Pablo and Kathy"s Pond and Koi Web Site

Let's start with some background. Pablo has been involved in the tropical fish hobby since childhood, both as a hobbyist and a wholesaler. We have been in the Koi and pond hobby for the last five years and members of the Oklahoma Koi Society since the 1998 Show.

We began our pond experience with a 225 gallon preformed pond. Soon we realized that was not enough(and we only had goldfish in it) and we decided to add a smaller preformed pond cascading into the first one.

. By this time I had gone on vacation to Puerto Rico and while visiting my brother's tropical fish wholesale business "Fins and Feathers" (which we had started in 1977) I found out that he had two tanks of Japanese import Koi 3 to 5 inches long. Needless to say I instantly became captivated by some Shusui that he had. I had never seen a fish like that before. My speciality had been Malawi and Tanganyikan cichlids. We got five of them plus one doitsu showa and several fancy goldfish. When we returned home our pond looked a little bit crowded. Some time later it looked as if the fish had parasites on them for they kept flashing so we decided to treat for them. I overdosed and immediately killed three of the shusui, after a hurried 100 percent water change we managed to save the rest. Later into the summer of 1997 we decided that the pond was not big enough and without the benefit of experience or knowledge we started construction of what we thought would be the perfect pond. Our backyard sloped some so we built the pond above ground on three sides using dry stack rectangular stones with flagstones as coping. SIX TONS of it and each individual rock has been handled by Pablo at least six different times, from the initial hand pickup at the yard to several placements in the pond and subsequent pond. As it turned out it was 25 feet at its longest side and 21 feet at its widest in a free form shape with an average depth of 28 inches. It had a Big Boy filter with a 20 watt UV going into a waterfall powered by a Silent Giant pump rated at 1200gph. NO BOTTOM DRAIN. Next spring we drained the pond and scrubbed the liner to a shiny gloss (took all our bacteria with it). We added some de-chlor and some dry bacteria? (oxymoron?) and stuck all our fish back into the pond. We were extremely lucky that at that time we had a cold spell that lasted about three weeks and then a very gradual warm up that let our punny little filter cycle and not let our fish die from massive ammonia poisoning. All of the above actions were counseled by someone who should have known better. We had a beautiful pond that year, lots of blooms on the lilys and the lotus and lots of growth on the rest of the plantings. Next winter we didn't do anything significant( cleaning, that is) and as a result with all the mulm accumulated in the bottom of the pond the aeromonas etc.,went wild. We had six (the six largest) fish with huge gaping ulcers and one of them was loosing its mouth. Enter the needle. Gary Cryer of Koi of Oklahoma lent me some medicine and we managed to save all of them. By this time we had devoured every book on koi and pond building that we could get our hands on and also had joined the Oklahoma Koi Society's central chapter. Best move we ever made. Knowing what we did wrong with our second pond we decided to right all the wrongs and build a new pond, so in Sept of 1999 after the Third Annual Koi Show we borrowed eight show tanks from the club, set them up in our patio, set the fish in the show tanks and drained and filled our pond. This time we wanted the pond close to the house with bottom drains and about five feet deep. "No problemo" says I, "three weeks at the most". By the way, by this time we had some 28 koi with several over 20 inches long. The poor fish had to stay in the show tanks from late Sept 1999 to mid April 2000 which was how long it took me to finish my three week project.The hairs on my head gained a lot of gray worrying whether it would freeze hard and bust a pipe on my filter set up.I guess we were lucky, it did get cold, down to about 15DF but nothing broke.

The shape we decided on for our new pond is like a straight sided heart, with one lobe beign 16 ft long and the other 14 ft. The pond capacity is 5500 US gallons, 5 ft deep with a plant shelve on the SE corner. It is 5 ft deep and has three Tetra 3" bottom drains feeding into a 100 gal upflow basin filled with biofill and water Hyacinths in season. From there the water goes to a Fluid Art filter with an Aqua UV and to a 24" sand filter filled with gravel and biofill.All of this is powered by a 3000/6000 gph and a 2000gph pump. The water returns to the pond via a small waterfall leading to two small ponds (puddles?)heavily planted in season and a short lenght streambed. All of this adds another 600 gals of water to the system. This spring we also discovered Lymnozyme and Keaton Industries nitrifier. By virtue of all the fish being in the show tanks in clean water over the winter and the Lymnozyme treatments after they were placed in the pond and the water started warming up we escaped this year without a single ulcer and our filter cycled in five days. We now are the proud owners of a 6000 gal pond with 34 very healthy koi in it.

We are dealers for Lymnozyme and all Keeton Industries products. We can also help you on the purchase of just about anything for your pond needs. You can contact us at [email protected]

Last Updated January 20,2001.