How to build a koi water garden pond.

I decided to build this Koi pond after visiting Japan a number of times and admired their water gardens ponds and Koi. Our design has three ponds, the top pond has water hyacinths in it and is the filter for the pond, the water is crystal clear. The middle pond has a waterfall from the top pond where the water gets aerated. The bottom pond holds about a 2000 gallons of water and the koi.

We sit beside our water garden pond listening to soothing and relaxing water rushing down a small water fall. The dragon flies are fluttering in and around shrubs and plants, crickets are tweeting, bees are whizzing and humming birds are dancing around while the Koi swim lackadaisically around in the water garden pond.

We have about 6 water lily plants with large pink and red blossoms in the bottom water garden pond. They cover almost all the pond in the summer time but they die off back to their roots in the fall and re-grow in the spring as the days get warm and long.

We have over 40 multi colored Koi in the pond. I purchase small Koi that are 2 to 3 inches long to stock the water garden pond where they will grow over 10 inches long.

We have had a lot of visitors to our pond. The most frequent ones are egrets. They land on our roof or the neighbors roofs then swoop down to our patio and wade into our pond. If I or the grandchildren see the egret, we let our dog out and he scares the egret off. He won’t jump into the pond.

We have had raccoons play in the pond and sit on the water lily containers. I watched a mother and 3 baby racoons play and try to catch the Koi.

I designed our do it yourself Koi water garden pond, with stakes and string. I installed a 3″ PVC pipe from the lower pond to the top pond to pump water. I painted the block wall with an asphalt paste behind the pond to piled dirt on this wall. I constructed 4 railroad ties in an L shape, two layers high to make the front edge of the upper pond and the waterfall into the middle pond.

I then made a 1/4 circle ridge from the ends of the ties to make a small middle pond where water would roll over the full 1/4 circle edge into the bottom pond. I dug the lower pond about 18″ deep putting most of the dirt into the retaining walls of the upper two ponds. I covered all the ponds with a PVC liner that I cut and glued to fit.

I bought and installed an above ground 1/5 horse power pump with a 2″ inlet and outlet. This was the right amount of water flow over the waterfall. Some times I would have to re-priming the pump when the inlet pipe sucked air.

I finally found a submersible 1/3 horse power water pump that was OK to use in a Koi pond. Check the fine print, some pumps cannot be used in a fish pond. I found this out after about 6 months when I tried to get a replacement pump.

I have rebuilt our pond about 3 times but we have had good luck with this design and the raccoons and egrets like it too. We’ve had this pond design for over 15 years.