Pond Building 101 - Construction

Introduction
Before
Digging
Gunnite
Curing
Rocks
Landscape
Plaster
Deck
Testing
Filter
Fish!
Visitors

Construction - Fish!

It's March--seven months after starting the project. The water ph has stabilized, but is still very high (over 8.2). Doug said new concrete ponds usually have high ph for the first couple of years and the fish will adapt. So we started by putting three feeder goldfish in the pond. When they were still alive after 2 weeks, we added little baby koi.

No, it's not a blurry fish photo (top left), it's the dreaded algae bloom, green water, pea soup--all mean the same--you can't see the fish when they go down 12 inches!

Presto, 48 hours after turning on the UV filter, crystal clear water! So far we've only had to run it twice, although Doug says we will proabably need it every time we entertain a pondside! He says it never fails, if someone comes over to see your pond, the water turns to pea soup.

It's good to have the UV, but we were cautioned not use run it constantly--disguises water quality problems.

We were running the UV every year for a few weeks in late March while the wisteria blossoms that overhang the pond drop in the water. We thought it was the additional organic matter introduced by the plants. This last year we realized that by holding off feeding the fish till after the wisteria finished blooming, we had no algae bloom at all.

Home, Sweet Home!

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