Larry Angell is the author of Sweat Equity, building a house at half cost. He runs an instructional site that teaches people how to build houses that are strong financial tools and not financial burdens. Build your own house
We'll just start out by digging out the Koi pond. Most people like to have small waterfalls to keep the water circulating for the fish. If that's the case, you may want to stack some of the dirt taken from the Koi pond and make a sloping hill for the waterfall.
Once we have the hole dug out, we will need to put in a pond liner which is a plastic membrane made for this purpose. You can get pond liner kits online or at hardware stores.
Part of the pond construction will include a bacteria tank used to keep koi alive. Koi create a certain type of necessary bacteria which keeps the water conditioned for them. These tanks help that bacteria thrive.
Many landscapers will use the bacteria tank as a waterfall to run over rocks and down into the Koi pond. All ponds and waterfalls need a circulating pump. These come in many different sizes according to how high you need to pump the water and how fast you want the flow rate. The pump will need to be placed in the pond, but it needs to be off the bottom of the pond floor by an inch or two. This keeps the pump from sucking up sediment.
Rocks can be a beautiful part of any landscape pond. If you need to make a waterfall from rocks, you can use a rock adhesive/sealant to hold the rocks together. This also fills in holes really well. Natural rocks work the best, but if you're concerned about weight, you can get faux (artificial) rock.
Next, we can fill the pond to test it out for leaks. Once we know the pond holds water we can put all the extras in place to make it look nice. Plants and lilies are a great addition.
Plants can take awhile before they start to take hold and look healthy. We will need to wait for a few weeks before we put the Koi in. It's important to let the water circulate and build up some sediment.
Koi are such a tranquil feature to a landscaping project. They have become so popular recently. I think it's because the Koi are so tranquil when they're swimming around. They remind us to take life easy.
Larry Angell
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