My FIRST dedication now goes to Sue, my late wife, who just survived to see the first 2 koi going to their new home.

This "story line" is dedicated to Peter Hoyle - you pain in the bottom drain - missing you mate.
As I had a disagreement, well, a koi forum didn’t like my humour, so it wasn’t really a disagreement, more a parting of ways, I thought that it would be nice to share my pond build with a viewer who wants to share my daft sense of humour. Please feel free to make comments below, and I will answer or if you are being cruel to me, I am now in charge of the delete key – I love it when a plan comes together. For those confused, Quicksilver is my forum name.
Once I have emptied my pond, I have suggested that Sue get in it and start digging, so camera at the ready. You will notice that comments work upside down as it were, so our Australian friends will feel right at home. I can’t do smilies, so you will just have to smile at all my silliness for me. I just had to put the GW shark story what Yoda wrote in my comments box below. I think that clearly demonstrates my daft sense of humor for our American friends, and humour for our French friends.
So far there are no rules to posting comments, but I will make them up as I go along.

I have put a few older pix up as well, from last autumn, and when I initially dug pond. The bottom image, of the pic of pix, was when I first dug pond back in 1995, it was just a waterfall going to pond. I went to Ireland in 1997ish, and all the streams made me want one, so that is where the stream idea came from.

I took the last of my koi to mum’s today, so I will start to empty the ponds on Good Friday. Then I can do a bit more digging. My pond builder, Lee, hopefully will start on 12th ish of April on the main work.

Comments can be made below here, or to individual images by clicking on them, as you see fit, if you wish, and I will either answer you with my own comments, or up here.

I made one small mistake, I cut the plug off my pump wire, it was unplugged, I did not have a Clouseau moment, but that easily rewired – just plain daft! I managed to pull out the 1.5 inch pipe work from pump to top wildlife pond, that is now near my drain, ready to drain pond tomorrow, Good Friday.

Good Friday, piddling it down and even worse the drains are blocked, not my fault nor my neighbours’ fault, it appears to be a blockage further down the line, so can’t drain pond until that unblocked – bugger.
I did my back in bending down in my neighbour’s garden to try to sort his drain out, I was unsuccessful.

The neighbour’s got the drain unblocked, I was the able to empty my pond, I used the pump, it took about an hour or less to empty, I used the pipe that fed the feeder pond to empty the water direct from pump to sewage drain, so I well and truly flushed the drain. I then had to get the liner out, but it was a Firestone 16 foot by 14 foot liner, and it had quite a lot of water still in it at the bottom, it was an hour’s nightmare of work to get it out, and my back hurt like the devil in doing so, it was knackeringly filthy work. But I got there in the end. It hurts to stand up now, so I hope my back gets better VERY soon. I will leave the header pool for the time being, as the frogs need a home. So I will do that nearer to Lee starting work.

For our photo friends on here, I have done nothing to these images except develop them in Lightroom.

I managed to get out a bit today, but didn’t push it. I dug up the couple of plants by path / edge of old pond (Old pond, liner gone – image) and put them at top of garden, the bulb things, I green binned! I then dug a little soil from my greenhouse, out of shot, so when I get around to emptying the header / wildlife pond the frogs will have a sort of home. That’s it, not a lot, but the fish and frogs are gonna like it! Back on the mend, not such an old man on getting out of a chair. It was nice and sunny here.

5.4.10 – In the evening I cut down that evergreen tree. I must admit to feeling a bit sad with all this destruction of cutting down of trees and digging up plants and removing old ponds. The pond and stream may have been rubbish and the tree may have been in the wrong place but they were my wrongly placed rubbish for nearly 15 years. This morning I also replanted, temporarily, the astilbe and two ferns that were both near the stream. I will definitely keep the astilbe and replant near pond when redone, but ferns… See on that. I also moved the two potentilia’s that were near path, decide where to put those after rebuild. All this was easy gentle work for my back, which is getting better. I also removed the stream, simply pulled it up, and made more frogs homeless, but they do have the wildlife pond for the moment. I cut the liner and placed that in the greenhouse, ready for the wildlife from the wildlife pond when that is removed. The new set up will be based on my old set up. So I will get my stream back, also my waterfall, both with header pools which will be dedicated veggie filters, but the new design will be a much better look and less Heath Robinson. I will have a small wildlife pond made separately to the main set up for all my frogs.

