I have had several people request I post some pictures of my pond, maybe some are interested in rocks again, or maybe I am being setup for another one of those threads that the forum police hate??!!
Boy, when I had this pond built back in 2006, I was totally uneducated about the rock controversy. I had kept aquaria for many years, and had never considered that the deep substrate at the bottom of my tanks was killing my fish (even the discus that spawned on a weekly basis
). Now that I have 55 tons of rock in and around my 7,000 gallons (metered) of water, I realize the error in my ways. I guess it just does not work having stones in your water.
This pond is really two ponds, one fed by a "skippy" that is supplied by a 10,000 gph pump. It feeds into the lower, main pond, that is also fed by a stream flowing from an upflow bog fed by a 6,000 gph pump. Both pumps are in a large skimmer on the main, lower pond.
The skippy and bog combine to keep the poisonous concoction caused by the rocks to still have crystal clarity, with Ammonia, Nitrite AND Nitrate readings of zero during the summer months (barely measurable nitrates when the bog plants go dormant during the fall), and a ph of around 8.5. I have never had green water, but do have string algae, but not severe. I am sure someone could smell all the stinky rock stuff, but my nose has not detected any yet!
The ponds house 15 various size adult koi and 10 babies from last year's spawn. There are also potted lilies and lilies planted in the substrate gravel (you know, the hydrogen sulfide factory!) as well as a lot of elodea. I trimmed the elodea severely this year so I would not have so many babies-the koi used it for a spawning mat.
The largest koi is a butterfly kikokuryu, that was purchased the fall the pond was built at 8" and is now 20" (butterflies are measured without the tail, she is really almost 25" long). The highest quality is a kohaku I bought from Lotusland Koi Farm and is part of a growout over on Koiphen. She is now 13", and a little over a year old. She won a blue ribbon at the Carolina Classic Young Koi Show as best kohaku in size this past fall. There are a lot of mutts too, but time for me to shut up and show some pictures of my rotten egg cesspool, so here they are:
The main pond:
The upper pool:
The waterfall flowing into the upper pool:
The waterfall from the upper pool into the main pond:
The creek from the bog coming into the main pond (the pennisetum is a volunteer, it sure likes that spot!):
The bog and the creek flowing out of it (second pic) from this spring when you could still see the bog and the Gamecock Irises were blooming:
The landscape behind the ponds and between the two creeks from this spring. The rock in the foreground weighs 5,000 lbs and turned over a skidsteer that tried to move it!
:
Industrial waste from the rocks(actually organics from a koi spawn!
):
The fish in the four foot deep end-note the gravel at the bottom!
, the kohaku near the center is the blue ribbon Lotusland fish:
And more fishies, including the original kikokuryu (white and black):
And finally, some "cool" pics of the quagmire:
Hope noone is too offended by all the rocks, I hope to have them all removed shortly after MY demise!!!
Steve
