Welcome.
I'm Eric Triplett, and today's episode of Ask the Pond Digger,
we're gonna talk about how to start up a new pond.
How big should your pond be.
And we're gonna talk about pond safety.
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Okay I pulled another question from SoCal Ponds off of YouTube.
And he says, he's a good friend of mine.
He's a pond guy too.
So this question is kind of rhetorical for him, but he says hey,
how long's it take to cycle a pond and
what can I add to the pond to help that cycle?
Now, I picked this question specifically,
even though I already picked one of his questions in one of
our further episodes down the line.
But because a Brandon Smith chimed in really quick, and
he said, it takes four to six weeks.
Now, Brandon Smith is absolutely right.
However, I picked this question because I have seen ponds take
months and months to cycle when you don't do the right thing.
I have customers come in.
We get them started up and
if you don't do the right stuff you can really throw your pond for
a loop and it takes a long long time to do it.
I have do it yourselfers that build their own pond and
then they're still cycling a long way down the line.
The pond is still green or
they are still losing fish or the ponds murky.
So, I want to talk about this.
Typically when I start up a brand new pond,
we would have a lot of aquatic plants in there, and
we would put beneficial bacteria in the pond every day for a couple of
weeks just to inoculate the system and kind of get it kickstarted.
We would put a light fish load in there.
And then we would offer the fish food maybe every other day.
And now that's predicated on the fact that it's in season,
not in winter.
But then you would feed the fish every other day.
And then after about four weeks you could add a few more fish and
continue on with the process.
And after about six weeks, then you could begin feeding them daily.
And then your pond is cycling and
maturing, because it takes about four to six weeks for
the nitrogen cycle to work itself out in the pond.
If you fail in doing some of those things correctly along the way,
you could extend that cycle for obscene lengths of time.
If you don't put the right amount of aquatic plants in there,
you're messing up right from the beginning.
If you're not putting that beneficial bacteria in the start up,
to kind of get that thing kick started and
inoculated, you're messing up.
If you put too many fish, if you feed too much,
if you overfeed, you could extend the cycle greatly.
So if you are still cycling and you're beyond six weeks,
you need to put on the breaks and you need to ask yourself what you
might be doing wrong in there, but it is a very, very good question.
And I'm glad SoCal Ponds brought it up and
that Brandon Smith answered so quickly.
So great stuff.
With that being said, if your building a dedicate Koi pond,
there wouldn't be aquatic plants per se in the pond.
So you have to be more cautious along the way because those
plants can help cycle that pond a lot faster.
But as I said in a dedicated Koi pond more often then not there's not
going to be any aquatic plants in there, so it might take a little bit
longer or you have to be more cautious along with way
with adding that beneficial bacteria and not overfeeding the pond.
Our next question's from Alan West, and he lives in southwest Virginia.
And hes really wants to know how big his pond should be.
He already has a fish population, and
he plans on rebuilding a new pond, a larger pond, this coming spring.
So let me start off by saying this.
I want you to build as big a pond as you can.
I want you to build it.
I want you to spend as much money as you can
that you can comfortably afford to build, and
if you can make it a little bit bigger that's even better.
About 35% of our pond construction is removing ponds and rebuilding.
Now, a good part of that is taking apart poorly built ponds,
like ponds gone wrong, and putting in new ponds.
But some of the ponds we take apart are ponds that I've built.
I don't like taking apart ponds that I've built, but when the customer
falls in love with it, and they didn't go big enough to begin with.
Sometimes that's the only option to tear it out and make it bigger, so
that's my best advice to you.
If you really wanna save money, you make it as big as possible.
But let me take a little spin on this because when
you start designing a pond you want a waterfall on there,
water feature to the side, typically there's like a 3,000, a 5,000
gallon per hour volume of water that looks good to most people.
That's a sweet spot where most people like it.
So if you're gonna have a 3,000 to 5,000 gallon circulation system,
then you should probably have a 3,000 to 5,000 gallon
filtration system, and in turn, a 3,000 to 5,000 gallon pond.
That's really a super sweet spot and I want you to think about that.
How can you get 3,000 to 5,000 gallons In a spot in your yard.
Somewhere in there is a good spot for a Koi pond.
It's a great spot for a water garden.
It's a great spot for an ecosystem pond.
It is really a nice number to be at.
So if you can achieve that total number of gallons on your property,
it puts you in a really good place.
And hopefully, you won't have to tear it out and make it bigger
next year because we have a lot of pondaholics that watch our show.
We're going to go to the next one and this is from deepatee and
hes on, I don't know his real name all I know its deepatee on YouTube
and he throws on a question.
I think it was a great question.
May be a boring question to some but
he wants to talk about safety features around the pond and
I think it's fantastic that we're talking about this.
First of all,
if we're gonna start building then we start with a hard hat okay.
Then once the pond's already done where I think
he wants me to address.
Here's some things to think about.
If you have an ecosystem pond there's usually levels or
terraces in the pond that you can walk out real easily if you should
fall into the pond.
If you're doing more of a Koi pond style pond construction,
you have deep vertical walls.
There should be a spot where you can easily get in and
out of the pond, either over by the skimmer where there's maybe
a 12 inch shelf where you can pull yourself out.
It's even better if you can install some stairs or
steps in the pond where you can walk out.
Often times when we do larger deep Koi ponds, we'll integrate
these giant stone steps, so that you can walk out of the pond.
I know, a lot of Koi experts don't like to have
obstacles like that in the pond for the Koi, they might bump into them,
but in the same regard you gotta be real careful and make sure it's safe
if someone falls in the pond they can easily climb out of the pond.
So one thing that you're going to want to consider about pond safety
is if you have a pond that is deeper than say 24, 36 inches then it's
really kind of falls in some of the categories of being a swimming pool.
In our state, and in a lot of states across the nation,
there’s a depth requirement for a swimming pool.
So if we’re going to go, say, three foot deep,
we need to pull out a swimming pool permit.
And that would include, what we would need to do is have fencing
around the pond with a self latching gate.
So that way, if you're in there working on your pond and
your hands are full, you let yourself out of the pond area, and
you don't come back.
That gate doesn't stand open and
then the neighbor kids can come in and then get hurt in there.
So you want the self latching gate and that way, it closes behind you,
and then you have to have a way for you to get out of the pond.
Those are really critical things.
Now if you plan on getting in the pond at all.
It's really good to think about using an external pump
from the get go.
And have the external pump outside of the pond so,
there's no electrical physically in the pond.
So, that's something to think about too.
So.
although safety could be boring a little bit.
I think it's a pretty important question.
And I thank you for asking that.
Wanna finish with the question of the day.
I wanna know how long you've been into the hobby?
Are you just getting started?
Or you've been into ponds for a long time and you're really experienced,
but you're just looking for more information.
Please tell me down in the question, comments right here on YouTube.
And you know how you want me to get you to ask your questions?
Just put #asktheponddigger, post on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and
I will get to them and
hopefully answer them right on the show for you.
Thanks.
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