6.4.10 – I did a small bit of digging today, but not much. Sue offered to lend a hand with the spade, see the images, and I think Bess was looking for a bone or treasure. There is a possibility that Lee starts on Monday, but I have to take Sue to the hospital to see the consultant. So not sure if or how that will affect Lee. I want to get the pond heated, and have asked a local heating company to quote me, they have told me they will quote and that they can do it… but as yet, no news. I might have to chase them up, or ask Lee to do a bit of chasing…

There is one thing that is absolutely horrible about the moment, and that is the silence. For the past fifteen years there has been a constant never ending trickle of water from two pumps in our back garden from my waterfall and my stream. But I will get both features back, so I won’t be left with a silence when I open my back door.

7.4.10 – Forgot to say, for those that wish to make a comment, you can do so as a guest, you don’t have to pay for pbase to make comments – but you can pay me compliments if you wish. Please leave your name, so I have an idea who you are if you are from any of the koi forums.
I dug more of the sides out of the new pond, no pix yet. Getting a big pile of soil on the other side of the garden, ought to take a pic of that… oh the silence, horrid.

9.4.10 – Did a bit more digging this morning, but felt a little ache in lower back, so stopped. I have (sadly) cut down my pear tree, it was over 15 years old, so probably would not have moved well, there was a lack of space to move it and we seldom ate the pears… I have also moved a few bulbs and other plants to the top of the garden, which is now a rescue centre for plants and bushes. I will do the wildlife pond fully tomorrow. I have drained some water with pump from wildlife pond to greenhouse pool, but the water level has dropped quite considerably in greenhouse, so I guess that is evaporation, more than a leak, I used the same liner as in my main pond, so can’t see that developing a leak…

13.4.10 – Is it really that long since I last jotted a note! The leak was not a leak it was a siphoning effect of the pipe being in the greenhouse pond and the pump being lower, turn pump off, water backtracked – simples.
Lee started yesterday and as my images show he is already making good progess, but that little work was too much for the chap and he took today off. But he will be back with avengeance tomorrow, hopefully with a skip soon to clear more soil, he has another 2 feet to go down.

14.4.10 - My Nexus filter arrived today, it is quite big and would not fit through my back gate or over my fence, as my greenhouse is in the way. So I asked my neighbour the other day if they could bring it via his back gate, and lift a fence panel between our gardens to pop the filter through, that was ok with him. I think they felt it was easier and safer to remove one of his fence panels by his gate, rather than lift it over his gate, and carry the filter through, no chance of damaging anything by dropping the filter on fence. They then carried the filter under the panel that was lifted between our gardens and placed it in my conservatory. Unfortunately, my neighbour came out and complained that they had removed the panel by the gate without permission, that the panel between gardens was getting damaged by the wind, when there was not a puff of air, I could only apologise, but try and thank him for allowing his garden to be used and ask him to inspect that no damage was done as he gave me a look that would wake the dead and slam his back door on us. I was not a happy camper, and it put a damper, for me, on proceedings. They put both fence panels back as they were and as far as I am aware no damage was done.

In the evening I checked off all the ball valves and bends and pipe work that was delivered and all seems to be correct and in order. Let me tell you, a 4 inch ball valve is one monster piece of kit. But I was warned off the slide valves, so it was balls all the way.

16.4.10 – Lee made good progress today with the digging, I guess it will be mostly dug and ready for cementing the bottom on Monday. The heating chap is out on Monday to look it over and give his verdict. I will be with Sue at the hospital on Monday, so will miss most of the fun, but it will save me annoying Lee. I think also on Monday Lee will be arranging the positioning of the filter and where the bottom drain goes and the pipe work to said filter. He said that he will work out the position for the filter, I have drawn him a diagram, he asked me to, as I can see only one way for it – annoyingly it means digging a longer channel for the pipe work – better get my pick axe out! He will realise there is no option. He is doing a terrific job, I am really proud of his professionalism. That’s my creeping over.

