This is the set-up...the biological pond is 200 gallons
and it is just one aspect that helps keep our pond clear and healthy.

The pond operation--The water flows between the biological pond and the main pond from underground tubing. The water enters the pond from the waterfalls, then goes through the bottom drain and then through the three mechanical filter tubs. The last filter tub contains the four pumps. After going through the filter tubs, the water then travels 18 feet underground and spills into the small biological pond, via the waterfall in back of the biological pond. The water travels through the biological pond getting scrubbed by all the vegetation in it's path and goes through a drain at the end of this pond --it then travels back 18 ft underground and spills into the main pond from under the small wood dock in back of the main pond. The process then starts all over again. The pond is a bare bottom pond and the entire pond bottom is slightly slanted toward the bottom drain. The only thing that is rocked is the 3ft x 5 ft beach section. The beach is cleaned weekly by hosing them full force with the garden hose, the rocked shelves are cleaned by hosing them as well.

The three tubs daisy chained together.
The drawing doesnt show it, but tub two is also divided
into sections with various material to trap the waste.

Tub three is our polishing tub...it has one section in the front
to trap more waste before exiting the tub to make it's
journey to the biological pond. The water passes through the biological pond getting scrubbed by all the vegetation
in its way, then at the end, the water exits the biological
pond and enters the main pond from under the wooden
dock. This process is 24/7 ...The waste is trapped
in the filter boxes and the water is continually scrubbed and polished by the vegetation in the biological pond.

The bio pond is the little patch of water to the upper
right of the pond...it is 18 feet away from the main pond.

Clear pond bottom, no rocks to get in the way of the water flow to the Bottom Drain.

Note: this is not to say that rocks on the bottom is bad, however, with a bottom drain the pond floor has to be rock free.

This is a drawing of the beach and the rock shelf
all around the pond. The beach is shallow and hosed
off weekly...

The beach used to have small rocks and pebbles...
we soon had to change it to big rocks as the koi would
pick up the rocks in their mouths, roll them around
and spit them out.

Here is a video of the beach cleaning...

After hosing the beach, a lot of stuff is released from the rocks, It then flows down through the BD and the water
sharpens up in about one or two hours.

The fish love swimming into the force of the hose.
They're crazy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cleaning the Beach.

Thank you taking the time to document your pond, I know it's a lot of work. For many years I've been amazed by your pond and always wondered about the secret. I've seen bits and pieces in your posts, pictures and videos, but never seen an overall design before. So this is great.

In looking over your details the thing that stands out to me is water changes. In the past I had never been big on water changes myself, but in recent years having been hearing many good things about using water changes more than we considered necessary in the past. And your 35-49% percent changes per week are definitely in the range promoters of 24/7 drip water change systems like Dr Eric Johnson and Andy Moo of Andrew's Koi International has been explaining for a few years now. To me your pond adds to the confirmation of pushing water changes further than have been considered useful in the past.

I've been wanting my next pond to be a 24/7 drip water change design but this really conforms it for me. Thanks.

waterbug, I see you're in Pheonix, I know it gets hot there. We only
on occasion suffer from very hot weather. On those days we run extra
waterfalls and do even more agressive water exchanges...Our koi are very used to a lot of water exchanges and thrive on it. Fortunately for us, we do not have to add de-chlor to our water and also water is cheap here on Long Island.

I know our pond was discussed in detail on some koi forums, it was bought
up by Roddy Conrad (many years ago) he discussed how we manage to successfully maintain clean and healthy pond practices with aggressive water exchanges and a separate biological pond.
I do not belong to any of these forums, ( I did try briefly, however they were beyond snobby) as they
have very expensive Japanese koi and they have sterile ponds, (meaning
no rocks on the edges) also their filtration systems cost many thousands
of dollars and they are quite snobby about their koi and ponds.
Hell they don't even consider butterfly koi to be koi.

However, the main reason
I won't frequent these koi forums is because with all their expensive and super elaborate filter
systems -- many of them they still use PP to help clear their ponds. I don't get it, why
subject your fish to dangerous chemicals? If you systems are so wonderful
why do they need chemicals and uv lights? You can see the amount of
trouble I could get myself into frequenting these forums. :)
Besides, my koi are mutts.

