What to ask when buying a house with a koi pond?

[sissy]

Zone 4 b if it freezes solid there will be gases that build up under the ice and kill fish .The filter should be protected from freezing and cracking .I am really surprised it is still intact .So the pump is only in the skimmer .That is what the thing in the box with the automatic refill is .He never told you he took the pump out of the skimmer to protect it .By the way water does not look that bad .The waterfall and the skimmer may freeze and if left on drain the water under the ice out of the pond

 

[Whee]

Zone 4 b if it freezes solid there will be gases that build up under the ice and kill fish .The filter should be protected from freezing and cracking .I am really surprised it is still intact .So the pump is only in the skimmer .That is what the thing in the box with the automatic refill is .He never told you he took the pump out of the skimmer to protect it .By the way water does not look that bad .The waterfall and the skimmer may freeze and if left on drain the water under the ice out of the pond

It's Zone 5b. We usually get 1-2 weeks of really cold weather, and not so bad apart from that. Previous owner says it has kept running all winter long w/o issues over last 10 years w/o action.

How should the filter be protected?
Thanks for all the info!

 

[sissy]

Not sure how because I can not leave mine running and I am in VA near the NC border .My wnter starts in Jan. and Feb. and maybe a little in march in between snow lasts a day or 2 and then we get back u into the 50's and 60's

 

[Lisak1]

The size of the filter doesn't reflect the size of the pond - it reflects how much water the pump moves per hour. A pond should recirculate 1.5 to 2 times per hour, so if your pump is properly sized your pond is more likely 3000 gallons.

It's unfortunate that the previous owner used pond dye - it's not necessary and I don't think adds to the beauty of a pond. While I would hesitate to follow the advice of your pond professional to break down and clean the pond every spring, in this case I might do it just to get the pond dye eliminated. A well functioning pond does NOT need to be completely cleaned, but it is the bread and butter of the pond contractors, so they are quick to recommend it. Now if your pond has a build up of gunk in the bottom (organic material that has built up over the years) it may benefit from a cleaning.

When people say "pond heater" they usually mean a de-icer, which is just used to keep a small hole open in the ice. Truly heating a pond would be both expensive and unnecessary. Koi and goldfish are cold water fish - they don't mind the cold!

A skimmer is what keeps the large debris from entering the pump - I'm not sure if you describes having a skimmer or not. I'm not really familiar with filters as my pond doesn't use a mechanical filter, so I'll leave those questions for others to answer!

Congratulations on your new home and beautiful pond! And welcome to the GPF!

 

[addy1]

Mitch , up in Canada, uses a pond breather. I started using the same. Works great keeping some gas exchange going.

https://www.amazon.com/8PB-Breather-Heated-Aerator-Watts/dp/B000HHM9U0

 

[Tula]

I never remove my pump from my skimmer and have never had a problem. The skimmer is the picture with the white / beige filter pads folded in it. I removed my pads and hose them off. Ive time, it's possible a lot of gunk will settle in the borrow of a skimmer. I use a small aquarium net and scoop it out.

An Ultima II is a good filter

 

[audioenvy]

Good job on the backwashing. You'll definitely want to keep doing that.

Is the well water chlorinated? If so you'll want to add something like Seachem Safe powder when replacing the water. I'd advise replacing maybe 20% of the water ever other day until the blue dye is gone.

I see that you have rocks on the bottom of the pond and there will definitely be sludge trapped around the edges of those. You can buy a pond vacuum like the Oase Pond-o-Vac and work around the rocks with the wand.

There is a LOT to learn in this hobby. You've signed up for something really fun and (especially if you choose to raise koi) potentially challenging.

 

[MitchM]

..., and do beneficial bacteria weekly. ...

I suggest you stop adding bacteria, no pond needs bacteria added and you're only adding organic material that needs to be processed by existing bacteria.
Keep you water quality high, purchase some water quality test kits including KH and GH, provide good water circulation and aeration.

 

[mgmine]

Here is an easy answer, I wouldn't ask anything about it other than can they write down some maintenance suggestions. It is after all just a hole in the ground with water in it. Worst case scenario if something was wrong with it you could spend a few hundred bucks filling it in. If this were the roof or foundation or something like that then the answer would determine whether or not to buy the house. With a pond though, no matter what the answer was it wouldn't sway me from buying the property.

 

[sissy]

Or make it pondless or just a water feature with no fish .

 

[teeemkay]

We bought our house with the pond already in place. The owner left us 3 full-sized koi...one died the following spring but the remaining two are happy and healthy and have made baby koi twice in the past 3 years. You do have to think of the koi as pets--they do need food daily during the warmer months, so if you go on vacation, you need someone to pet-sit the fish.

The questions that I would have asked upon buying the house are: (and luckily we were able to contact the old owner to ask these questions as they came up)
How many gallons is the pond?
Where have you purchased replacement parts (pump, filter pads, etc.) in the past?
What kind of pond plants have you used/what do you recommend? (We bought the house in October and they already had the plants out.)

 

[Faebinder]

The pictures are showing a simple pond filter. The pond seems to have just algae and no plants from the pictures. It's winter so I am not sure if there is a collection of plants somewhere that come out in the spring.

The water stinks probably because of the lack of removal of organic material. A spring clean up will help.... a reduction of the number of fish will help... adding plants to absorb the ammonia and nitrates will help.

 

[CometKeith]

Hi. Good luck with the new house and pond. My wife and I just moved into our new home 6 months ago. There is so much to do! We get Amazon deliveries sometime twice a day! I agree with above comments that there is too much organic waste. You can increase water movement to decrease anaerobic decay. This will greatly improved the water quality and smell.