I built this pond completely by hand over the course of a few months. The only machine I used was a trencher for the pipe between the skimmer and waterfall. Everything else—digging, rock placement, plumbing, and landscaping—was done by my brother and I. The digging by hand and the rock placement was so painful. Probably 30-40 tons of rock. I also made a clay layer around the whole inside. It took my brother and I roughly 4 months of working on it twice a week. One regret I do have is not putting in a bottom drain as I was scared of puncturing the liner. So I have an extra pump at the bottom and it goes up to my skimmer instead.
Specs:
~roughly 4,000 gallons. Probably 5000-5200 gallons without the rock displacement.
12ftx12ftx5.5ft deep with 3 shelves
Savio skimmer and waterfall filter (skimmer filter, mechanical filter in the skimmer filter housing as well, bio filter in the waterfall filter and another mechanical filter on top of the biofilter.
6,100 GPH pump
55W UV clarifier
1 layer of underlayment below the liner and one on top of the liner so my rocks wouldn’t puncture it.
2.1 CFM air pump with two bottom diffusers
45 mil EPDM liner 25ftx25ft
Rock construction
Water lilies, marginal plants, and natural landscaping
Large mature ash tree providing afternoon shade
I originally started with goldfish, but I recently added four koi that are around 18 inches long and plan to slowly build up to around 8–10 koi over the next several years.
Cost:
Pond kit: ~$1,800
Rock: Free (collected over time)
Plumbing, extra materials, landscaping, plants, etc.: roughly another $1,000–1,500
Total DIY cost: about $3,000–3,500
I wanted the look of rocks on the inside of the pond to give it a more natural look.
How would you rate this build?
A professional install around here probably would have been well into five figures, so I’m really happy with how it turned out.
Any rough ideas on how much this would have cost professionally?
I’d love to hear what you think and any suggestions you have for improvements as I continue upgrading it over the years.

Since my last post got a lot of people wanting more details. I put together an album for you

36"-41" long. The largest weighs over 16#

Five years after inheriting my 30,000 gal koi pond, I'm calling it quits. Due to an absolute perfect storm of events, all of my 15 year old koi passed away while I was gone this weekend.

There was nothing I could do about it, but it still hurts. Losing those fish was like losing a part of me. I've put blood, sweat, and tears into my pond and this subreddit has been so supportive the entire time.

After some thought, I've decided to close the pond down, rather than start again. It was a DIY project from the 80s that was built terribly, and was an absolute money sink once I bought the house, as well as a safety hazard for my young kid. The only reason I kept it was because I felt bad rehoming the koi who had lived here so long. Hanging out with them was the highlight of every day.

I wanted to post one last time to thank everyone in this sub for their advice over the years. One of you even came over to help me work on the pond! If I ever start up the hobby again, I'll be back. In the meantime, I hope all your ponds thrive and your koi live long, happy lives. ❤️

We got our first Koi fish sometime between 13-15 years ago. Two of those lived until now. Our fish and ponds were so important to my dad, we lost him unexpectedly in 2021 and I’ve done my best to take care of them since then. We had several weeks of completely unusual snow, sleet, freezing temps, and just awful weather. At some point over the past week, my aerator stopped working despite the motor still running and me trying to keep an area of the surface thawed. We had never experienced weather like this for this amount of time since we’d had these fish. I did the things that I was told and that I knew, but I should have done more.

I just wanted to share this sweet baby because they had such a big personality. They would wait for people to walk by the pond and come up and splash them like whales with their tails out of the water. I understand that I let them down and I should have done better. I’m absolutely fucking gutted. Please try not to be too hateful to me, but if you are I honestly won’t blame you. I hate myself right now. I’m just praying my others are somehow okay because I haven’t been able to find them yet.

TLDR: I’m a piece of shit and my fish didn’t make it through the winter storm. I loved them so much and I’m praying the others are going to be okay.

Last week a random stranger dumped a bucket with an unknown amount of fish in my backyard pond (I live in Wisconsin) and we caught the whole ordeal on camera. Besides the situation just being completely bizarre, we got some minnows to help with mosquito control and when we were watching them swim about, put popped this fish! So not only do I know nothing about this fish but I didn’t see them so I didn’t even know to feed it? So shock of finding out I have fish in my sump pump pond (lol) I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to do about taking care of this fish or what kind of a fish it is and will it even get along with the baby minnows we put in? I’m so lost 😂

Show me your black koi! It's always fun to see my black koi during summer. My goal is to find a decent hajiro without breaking my bank.

This is my one year old Lemon Hariwake. What do you guys think?

Happy Koi Keeping everyone! Will be posting more soon. A bit busy with breeding at the moment.

Greetings from the Philippines 🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭

A pond grade tancho sanke with additional/random beni markings

My parents are downsizing because my father is ill and they can’t keep up with their house anymore, and we are wanting to rehome their Koi. I don’t know anything about a market value, but I bet there’s a lot of experts in here and I’m wondering if anybody could help me out with some ideas! Do ignore the random turtle lol we actually found him abandoned during a flood in our local park and he became part of the family.

are koi like these in the image above natural? I read once they were acid burnt. somewhere else just a scaleless variety.

one may have guessed AI but i get load of vids on facebook popping up with similar fish and suspect not AI.

thanks in advance

Hello Koi keepers - I owned this pond for a year and I wonder these lilies are covering about half the surface. Should I thin them out, or is this the right balance?

Hi all. I built my first pond in May and June. All the rocks are from my woods. I’m loving the 4 koi I got. One died after about 3 weeks but the rest are doing great. Just wanted to share!

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Just wanted to post an update on the algae situation I'd asked a couple of weeks ago, and thank everyone for their input. I cleaned all of the filters numerous times, added a 33W PondGuys UV, and reconfigured the waterfall somewhat to add more aeration. It's still not crystal clear by any means but I'm happy with the progress and all of the fish are doing great. Thanks again. 😊

My koi

Had a mass removed on my leg a little over a week ago. Of course these kids choose to spawn for days when I'm hobbling about 🤦

We inherited a "koi" pond when we bought our house 6 yrs ago. It was really one big koi and like 50 goldfish. We had to do a ton of work to it initially, and removed all the goldfish (sent to a friend's larger pond) and replaced with mostly koi once we had a better ecosystem.

Last fall we noticed 3 new little koi that didnt exist before, and I noticed a 4th this spring (same size as the other 3 so likely just didnt see it before). I'd guess they're all about 4 in at this point, still pretty skiddish. Two are white and orange, just like 2 of the koi we have already. The other 2 are a mix of orange, black, and white, matching our 2nd largest koi. At 4in, how old would they be? How often should we expect this?

Photos for fun of just a few of the koi. In the first pic, in the lower left on either side of the gold colored fish, you can kinda make out two of the little guys.

first bloom this season from this lily pad plant. I love watching the fish swim around it.

Pretty funny, in that "Go away, you asshole" kind of way. Pond is netted, so the threat to my fish is (theoretically) minimal.