The weather has me thinking about the ponds I want to build. I will continue digging through the old posts here looking for good ideas.
Here are two that worked for me.
I have used a submerged ridge in a flat pond that allowed me to drain one side of a pond after moving the plants and chasing the fish over to the other side. Once the water was gone I let the sun bake the left over solids and swept them out with a broom and shovel. Much easier then running a pond vac. It should also get rid of most if not all of the dragon fly larvae that feed on young fish.
A koi pond can double as a settling pond.
My last real koi pond was about 5 feet and shaped much like a steep walled bathroom sink on the bottom. The 4" bottom drain never got connected to a filter. The drain pipe was capped off on the down hill side of the pond about 6" below water level. Once A week I pulled the friction fit cap off the drain pipe and let it flow till the water ran clear. It worked very well. Note that I always feed the koi at the surface while using the drain as the water, for lack of a better word, gushed out once it got moving. I am thinking about the possibility of using a 2nd pipe about 1 or 1 1/2 feet up from the bottom to feed clean water to the pump(s) on the new setup.
