Page 51 - Koi Net - On-Line Koi Magazine - Issue 64

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY

TO OUR POND!

Stephen and Anthony Grey.

Stephen and Anthony have been keeping Koi since
2003 and have been visiting Japan since 2006. This is
the story of how they planned and built their pond.
Well, our main pond has just turned 20 years old!
Where have those years gone!
She’s progressed and gone through a major revamp
since that initial switch on, as the way we built the pond
back then is not the way we want to run our ponds
Stephen and Anthony Grey.
now. But the ‘refit’ was worth it as it outperforms our
expectations regarding water quality and the growth of
our Koi.

Planning and designing the pond had taken about a
year. Having joined our local Koi Club (which we have
now been members over 22 years) we visited many
members’ ponds which were nice but not too many of
them were of the modern design and what we wanted
for our pond moving forward. We took the positives that
we liked and incorporated and expanded on them into
our design. The internet was just starting off, so the
information was not readily available like it is now! My
job at the time involved using schematic drawings so
the pond was designed using CAD software to give us
the idea of how we exactly wanted the pond to look
and function, which helped us tremendously with
the build.

So, after about a year of planning, then in the spring of
2002 the digging commenced, due to no access for a
mini digger, the whole pond was dug out by hand, with
all the clay having to be bagged and carried to the
Taken from Stephen’s
original Pond Schematic skip(s). With Anthony only being around 9, he helped
which he designed using his poor dad where he could, the heavy digging and
his CAD software – since lifting was left to a younger me! The hole we dug was
then many additions
and refinements have approximately 15 feet long × 11 feet wide × 5 feet deep
been made. (to ground level), so that was some going!
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