One Pond is Never Enough!

by Sherry Kruszka, of Crivitz, Wisconsin
Aquarticles

My two main ponds. View from second floor of our house.

My first pond
In the spring of 2000 I built my first pond, the one on the left in the above photo. It holds 2000 gallons of water and measures 9 feet by 12 feet, and is three feet deep. I made my own bio-filter using a five gallon bucket.

I didn't use a commercial pond liner because of the cost - I couldn't afford it on my income. Instead, I first laid down lots of newspaper, then old carpet strips and old swimming pool liners, and over that I placed 6-mil. black plastic. Under the waterfall I used thicker plastic. Plastic won't last as long as rubber liners, but after two years I haven't had any trouble. Warning! -  if you have dogs and they like to play in water, they'll rip holes in the plastic if they enter the pond. But it is repairable with silicone and pond tape.

In this pond I kept comet goldfish, koi and guppies. Plants included water lilies, cabomba, water hyacinths, water lettuce, water ferns, parrot's feather, and duckweed. The marginal and bog plants were pickerel, arrowhead, astilbe, iris, and cattails. Not knowing what would grow above ground and on the sides of the waterfalls I planted hostas, day lilies, ferns, and anything else I had in my yard. Well, they all made it! - despite local winter temperatures which can drop to -30F or so with the wind chill in the winter months.

Here are some of my fish and plants in the first summer

My second pond
My husband liked this pond so much that he kept asking me " So when are you digging a bigger one?" Well, that one came last year, in 2001. It measures 21 feet by 21 feet and is four feet deep, and it holds over 6000 gallons. I intended to connect the two ponds with a little riverbed. This meant moving twenty yards of soil to bring them up to level, and for this we had to use a backhoe because of my bad back and heart. The second pond took us one month to dig, shape, line and fill.

We used 2 tons of stone for the waterfall, and 6 tons in all.

6000 gallon pond finished

A disaster
When the second pond was ready to be filled with water I decided that since I had a bigger pond I would get another koi. This I didn't buy from a pond dealer, but from a pet shop in a mall. I only had it in quarantine for a week, but it seemed to be doing great - eating well and no closed fins. So I placed it in my smaller pond with all my other fish. Big mistake! Within less than a week it died, and then my other koi started to die. I was just sick to my stomach with grief - I was losing my koi and didn't know what to do. I called everyone I could think of that raised koi within a 200-mile radius, and also searched the Internet for solutions. Meanwhile all my koi died, some of which were 13 or 14 inches long. None of the comets or fantails or even the guppies died - just all my koi.

After having me check the pH and everything else in the pond, everyone told me it could be a virus! One of our local police officers who raises koi suggested that I added salt to the pond, and the people at a local water garden store agreed. So that is what I did:  40 lbs in the 2000-gallon pond and 150 pounds in the 6000-gallon pond. At this point I decided  not to join the two ponds together, but instead left a small soil and rock divider between them, with a log "bridge" which gives the impression that they are joined anyway.  If anything goes wrong it is easier to treat two smaller ponds than it is to treat one really large pond.

This summer I placed four angelfish in the smaller pond. I couldn't believe how much they grew. Angelfish are tropical fish and like it warm, so they have to be brought indoors before Fall. I noticed that with angelfish in the pond I had no comet fry that made it. Good population control for goldfish!

I have only lost one koi since my first disaster, due to some very bad ulcers.

Koi with ulcers

The winter
In the winter I house many of my fish indoors, in 2- 10 gallon tanks, 6- 20 gallon tanks, 2- 21 gallon pots, 1- 55 gallon fish tank and a 200 gallon holding tank. This year only the koi, fantails and guppies are coming in. The weather changed too fast about two weeks ago (late September) and killed the angelfish. Last winter we left about 30 goldfish in the smaller pond and 80 in the big pond, with just an air stone and a stock tank heater. They all did great.

In the first year we placed metal pipes across the smaller pond and then laid fiberglass panels over it. The snow covering the fiberglass insulated it very well. The pond was open from as early as January 15th.  But this past winter we didn't cover the ponds at all because we had many birds coming to drink. It was beautiful to watch them come in and drink at the edges of the ice. We had about forty birds of many different species almost every day.

The boat pond
Our son graduated from school this year, and he wanted to know if I was going to build a pond for his party. Well, that's when we thought about the old 16 foot flat-bottomed boat sitting at the back of our property. It had three big axe holes in it about four inches long and almost an inch wide. My husband had brought it home about seventeen years ago and it had just sat around. My son said " Mom, let's do something with it for my graduation!"  So I said "Fine, we can pound out the holes and patch them up." 

The boat pond

I used silicone and pond tape, then placed plastic over the holes to make sure that fish would not get cut by the sharp edges of the repairs. I left the boat's wooden seats for the fish to hide under. We moved it to an open area and filled it with water. Once we knew it didn't leak I put soil and fieldstones at each end and planted it up with some plants from around the other ponds. It is not in any shade and has no water movement in it - just the plants to filter and shade it. When it rains the water floods in to the plants and keeps them wet. I found that marigolds and petunia do the best there. We added about ten goldfish and ten guppies.

It was the talk of the party! I told everyone that if I can get it to hold water, then I can get it to hold fish!

Plants
Other plants we have tried in the ponds this year are hostas and ajuga in floating pots.  I made the pots with a framework of Styrofoam strips covered with weed blocker fabric, and placed stones inside to weigh them down a bit before adding the soil and plants. They just float around in the ponds and the plants do great. We have also had great results with other plants such as impatiens, petunias, peace lilies and spider plants - potting them and setting them in the water or in the bog. In most zones where it freezes you  have to bring these types of plants in, or replace them the next year. We also have regular pond plants: iaro, iris, umbrella grass, Cyprus papyrus, cardinal flowers, pickerel, cattails, water celery, and bamboo.

Predators
As for predators, all I have ever lost was one of my larger goldfish to either a bald eagle or a red-tailed hawk. My mom has herons and raccoons that have injured some of her fish, but we have three boxers and a collie that keep most of the wild animals out of our yard! We did have 650 lb black bear come around this year, but the dogs' barking kept him out of my sheep pen and ponds. Our cat tried to go fishing once, but we wetted her down to teach her a lesson, so she just watches them now! 

I am out by my ponds all the time, sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. I love to sit and watch the fish. We would like to build one more pond - just have to find the right spot and time to do it.

I hope you have enjoyed the story of  my ponds. If I could make one out of my husband's junk cars I would!