated-library-with-reviews.11/
One of the books I'd like to bring to your attenion is the following :-

I have an API KH test kit and an API freshwater master test kit. My filter is a moving bed filter, but i did not have any kaldnes when i started it, so i used bio balls. The bio balls have not been working and i had the output on the bottom and i had an emergency overflow. I am still making changes to my filtration system. I am going to replace the top 2 inch outlet with a 3 inch one so i can cap the bottom bulkhead. I have a 35 lpm air pump that i am gig to use for the kaldnes. I have 4 cubic feet of k3 kaldnes. I am running it as a trickle filter temporarily because the bio balls were not working, but i am going to get it going properly soon. I have to get some 3 inch pvc and fittings and some potassium permanganate to presoak the kaldnes with. I made a prefilter basket out of lighting diffuser and zip ties to hold polyester batting as my mechanical filtration. I have seen this setup done before where the water comes in the top and then goes out, but the problem with my setup is i was using valves to limit and balance the flow. I am going to install a 3 inch bulkhead as the main outlet and then have the pipe go up to where i want the water level to be at and then go into the pond. I have an advantage es3500 pump.

 

[Dave 54]

Sounds good so far , did you think to install a bottom drain on your pond ?
We use the API pond master test kit plus a nitrate test kit , our pipe system if a 4" pipe system and we run a vortex the two filters full of Jap matting and a further filter for our K1, bio balls and bio chips .
We use two airtec 40e airpumps one supplying three airstones each to the second and third filters with six airstones in with the K1 bioballs and bio chips.
The other 40e supplies air to our bottom drain bubbler only giving us a huge mass of movement of water in the pond.
This is a leson in the importance of fish health , our oldest koi is 30 years old and may have a life span of 80+ years .
Th rest of our koi go down the scale to our youngest koi of about 2 years old .
Water changes and filter maintenance are vitally important so get in the habit of doing these , dont buy dechlorinator buy :-

http://www.vyair.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=67

This will supply you with thousands of gallons of chlorine and dechlorimine free water between cartridges and are well worth the money .
Clean your filters in late spring mid summer and late Autumn this will put you in good stead for spring summer and the yer ahead if you dont have a bottom drain then I suggest you invest in a pond Vac to vlean the pond bottom the same as above .
One of the main threats to us as koi keepers is the CyHV3 virus [most commonly know as KHV whichis sadly spreading around the world of koi , learn about it it could cost you all your koi :-

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/articles/khv-cyhv3.27/

Dave

 

[CarpCharacin]

Yes, I do have a bottom drain.

 

[Dave 54]

Yes, I do have a bottom drain.

Brilliant no need to use a pond Vac question, did you install a slide Valve prior to your filters , just after the pond ?

Dave

 

[CarpCharacin]

Brilliant no need to use a pond Vac question, did you install a slide Valve prior to your vilters , just after the pond ?

Dave

No, i did not use a guillotine valve, but i did use a ball valve.

 

[Dave 54]

No, i did not use a guillotine valve, but i did use a ball valve.

good the number of people I've come across that forgot that well lets say its morethan a few over the years .
Our pump is an Oase 3500 same rating as our own

Dave

 

[Dave 54]

I have to go now to get y disabled partner out of bed who sadlly has MD but remember if you need to chat about any points or about certain aspects of anyof the articles either look out for me online or PM me

Dave

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our group! Post some pictures when you can.