Today I sorted my mums’ pond out a bit more and fitted a Kockney Koi filter box for her. It is a four bay filter box. It came with brushes in bay one, Japanese matting in bay two, but we have to call it Oriental Matting, as mum is not a fan of the Japanese for what they did during the war and that they potentially eat shark fin soup, not good for a shark fan, so bay two is Oriental matting from now on. Bay three had flocor and wadding in it, I left that alone, other than changing the new flocor for old flocor from her old filter, it would be alive with friendly bacteria. Bay 4 was more flocor, I took half of it out and cut up more Oriental matting and placed that in as cartridges with gaps between the two layers.
I then stripped out her TopFlow filter box, put more O matting at the bottom allowing a gap under it, then placed the alfa grog on that, years ago I took the flocor out and put alfa grog in, then the three sponges on that – wow, she has quite a set up now. OK, pump fed, and basic, but darn good all the same, for filtration. I will get a few pix up soon. It is relevant to my line of story telling as I am in charge of said story and I gave mum many of my fish to keep, and two koi for koi sitting.
I must admit, I look at all that filter media and O matting and think, wow how does 100 litres of K1 even match that basic set up – but it had better do so!! I will be upping the K1 by 50L!! Hope that modern technology works as well as Heath Robinson and his O matting. As an aside, O matting is darn difficult to cut when wet, but I managed it. I hacked through it wet or dry with my little hack saw. I was right chuffed.
Sue and I are working on the pond build together, we are making the teas, so I feel that is helping to take Sue’s mind off this a little, but not a lot. She has thought of a few names to call the koi.

20.4.10 – Lee finished the hole, the heating is arranged and a deposit paid, the cement for the bottom is due tomorrow, I think. The channel for the pipe from bottom drain to filter box is dug.

21.4.10 – Lee fitted bottom drain, at my request he put a poppy next to it in the cement, it seemed appropriate for a couple of reasons. The pipe work and concrete base was laid.

23.4.10 – As the latest images show, Lee has taken the little brick things up to the path level, there is another 4 layers of bricks to go for the final height or depth, which I am assured will be 6 ft 6 in the middle and 6 ft at the sides. So that is a fair sized pond with a fair amount of water for a few fair koi to swim around in.

27.4.10 – The wall of the pond at the back was brought up to height yesterday, and the foundation to a retaining small wall was laid yesterday to greenhouse. We decided to change the design of the garden slightly due to space and looking more aesthetically pleasing from my original two header pools of 1ms each with their own stream and waterfall, and a wildlife pond to one slightly bigger header pool, hopefully about 2ms with a waterfall from it to a stream and a wildlife pond separate by the silver birch. I put a design up that Lee drew out.
Lee dug up and I then replanted the gorse that was in the corner near my old header / wildlife pond, it is now upright rather than leaning and staked with lots of compost and bone meal at the top of the garden where it will stay.

28.4.10 – The under floor heating was professionally installed today with Lee and myself over viewing the process. This is ready to be hooked up to a boiler in the autumn, I say “a” boiler, as we don’t have one yet that works. Lee will put the scree in tomorrow.

29.4.10 - My neighbour had another moan, this time about the skip out the front of the house, the front of OUR house with its licence all paid up. As if he didn't have anything better to moan about!
I was tempted to tell him that I was just back from the hospital with the news that my wife's cancer is back in the hip and in the lung, but thought he wasn’t worth it - let him be miserable - we are not going to be.
The screed is on the bottom of pond and half the filter bay concreted on its bottom. Ball valve in place from bottom drain purge to main drain.
Lee will be back on Tuesday.

16.5.10 – Last week Lee rendered the sides and they have been curing but the rain didn’t help the drying process so Lee covered the pond late last week as he is hoping to fibreglass it tomorrow, but with this weather at the moment, not sure that will happen, but fingers crossed. I have been moving the cover back and forwards, to let air and sun in, but it is mostly dull and raining so covers on.

