Water Gardening: Indoor Baby Koi Pond Set-Up (with pictures), 0 by ic_conifers

ic_conifers wrote:
This is a picture facing the stairs. The filter is on several cinder blocks, and surrounded by blocks so that it cannot accidentally be knocked over. The air pump sits next to the filter - it is rated for only a 100 gallon tank, but I figure something is better than nothing. The water comes VERY fast out of the filter, so I know that there is plenty of air exchange going on. Netting is over the entire pond and is held in place by bright yellow bungee cords. I figure that the contrast of the cords with the netting would serve to discourage fish from trying to jump out of the pond in the first place.

The filter is back-washable, which is really easy. I turn off the pump, flip a switch on top of the filter, attach tubing and run the tubing to the drain. There are two handles on the filter, which I pump up and down to dislodge stuff in the filter, then I turn on the pump and everything is backwashed away. Yesterday I opened up the filter for the first time since I assembled it in November. I poured out the murky wanter and used pond water to rinse the filter pad and swish around the bioballs. Too bad it is not summer, I'm sure my hostas would have like the fish poop soaked elixer. I probably should have opened it up and cleaned it sooner, I'll try to do that at least once a month now.

I hope these pictures are educational - the big thing I learned was not to rush a small system (300 gallons is very small in the grand scheme of ponds). I religiously check my ammonia levels almost every day (was checking twice a day when I was dealing with spikes) and change out 25-40% of the water twice a week.