digging a pond

[yilduz]

This spring we'll be digging a pond in the front yard for koi. It'll be around 3000 gallons (give or take a bit), but I have some questions about keeping it and the fish healthy.

Firstly, there are a couple of pine trees near where the pond will go, will there be any negative biological effect to the needles falling into the pond? Also, how many koi could I reasonably fit into 3000 gallons?

We have a lot of ducks and geese in the area, am I pretty much at their mercy or is there a way to deter them? What other predators should I worry about?

 

[aquabeast]

raccoons, otters and such

 

[GuppyLover]

I would watch out for Raccoons, Mink, Fisher, and Herons. Unfortunately around here we have all of those and over the winter they come for a after-noon snack at my pond. You could put a raised net over the pond to deter Geese and ducks. You could put quite a few koi in there. My uncle has a 3,000 Gallon with tons of koi, all of them at least 8'Inches long. I would assume he has 30+ along with a 2 foot long high fin pleco.

 

[TraceyB4602]

Tagging along I want to build a pond also : )

Sent from my iPad using Aquarium

 

[yilduz]

I've done a lot of reading and apparently pine needles will not have an effect on the pond, other than being annoying. I'm living in an area that has a committee that must approve of projects like this so they can ensure property values stay up, so a pond we may or may not be able to dig. We'll have to wait and see.

As for the predators, I haven't really been able to find anything to deter them. Hopefully the fence will hold out most of the animals and the dogs will deter the rest, but we'll see.

It's still way too cold for a project like this right now, and we're doing some building inside the house right now so the pond won't be any time soon, but hopefully we can start in a month or two.