11.6.10 – Fibreglass in and curing. So we just got to be patient for that. Lee built me a little wildlife pond for the frogs, well Peter Hoyle told me to separate wildlife pond from koi pond, so frogs have their own pond now, a little 3 ft by 2ft or more jobby. Lee did a cracking job on it, but I wanted to put in 2 plants on the side and there wasn't room, Lee had done the correct thing and cut liner to the exact size he wanted, but this restricted my moving his stones to allow me to get two plants in, so I bit the bullet and I got a new liner, ripped out what Lee did, sounds more severe than it was, did not make it any bigger, put my new liner and put his stones back, mind you they were great big massive stones, nearly killed me, but think they pretty much where Lee had them. I got my 2 pots in, and made it deeper, not down, but up, trouble is I think Lee will want to see how I plan to keep the liner in place so close to a rose bush and hide the liner, I sort of have a plan, like Baldric, but not sure. I will try to get a pic up of it soon. Some of the stones Lee put in were above water, now they below water, as I have height of liner to play with now, I will ask Lee not to cut it just yet - I just watched The Last Samurai and I think Lee will want to impale me on a sword when he sees the liner sticking up, but hey that's fine, I am honourable, its my pond, I am sure there is a way - pebbles or something, or more stones on pond side and pebbles backside, perhaps.
I will be leaving Lee alone much of this week as quite busy with Sue, so he will have peace and quiet from me when he does my veggie filter and water fall / stream, he is really good and I don't think he likes me interfering too much, he is very patient, but I just had to put those pots in wildlife pond. One was an American blue flag iris, less invasive than the yellow verity. Also the extra depth by me rising water level means I can put a water lily in wildlife pond as well, a nice pink one by pink rose.
Veggie filter won’t be nor need to be as deep as it is simply that, a veggie filter, it will be about 12 inches deep, plenty for a vigorous yellow flag iris. I will need to keep it in trim, doing so will encourage growth, and so be more efficient at gobbling up those pesky nitrates.

I have had a wild idea, wild the word, and will put it to Lee sometime when he in a very good mood. Let me tell my one reader out there what it is! My wildlife pond, the one I sort of changed a bit, if it overflows it will overflow onto my rose bush or my silver birch right next to it, probably not a great idea, so a plan is called for. Here it is, drill through wall of greenhouse at water level of wildlife pond, ie depth of about 17”, run a 2” pipe through hole, maybe with a bend or two, preferably no bends then if it gets clogged, I can ram it clean with my rod, along by entrance to greenhouse and join up both ends to the liners with those liner connectors. Two big benefits, 1, the frogs have a tunnel to play in and get from one pond to another, just don’t use it as a place to RIP, and 2, it acts as an overflow, from rain or me topping up, from wildlife pond to pool in greenhouse, keeping that fresh. Cool idea or what. I will ask Lee for a specific price for doing it. Or a reason not to do it. I will have to try to tidy the greenhouse pond up a bit so he has a proper job to work on!!
Thought more about it and 2” pipe seems far too thick, for that run off, but an inch or half an inch would be perfect, wonder how easy it would be for me to do. Probably best get the professional to guide me!

Ok, the expert, Lee told me it was a daft idea! So I have put two small drain off areas in the corners and will plants water loving plants to act as drain off areas.

Lee cleared the garden and built up the header pool area today and built the walls for the filter house. All going really smoothly.

1.7.10 – The pond, header pool with waterfall and stream are taking shape nicely now. One day I will edit a few of these images down. Just going a bit mad at the moment. But hope you like it. I am very proud of it.

15.7.10 – Lee is a bit tied up this week, and we were in Cambridge as well, and it is hissing it down with rain this week, so rendering is not really an option on the outside of the pond. When in Cambs I bought a few rockery plants, once Lee has finished I can get to work on planting them up. I am looking to get hold of an Acer as well. I will read up on plants for rockeries and just buy a few plants now and again, said he leaving Cambs with 10 of the buggers. One of them remind me of me, prickly – a nice little Juniper.

22.7.10 – Pond up and running.

Koi Pond with Nexus = 17258L / 3796G.
Skimmer line and header pool = 828L / 182G.

Max volume of whole pond running = 18086L / 3978G.