Koi pond advice. New to all this.

[Daemonshi]

Man oh man this pond is a roller-coaster ride. Looks like this bog garden project is on hold until this pandemic is over; my wife's work is closed until further notice so she's out of work. My son is too. So I'll just have to make do with what I have so far. Going to finish it sooner or later though.

Time for an update. We lost the goldfish about a week ago. I think he was sick, since he was apt to turn on his side a lot; that's why we named him 'Sideways'. I looked that up and wrote it off to him being sick. A few days later, we lost the orange and white koi. Oh hell, now I know something is going on. That pump has been clogging a lot; for the last week I've had to clean it every day. Each morning the water coming from the UV filter was down to a trickle, so I had my son take some water to Pet Supermarket to get tested and it had high nitrates. Time for action.

I built the dang pump box with the filter media and lava rock and put it in, so now the pump goes 5 or 6 days at full strength before needing a cleaning. I also got some 'nitrate neutralizer' stuff, took 2 bottles, and put that in. The other fish seem to be fine. So that's good.

And today, we realize we lost one of the turtles. It's not dead, it's just... gone. Like, wtf? It can't crawl out, I triple-checked every inch of the pond's border, and he is just gone. Could something have taken him? There has been a hawk hanging around the yard a few days ago...

Losing the goldfish sucked, losing the koi was a heartbreak, now we are majorly bummed about the missing turtle. Hoping he will turn up sooner or later, but I checked every inch of that pond and he ain't there.

 

[Daemonshi]

Had a big rain yesterday. It rained all day. Now our white koi thay we think is female is staying at the bottom of the pond. The other koi seems fine but will not leave her side. We are concerned she is on her way out. She was fine before the rain. Any advice? My wife is taking a sample of the water to Pet Supermarket to get tested.

 

[poconojoe]

10x2 with 1 foot gravel Pea gravel at $5 per .5 cubic foot will run around $400. Way out of my budget

Back to the drawing board...

Get the gravel in bulk. Have it delivered or if you have access to a pickup truck you can get it with that. I used my pickup truck, one cubic yard at a time. It was $45 a cubic yard from one of the local garden centers. You want 3/8" pea gravel if possible, or small river rock. Nothing pointy that will puncture your liner. I used 3 cubic yards for my bog, three trips with my truck.

 

[poconojoe]

 

[Daemonshi]

Wow that's hella impressive

 

[poconojoe]

There are slits cut across those 2" PVC pipes spaced out every 1-1/2". They are then covered with 12" of gravel. The water gets pumped from the pond, through the slits and up through the gravel. The plants are place directly in the gravel, no pots. The plants feed on the excess nutrients created by the fish waste, starving out the algae. The results are clear water without any store bought filters. No cleaning of filter pads. No backwashing filters. Just sit back and enjoy.
The bog should be sized at 30% of the surface area of the pond.
Addy1 is the one who inspired me to do this and it's the best thing I've done for my pond.

 

[GBBUDD]

you don't have to do all pea stone or any for that matter of fact I used 3/8 and 3/4 river rock. and my water is always crystal clear and haven't seen green water ever

 

[Daemonshi]

I need some inspiration, or advice, or something, bc I am aggravated as heck and about to call it quits with this thing. I've been working on this all day and I just can't get the $%^&* liner to behave. Here's where I'm at.

The corners and ends are messing me up. No matter how I do it I end up with folds and creases and some part of the end below the edge of the box. I cannot buy another liner, they are $130 and this is my second one. I already jacked up the first liner. This one has to work, or I can do some patchwork with the other. Another issue is apparantly the Gorilla construction glue I got doesn't seem to be doing a very good job. Unless it just takes a while to dry. I was hoping to at least have the liner in so I can cut the hole for the pipe bc it is going to rain.

 

[addy1]

You will have folds, wrinkles when fitting it. Think like you are wrapping a box from the inside. I would try to attach one end, so it does not move, clamps etc, the keep working on the folds until you are happy with them.

Like the blue pin you have in it, put as close to the edge of the liner as possible and about where you want that edge to be. Then start adjusting it. Use pins to attempt to control the one edge as you work the other edges.