I know Dr. Roddy Conrad from another forum that we were both members of.
We got along well,( but I did disagree with his PP practices.) He knew our set-up that why he was able to explain to the
koi forum members our set up and aggressive water exchanges.
"Successful pond husbantry practices " he called it. I don't remember if
the other forum members agreed with him. Probably not.
The Doctor that lost all the koi in his pond (twice) was that from on overdose
of PP?

Hopefully, I will be able to take a more recent video this weekend.
Looking through my past videos, I found one that shows the biological pond.

We have since cut back some of the greenery and placed a garden
angel on top of the biological pond to bring this pond to attention; as it
gets lost in the maze of everything going on in our backyard.

The bio pond is our final scrubbing pond before the water re-enters the
main pond.

Here is a link that might be useful: pond video

How does a bio-pond differ from a bog? Water flowing across rather than up from the bottom?

amazing job.. and beautiful fish, Ignore the sneetches.

I know our pond was discussed in detail on some koi forums, it was bought
up by Roddy Conrad (many years ago) he discussed how we manage to successfully maintain clean and healthy pond practices with aggressive water exchanges and a separate biological pond.
I read many of the posts with Roddy but unfortunately missed yours. Water changes and flow thru systems have of course been a cornerstone of fish keeping, from fish farms and hatcheries to backyard ponds forever. Many of the Japanese growers seem to have flow thru systems, but most of us don't have a stream/river in our back yards for that so we have to make due with water changes.

Up until the last few years most of the discussion in Koi Ponds has been about how frequency relates to keeping fish alive. In the last few years it's changed by a very few people to frequency relating to other things like clear water. algae control, and increasing fish growth. It's new so interesting to me. What surprised me is that you are already basically doing the 24/7 drip thing except once a day instead of 24/7 and hose instead of drip. Your volume is right in the range of 10-70% per week (varies by goals). And you've been doing it for a really long time so that's good data. Not sure how long Andy Moo has been doing 24/7, he's been around a long time too.

And of course you're also using your hose as a TPR and basically the same as vacuum. Whether dirt is pushed to suction or suction is moved to dirt the result is the same. And you're doing it often. Pretty much all the people I've dealt with who wanted a bottom system as a option (not required for fish load) wanted it solely as a convenience. They just want a pond for looking at fish after work and don't want to pick up a hose.

I do not belong to any of these forums, ( I did try briefly, however they were beyond snobby) as they
have very expensive Japanese koi and they have sterile ponds, (meaning
no rocks on the edges) also their filtration systems cost many thousands
of dollars and they are quite snobby about their koi and ponds.
Hell they don't even consider butterfly koi to be koi.
Every forum seems to have a single specific type of pond that the 20-40 dominating posters have. Every forum says they accept all kinds of ponds but that sure isn't true. They'll say "all ponds are different, and that's great" and then launch into telling people why their pond is all wrong. But that's forums, protecting their little world.

I most read pond forums that sometimes have good info but I don't find much reason to post very often. I've learned a lot about that I might be able to adapt to other ponds and more importantly so I understand these systems. Aquarium forums are even better for learning but I never post in those since I've never even had an aquarium or are interested in one. But those folks sure know there stuff, lots of test data. I think the hard it is to keep fish alive the better the forum because they have to take everything more serious. Fish farming forums are good too. If it don't pay they don't use it.

However, the main reason
I won't frequent these koi forums is because with all their expensive and super elaborate filter
systems -- many of them they still use PP to help clear their ponds. I don't get it, why
subject your fish to dangerous chemicals? If you systems are so wonderful
why do they need chemicals and uv lights? You can see the amount of
trouble I could get myself into frequenting these forums. :)
Besides, my koi are mutts.
I haven't seen much in those forums about PP use for general maintenance in several years. Occasional use by few for a specific reason. Or maybe they just don't talk about it. There's been better filters developed since Roddy was talking about PP and way easier to use, and pretty cheap, oxidizers have become available since then too.

