Welcome to today's episode of Ask the Pond Digger.
Today, we're gonna talk about frog pond followup, how deep your pond
should be, and should you separate your koi from your goldfish?
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Let me start the show off with a big shoutout to all of our followers and
fans who are sending in questions from across the globe.
We're getting stuff from Greece, the UK, Honduras, India.
They're coming in from all over the place, and I couldn't be happier.
The first question we're gonna start with was from a Derek Blackstone on
YouTube and he wants to know, can we revisit some of the ponds that we've
already done and show all the plants that are grown in around the pond.
And this is a question we get asked quite a bit and
I wanna make sure that, I got a tip you guys off on something.
The way we film, we're pushing so hard to bring new content.
Sometimes it's hard to get back to do some of the follow-ups.
And I will tell you,
a lot of people have specifically asked for the frog pond.
They want us to go back and film that pond specifically and
show how the plants are all growing in.
I regretfully have to tell you that pond has been removed already.
You wanna know why. Okay.
So, check it out.
We removed that pond because we did it on the set in our backyard.
We have a set.
It's our YouTube set.
It's in the backyard, and when we wanna film something and be very
specific and train people how to do stuff, we do it right there.
We can control the light.
We can go in and take a break, eat lunch, come back, and
work on the pond.
And so we've removed that pond in preparation for yet
another series that we're planning to put on our channel here.
The fish pond, how to build a fish pond,
that to, with the goat running around all the time,
that pond has too been removed and it's on our YouTube set.
So we won't be able to do it to those two specific ponds.
And we get asked all the time if we'll do that.
I do wanna tell you.
We have plans to shoot a glamour video
on how to build a koi pond video.
That was specifically done in Hemet, California,
at one of our friends house.
At Rosemary's pond, we're gonna go back and
we're gonna film the glamour there and show all the plants growing in.
So we will still give you guys that stuff.
But at least, it kind of gives you an idea of how dedicated we are to
get you that content where we'll build something and
then tear it out.
Onto the next question.
The next question is, it came from YouTube and he wants to know
should he separate his koi from his goldfish as he builds a new pond.
And I've seen a lot of neat ponds with koi and goldfish mixed in them.
A lot. I think it's really neat.
I really see it in younger ponds.
Like if the pond,
is smaller pond and the customer is just kind of getting into fish.
They have a mixture of things going on cuz they are so excited and
they wanna buy stuff.
They see a beautiful goldfish with a long tail, they add it in there.
I would say, ultimately, eventually,
you will separate the koi and the goldfish.
When the koi get bigger and
they start to spawn, they're pretty tough on the goldfish.
So you wanna keep them apart.
When you have a three-foot koi trying to spawn with a six inch
goldfish, it could be a rough event.
In the beginning, if you're just getting started,
it's fun to mix them or in, maybe a small garden pond in the backyard.
Sometimes if you have your koi spawn in your pond,
you might take the babies and
grow them up in a small garden pond with some goldfish and that nature.
But ultimately, the answer to your question is yes, I think eventually
you should separate your koi from your goldfish.
This one I have from You Tube.
This is a good question.
How deep should you build your pond?
I answered this question already on YouTube because I was kind of
nervous for the gentleman.
I didn't want him to be in a dangerous situation.
It's from Riverbearser on YouTube, I said.
He says, are there any disadvantages to going
deep in the pond other than the cost of the liner.
Now, he continues to tell me he has a 10 x 14 pond and
he wants to go 9 foot deep, cuz he's not afraid of digging.
Let me tell you this, It could be dangerous to go that deep in a small
pond, a small width, 10 x 14 it's not very wide to go that deep,
and he mentions liner, so that means he probably doesn't plan on doing
any concrete or structural work, or block work
in there cuz if he was doing that he wouldn't necessarily need the liner.
So I would say, the top koi specialists
that I know on the planet are pretty fine with a five foot deep pond.
Of course there's a lot that wants you to go deeper and they might say
hey, five's the minimum I want you to do on a koi pond.
These are the top koi experts in the world.
They might say, 5' is the minimum I want you to go we an 8' or 9' pond.
But these ponds are big with concrete walls, gunite spray,
block walls, polyurea spray, big high-end stuff.
And so, if five is acceptable by some of the top guys in the nation,
there's not really need to go that deep,
especially if you're gonna do a liner.
I just want you to be careful cuz there's a lot of different digging
in soil conditions.
You have sand, you have granite, caliche, clay,
there's a lot of different environments to dig in.
So if you were digging that deep in a small pocket, you could have
potentially collapsing while you're working down there.
It could be very dangerous.
Or potentially just as bad as you could get the pond complete without
having a problem, and then your finished product could collapse down
and be in a lot of trouble as well.
So how deep you should make your pond,
I would say five foot is pretty awesome but
three foot pond is great too, it really depends on the direction.
Are you gonna do a garden pond?
They only need to be maybe 18 to 24 inches if you're doing
water garden pond with water lilies, they like that warm water.
Koi pond, you wanna go deeper.
So the question is also in relation to what kind of pond you want to do.
I wanna finish off, before I finish off, I wanna
give a shout out to a Christine McCoy out in Menifee, California.
She has a water feature that she is not really happy with,
and she's basically has a ponds gone wrong.
And we're hoping that we can get things situated and solved for her.
And in her wish to get this pond, she's looked closely at our
business, and she gave me a really cute, cute question.
She said, I would love to hear where the name Helix came from and
why you made it your brand.
And that one kind of touches me because I worked really
hard on that name.
And I think its really cool that she asked it.
So here it is.
When we came up with the Helix Pond Skimmer,
it was, I didn't plan on that.
It just happened.
It fell in my lap that the concept.
I woke up one morning and
went hey I think that I got this skimmer figured out.
So, I probably struggled for
six months to try and figure out what to call this thing.
And it's funny because a lot of the manufacturers that use these
crazy names, and I hope that I don't mess up by saying names, but
you have tornadoes, and cyclones, and tsunamis,
and you have all these crazy like storm names, and so I was thinking
of storms, like is there a storm that no one's used yet?
I was kind of stumped, and then I was building a pond in San Diego,
California on Mount Helix.
It was so cool, I'm getting goosebumps telling you right now
this story because when we would go to the top of this mountain,
the road that went up, went up one section like this.
And the road that came down circled at the top, and
then it came back down.
Just like that, helical fashion.
I still have those goosebumps going because of the name Helix.
It was so cool to me.
And actually, I didn't even have the skimmer in my hand yet.
It was still in production.
I hadn't even gotten my first skimmer yet,
when I figured out what we were gonna call the name of that skimmer.
The Helix Pond Skimmer.
So that's kinda how it came to me,
and thanks for asking that question Christine.
And I hope we can get your pond back on track as soon as possible.
I'm gonna end the show with a question for you.
I like to hear from all my viewers.
I wanna know, do you know how many gallons your pond is?
Give me a yes or a no, and if you know exactly how many gallons your
pond is, tell me, is it 300?, 1,000?, 3,000?, 5,000?, 10,000?
Put it in the comments below and if you want me to ask your question,
you gotta ask me, #asktheponddigger and put it on Facebook, Twitter, or
Instagram and I will do my best to answer them on the show, Thanks for
watching.
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