Koi Ponds

We have had three koi ponds over the years. Our first was a beautiful little pond, built by professionals, which we inherited when we bought our last house. The couple who had it built were moving back to San Francisco and could not take the koi or fancy goldfish with them. They gave us detailed instructions for their care, and warned us that naming them was bad luck, as any they had named, they had lost. We promised to do our best by them, and giggled to ourselves about their superstition against naming.

We eventually ignored their warnings, and knick-named our fancy goldfish “Canary.” We had read that Goldfish are sort of the “canary in the coal mine” for ponds. They’re the first indicators of a problem. “Canary” seemed the perfect name for our bright yellow goldfish. Not long after assigning her a name, we found her body on the shore of her little pond. We believe she had been pulled out by the neighborhood bear. A lesson was learned, and we have spent the last 17 years with a collection of unnamed fish friends, with one exception.

Those first few koi were quite content in their little professional pond. So much so, that they began to spawn, and we ended up with three babies. Our fish population was quickly exceeding the capacity of their pond. We debated giving a few away, but in the end, decided we would reposition and expand the pond. As we had no idea what we were doing, we foolishly made the decision to reuse most of the materials from the original pond. That was a challenge, as we had to keep the first pond functional, healthy and safe for the fish, while disassembling it. This meant we had to act fast. We swore we would never do anything so backwards again, but we did, and this time on an even grander scale.

When we bought the farm, and set out on building our house, I could not imagine leaving behind our koi. We made the decision to move them into a large, galvanized holding tank. We knew they would have to be there for awhile, as we could not start work on the koi pond until we would not be in the way of the house builder.

Unfortunately, the unthinkable happened. We were having catastrophic loss of koi. Every couple of days one would be lost. We pulled them from the galvanized tank, put a rubber liner in, borrowed a water tank to haul water from our farm pond to the tank (to incorporate healthy bacteria), added them back into the tank, added shade, and did everything we could think of to stabilize their temporary home. Our “Bandaids” were working, but we faced a new problem, as they began reproducing at rapid rates. We now were not dealing with just a dozen mature koi, we had 35 babies. We knew the holding tank was not going to work much longer, so asked the builder if we could start digging and he agreed.

Our excavator dug the hole. We purchased protection matting, a liner, and some of the plumbing we would need and set to work getting it installed. A liner as big as ours weighs more than you can imagine. Mercifully, a friend came and helped get it placed. The plumbing went in, and we started adding water to our “pond,” which was nothing more than a hole with a liner. There was no time to install rock work, or lighting, or sufficient filtration and drainage. We added some of the water from their holding tank and the farm pond in order to incorporate good bacteria into their new home. After a week or two, the fish moved in. We were overpopulated on day one.

As it turns out, building a pond that is already full of water and fish, is a challenge. Admittedly, I have on numerous occasions, not been up for said challenge, and have begged to just fill in the pond and move on. Dan on the other hand, has remained stubbornly insistent that we were too far in to back out now. (Perhaps our koi pond building is a metaphor for marriage.)

I complained that the cost of rock was simply too high to justify. He took his tractor and set to work harvesting load after load of rock from our farm. He then stood waist deep in the pond, strategically placing each boulder that I lowered into him off the forks of the tractor.

I fussed that the water looked like a sewage treatment plant and you could not even see the fish, and begged him to give up. He regraded the yard, because it turns out that when you dig a giant hole in the middle of your yard before the builder has done their finish work, they will just call it “good enough,” and you will end up with the entire garden draining straight into your “pond.” He fortified the fence around the yard to keep my ducks out, because while they may love the pond, the waste they leave behind does not make for clear water. He researched and engineered more filtration and water treatment options. I should have bought stock in PVC pipe!

I was finally feeling inspired, and went to the pond store and picked out a large ceramic koi to decorate our pond. He told me it was too big, was not my style, and that we were in no way, shape, nor form ready to have it and it would just be in the way. He then, reluctantly, at my insistence, loaded it into the back of my car (it broke the car seat, but this is something we do not discuss). I was happy with my new ornament for awhile, but eventually went back to frustrated.

I complained that the pumps and filters were ugly and suggested we just scrap the whole thing. He worked with our stone mason to build a pump house to store them all in.

With every challenge accepted, I finally gave in and admitted that it might one day be something worth having in our garden. As the walls rose from the water, I worked to set the dry stones, with the occasional wave of my hand to have a stone too large for me to lift, placed precisely as I envisioned.

Finally, we are almost there. We have one final corner to complete, along with more planting, which at the pace we work, could take anywhere from a weekend to a year, but I can finally see the finish line. Time to buy some more plants!