Today, we're gonna talk about pond rebuilds,
concrete versus liner ponds, and what's my favorite kind of Koi.
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My first question comes from Nathan Brunk,
from practicalgardenponds.com.
And he sent in a video question, so let's have a hear.
Let's have a listen.
>> Hey, hi Eric,
I'm Nate of Practical Garden Ponds in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.
As you know, we're a Helix authorized contractor and retailer,
and we're a father-son operation.
So I've got two questions for the Pond Digger today.
My first question comes from my son, Tim, and that question is why
in the world did you make the Helix t-shirt black?
We're pond diggers for pity's sake, we work in the sun,
these guys won't wear them.
I gave them to my employees.
Truth is, I love your black t-shirt, makes me look thinner.
[LAUGH] So I'm cool with the black, but my serious question for
you today, Eric, at a recent pond seminar that you and I attended.
We heard someone say that after about ten years every pond needs to
be rebuilt.
I'd like your take on that.
I'm sorta thinking that we use some very good equipment and
I'm expecting my ponds to last a lot more than ten years, but
I hadn't been in business that long.
You've been in business a long time, so I'd love to hear your take on how
long a good pond should be able to last before needing to be rebuilt.
And I can't wait to be with you again.
Your hospitality is super.
Looking forward to seeing you.
>> Well thanks, Nate.
Those are some fun questions.
First of all, let me answer Tim's question.
The black Helix shirts, they're not really made to work in.
You're supposed to wear them out and go to the shopping and
push the brand around that was really the thought behind it.
But I have worked in it and it is a hot shirt to work in,
in the black, especially out here in the desert.
But we are thinking about doing some other shirts I might do a blue,
maybe you wanna work in that one.
But once again I didn't make them to work in, but
feel free to do so, Tim.
The question about the seminar, I do remember that question,
every pond needs to be rebuilt after ten years.
I don't know, I didn't completely take it that way, I wanna say.
This is a really interesting question.
Because I have rebuilt a lot of ponds in that seven to ten year
range.
But not because they had to had to be rebuilt.
Often times, the client wants to expand.
They got into it so much.
About 35% of our construction is rebuild and
some of that's due to poor quality craftmanship and what have you.
Maybe the pond fails, but a lot of those are from people who want
to upgrade or make the waterfall bigger or make the pond deeper.
They want bigger fish.
Sometimes we're remodeling ponds.
Like maybe the homeowner moves and
then we rebuild them a different pond.
But that pond that stays behind, either the person falls in love with
it and they continue on with it, or sometimes they might take it out.
I hate when that happens.
But, I just went and visited a pond in Orange County.
The pond was built in the 70s.
It was a concrete pond and it was starting to show signs of failure.
I mean that's a pretty old pond.
I have ponds that are about 20 years old now and
they're still running really nice.
I've seen 40 year old ponds still running very nice with
different technology than we're using today.
But if they're done well,
you don't have to just rebuild them every 10 years.
So, but I don't know if I took it that way, but
I can see how it was interpreted like that by some people.
So I would like to think that the equipment that we're using is still
going to be good for many, many years.
So I hope that answers your question.
I want to say no, you don't have to rebuild them every ten years.
As I said, the one in my front yard is about I think 17 or
18 years old by now, and it's still running, amazingly, and I love it.
So I don't have any intention of taking that thing out anytime soon.
Let's move on to the next question.
I have a question from Justin on YouTube.
And he wants to know the difference between concrete ponds and
liner ponds.
And this ties to exactly what you just talked about.
Not exactly, but the pond that I saw that was done in the 70s,
it was all done with concrete construction and it had some really,
I would say, lower quality rubber or
plastic below the concrete, than we use today.
And so since the concrete started to fail, we are in
earthquake territory, so if the concrete has some cracks in it.
And so now you have to tear out all the concrete.
It's quite a bit of work to do that.
So back to Justin's question on concrete ponds versus liner ponds.
I gotta be honest most of the construction we do
is liner style ponds.
The cost to do a liner pond is quite a bit less money than to do
a concrete style pond.
When you do a concrete pond you still need to do some waterproofing.
So the concrete's providing that structure, if you will.
Then you waterproof on top of that.
The liners providing the waterproofing immediately and
then depending on the structure of how you
excavate the pond will give you the structure for the liner pond.
And if you use stonework on the inside.
So its an interesting twist, as far as concrete ponds,
when we do concrete style ponds,
I'm usually subbing out the concrete work to a pool company.
And they'll spray with shotcrete and put in rebar.
I wanna see a concrete pond done like a swimming pool.
Thick walls, lot of concrete.
So it's gonna last a long, long time.
Different than the pond that I saw in the 70s, that I talked about.
They just put down the liner and they put a little bit of chicken
wire or something, and then they spread the concrete,
just a thin layer of like maybe three or four inches of concrete.
And they roughed up the edges,
maybe stuck some boulders in there to give it a natural look.
But I would prefer, if I was going to do a concrete pond today,
I would want it done in a shotcrete.
And then I would waterproof it with a polyurea spray on
style liner on top of that,
and then you can have a pond that's gonna last a long, long time.
I mean, being in California, we have a lot of swimming pools, and
they can withstand the earth
moving from earthquakes because they were engineered that way.
So if you're gonna go to the level of a concrete pond,
you gotta raise the bar and go really up there.
And the polyurea liner,
the waterproofing that you put on a concrete,
it's quite expensive compared to a liner style pond, so we do them.
It's just cost prohibitive for a lot of the people.
On a simple, I don't wanna say simple pond, but
on a smaller pond, you're looking at probably an additional $10,000 just
to do the shotcrete, on top of everything else.
So if you were gonna do a $25,000 or $30,000 Koi pond,
you gotta add probably another $10,000 just
as a base price to get into good concrete construction.
That's just some food for thought at that.
So it is a good question, and I hope that answered it, okay.
But we're going to talk to Jess Mackey.
He wants to know what my favorite Koi variety is.
This is a fun question for me and
I chose it because, as you know if you've been watching our show,
I've been a fish guy for pretty much as long as I can remember.
And I remember as I got into Koi, it was a real life-changer for
me to see this huge, beautiful Koi come up and swim at you.
And so when you first get into Koi.
You're just like oh, I like this one and I like that one and
I like this one and
if you're really crazy pondaholic, you like all of them.
And you start to pick colors and then you start to learn their names.
And when I first, early on when I got into Koi, I liked the Showa,
the tricolor, the black fish with the white and red.
And I thought it was really interesting when I started to
learn about Koi, the black changes and their color changes.
And you can expect for a change of color over the years
as you're raising them and developing them.
And I thought that was really interesting to me and
as I matured and got more into Koi,
the Shiro Utsuri quickly became my favorite Koi.
And that is the answer to your question,
what's my favorite Koi is the Shiro Utsuri.
Because they have a really evolving color pattern, so
you might get a white ugly Tosai, a little one year-old, and two or
three years later, you see it developing, and
maybe the fourth year it gets ugly again.
And, you're thinking, I don't really like this Koi anymore.
I wanna trade it out for something more spectacular.
But, in that fifth year, they start to finish out, and the color
comes back through, so it's really an amazing transformation.
And it helps me give an understanding of patience,
which I don't have a lot of, but it helps me to appreciate patience.
You've really got to wait that through and
see the Koi as it matures.
So that was a fun question for me.
Thanks for asking, Jess.
My question of the day for all you Koi people, and
pond fans, I want to know what your favorite Koi variety is.
Go ahead and put it down in the comments down here.
And you know how to get me to answer your questions,
#asktheponddigger on all the social media platforms.
And I'll talk to you again real soon.
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