 

[Jhn]

Can add a little water (fill up the box partially)to the liner to help you work all the folds out into the corners just leave a little slack coming up the sides, so the liner doesn’t tear once you add gravel etc.

Also, you don’t have a whole lot of extra over hang around the sides, going to be close when you fill that up, especially in that opening that dumps into the pond, unless there is excess liner I can’t see in those pics. If it were me, I would think about lowering the entire front edge where it would dump into the pond (if you don’t have enough excess liner).

 

[GBBUDD]

I need some inspiration, or advice, or something, bc I am aggravated as heck and about to call it quits with this thing. I've been working on this all day and I just can't get the $%^&* liner to behave. Here's where I'm at.

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The corners and ends are messing me up. No matter how I do it I end up with folds and creases and some part of the end below the edge of the box. I cannot buy another liner, they are $130 and this is my second one. I already jacked up the first liner. This one has to work, or I can do some patchwork with the other. Another issue is apparantly the Gorilla construction glue I got doesn't seem to be doing a very good job. Unless it just takes a while to dry. I was hoping to at least have the liner in so I can cut the hole for the pipe bc it is going to rain.

Nooooooooo While I love gorilla glue it is simply the wrong material to seam or fold to rubber. If your talking to simply hold or deal the folds then it maybe OK i have not tried gorilla caring on rubber . if you are just trying to make it neat then use your gorilla caulking. "hopefully that's what your referring to in your folds then use gorila tape to hold the overlap together and tight. . one other thing I would do is keep the caulking back from the outside edge close but just far enough back to hold the shape once the caulking sets remove the tape and then do a nice neat job with your dressing later of caulking. HINT caulkings won't stick to liquid soap so if you use a sponge. Slide over where you want the caulking to stop and make a nice clean line that's where you caulking will stop. Do the same with your finger keep applying liquid hand soap to your finger. Or use an ice cube. both will give a profesional look. The other option is to put an actual seam tape over the seams you can read how to seam in the sticky in the construction forum at the top.
good luck.
Me if I was doing a raised pond like that i would do the seam tape

 

[Daemonshi]

The liner was bigger. I trimmed a few feet off all the way around to make it easier to work with. Wishing I left some more on the width.

I was going to fill to about 6 - 8 inches from the top, if that helps. I intend to cut the section of liner out from where the waterfall gap will be, and just fold over and attach to the edges, then attach my waterfall piece. There is plenty of extra liner at the ends, though I think maybe I trimmed a bit too much off the sides. The issue with my first go was the liner was just too big to work with in that area, couldn't make heads or tales of it and ended up making some bad cuts trying to fit it.

 

[poconojoe]

You are building a bog filter...right?
Your box looks kind of deep. What is the depth? You only need 12" of pea gravel and 4"-5" extra wall higher than the gravel just in case. So basically your box needs to be about 16"- 17".
So if it's way deeper than that, shorten the walls and you should have plenty of liner.

 

[poconojoe]

The liner was bigger. I trimmed a few feet off all the way around to make it easier to work with. Wishing I left some more on the width.

I was going to fill to about 6 - 8 inches from the top, if that helps. I intend to cut the section of liner out from where the waterfall gap will be, and just fold over and attach to the edges, then attach my waterfall piece. There is plenty of extra liner at the ends, though I think maybe I trimmed a bit too much off the sides. The issue with my first go was the liner was just too big to work with in that area, couldn't make heads or tales of it and ended up making some bad cuts trying to fit it.

Rule number one when it comes to liners....never trim, tuck and hide. But, I guess you learned that one the hard way.

 

[Daemonshi]

You are building a bog filter...right?
Your box looks kind of deep. What is the depth? You only need 12" of pea gravel and 4"-5" extra wall higher than the gravel just in case. So basically your box needs to be about 16"- 17".
So if it's way deeper than that, shorten the walls and you should have plenty of liner.

It's 2 feet. I can lower the front support beam and lower the front edge a bit. The gap for the waterfall was a pain bc I don't have anything that can plunge cut. Had to cut it out in pieces using a handsaw.

Rule number one when it comes to liners....never trim, tuck and hide. But, I guess you learned that one the hard way.

Yup... *sigh*