They need those things because they keep a different kind of pond than you do. For example for me to do the kind of water changes in San Jose would have added about $80 per month to my water bill since they use a tried system. While $960 a year isn't a lot I kept the water clear enough for me using other cheaper means. It's just a choice thing.

For my next pond I can design a pond specifically to include 24/7 drip so I can reuse the waste water for landscaping. Here in Phoenix we water the landscape all year, and use a lot of water for that. So the water from the 24/7 drip will be basically free. Free and completely automated me likes.

I know Dr. Roddy Conrad from another forum that we were both members of.
We got along well,( but I did disagree with his PP practices.) He knew our set-up that why he was able to explain to the
koi forum members our set up and aggressive water exchanges.
"Successful pond husbantry practices " he called it. I don't remember if
the other forum members agreed with him. Probably not.
The Doctor that lost all the koi in his pond (twice) was that from on overdose
of PP?
I don't think I've ever posted directly with Roddy but have reads hundreds of his posts. He may have taught me more about ponds than maybe anyone else, especially when I was first learning about koi keeping. I've just been interested in learning different techniques and don't really have an opinion on whether it's good or bad. Just a tool. A hammer is good for driving a nail, not good for opening eggs. The tool itself is neither good or bad to me.

I don't find a lot applications for PP but when needed and useful it works fine. But I'm sure happy Roddy took the time to teach me how to use PP, it's effects, and it's downsides through his posts. I'd be happy to buy him dinner any day.

Plus his explaining, experimenting and providing lots of early data on Trickle Towers was very important to the hobby imo. And he took a lot of crap from the peanut gallery to boot which taught me a lot about forums which has helped me in developing software. TT popularity may have been short lived in the Koi Pond world but lead to even better filters.

So I take what I can from those forums and just try and stay out of the crap...as best I can.

This is the wood dock, I wanted a wood dock so drew this
up, of course the head guy wanted it to be functional as well
as pretty...This is where he houses the DIY skimmer that we had left over from our old swimming pool. We only use it in early spring and late fall to help catch the
floating stuff from the trees.
Many people have adapted this idea to hide their unsightly
filter tubs.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dock in use -- from June 28th 2013

waterbug guy, Roddy and I belonged to the same forum
Watergarden Magazine Pond Forum for several years...This was a great forum, unfortunately it went out of business. It wasn't just a koi forum, but a watergarden
and pond fish forum.
I read and/or posted in that forum. Kind of hard to remember all the different forums.

Roddy is very helpful, if you email him he will answer you
and be helpful. He helped a friend of mine.
I never had a question. He always posted such complete threads.

I've been a member of this forum
since 2002, and now I have to stay away from cicadidae
threads, as she has lost respect for me. Oh well...
I don't know how long I've been a member here, maybe as long as you or close. We're using how long we've been here as some kind of rank? You seem to be, so I will too and suggest you drop the passive aggressive behavior toward cicadidae. She doesn't deserve it by a long shot and it's underhanded.

Your ideas were questioned. That's acceptable forum TOS. You choose to take it as a personal attack and started the passive aggressive attacks. Stop it.

Hey waterbug guy, What do you fancy yourself the forum Hall Monitor around here?... Cicadidae,
takes a swipe at me by saying she lost some respect for me,
cause I stated that her pond builders did her an injustice by building her a huge pond
that would be at the least, extremely hard to maintain for
a single older woman, and you think my response was passive aggressive? "I've been a member of this forum
since 2002, and now I have to stay away from cicadidae
threads, as she has lost respect for me. Oh well..."

I don't think that twelve years gives me any rank, my point
being that I've had many valid and helpful discussions on pond keeping solely based on tried and true pond practices and never had any arguements whilst doing so.
I don't see why you're sticking your nose in, ready to start a problem.

# Passive Aggressive This!...Why don't you try and focus on trickle towers, and leave the handbag scuffles to the ladies!?!

This post was edited by cliff_and_joann on Thu, Jul 3, 14 at 22:03