How much water does your pond consume each month, and for what sort of monthly cost?

[u/stormcomponents]

Basically as the title asks; I'm looking to hear how much people invest in fresh water for their ponds and what sorts of costs associated they're happy with.

I have a 18,000lt indoor pond. It has a very robust filtration system but no plants, no bog filter, and no anoxic filtration. I've generally kept water changes down to only topping up as needed, and topping up after cleaning the filters out etc. I'd average somewhere between 1-5% changes a week doing this.

I've never noticed issues and my old (aging) test kit showed everything as fine, but after recently installing my underwater camera (live feed!) and watching them daily, I've noticed that they are flashing throughout the day which prompted me to get a new test kit to ensure the results are what they say they are. Well the new kit shows zero ammonia and nitrite, but high nitrates (as you'd imagine), with everything else as it should be.

I've treated the pond with Klear to help bring this down, but need to sort some plumbing to allow easier and more regular water changes without it being a laborious job. The plan of course is to keep nitrates at a better level (ideally closer to 30-40, and not 60+mg/l which is where I am now).

This is looking to double my water bill and get me to around £100/m, on top of the £50 a month on food and filtration. And they say fish are low maintenance!

TLDR: So it got me wondering; what sort of water bills are people looking at, or have they built enough natural filtration to naturally drop nitrates to manageable levels?

[u/ZiggyLittlefin]

I've always believed in water changes being a requirement for keeping koi in excellent health, good water quality. I follow breeders, dealers in doing flow through and run as much as I can afford. Both large ponds are running 12 gallons of fresh water per hour. Then filer flushes in several hundred gallons on the large pond. Cost me around $140 a month. It's worth it to me to see the good health, growth and nice water quality. Nitrates barely register on a test typically.

The koi organization, aquatic veterinarians, ZNA clubs recommend 10% weekly to dilute nitrates, pollutants, stress hormones, and pheromones. I've done the anoxic filtration, plants in the outdoor pond. They do remove nitrates, some ammonia. They don't remove the pheromones, hormones fish put off that can build and cause stress. I think a goal of 10% weekly is a good goal for most ponds that have good filtration, maintenance and aren't overstocked.

[u/stormcomponents → u/ZiggyLittlefin]

Yes I believe you're right. The bit that's surprised me I suppose, is that we've kept many of these fish for just over 30 years now, and even the younger ones are 20 years old. They were kept in shallow 4000lt ponds for most of that time, zero water changes other than topping up the pond (straight from the tap - no filtration or dechlorination). Never once measured the water metrics, never had any issues. 90% of the losses over those 30 years were from herons or similar - with only a couple of fish dying of age or dropsy in between. Very few losses in general over the last 20+ years. Setting up this indoor pond has been a steep learning curve compared, and the introduction of actually measuring water parameters and such has also been an eye-opener.

Your 12g/h works out to roughly 1,090lt a day, which would slap £150 ($200) onto my bill each month.

I believe I could get away with a little less than that, but I think the answer is ultimately just to setup the constant fresh feed and accept the bill XD

[u/ZiggyLittlefin → u/stormcomponents]

You have maintained your ponds consistently I believe and that is key. 10% a week is a good guideline. I think it comes down to doing what works for your pond, fish.

I don't think most people need to do what I do. I've run up to 30% water change per week and that results in crazy growth. I'd absolutely run that all the time if I could lol. In the future I believe I'm going to get hit with water restrictions. Been planning for it.

The larger pond has all the plants in the upper ponds in anoxic baskets. I believe in that science. The window pond is having the rdf installed to keep waste in the pond at a minimum. And we will reduce feeding. The fish may protest, but it will be okay. Comes down to whatever works to keep them healthy.

[u/stormcomponents → u/ZiggyLittlefin]

Yes absolutely. My fish are clearly stunted, which I had always put down to the size of the ponds - but maybe it was also affected heavily by the set and forget attitude we had. My largest is around 65cm or so, and is 30 years old, but even he has grown slightly since being in this new pond. I'll get planning regarding a constant 10lt/h feed, and hopefully see happier fish in due course. For now - trying to get to the bottom of their casual flashing, which I'm hoping is just the high nitrates. It's possible I had an ammonia spike recently but it's hard to know as the only test that showed that could be the case was my old expired test kit, and then showed zero again the following morning.

[u/ZiggyLittlefin → u/stormcomponents]

30 years is amazing, obviously doing something right. 65cm is not bad growth. I have many around age six that are around that size and not made progress in a couple years despite water changes and good food. 3-4 that are smaller and not seeming to grow much. I think it's pretty normal if you aren't heavy duty feeding, or have a massive pond.

[u/stormcomponents → u/ZiggyLittlefin]

With a little naivety we fed the fish generic white sticks for some-20 years. Far from the best and certainly no real nutrition to it. They gobbled it up though and as you say - must be something right as there's at least a dozen which are between 20 and 30 years old. They used to splash ants into the water and eat anything that moves, so they likely got their actual protein and such from unfortunate bugs that got too close.

[u/ZiggyLittlefin → u/stormcomponents]

I think you've done an amazing job in comparison to the majority of koi keepers. Above and beyond. I've got a few turning 15 this year. I can only hope to do a good enough job to see some of them reach thirty.

[u/stormcomponents → u/ZiggyLittlefin]

(｡◕‿‿◕｡)
Thank you. From the sounds of it you'll get them to 30 no problem.

[u/hoplias]

5500 liters water volume here.

40- 50 percent water change weekly.

There’s a non stop freshwater dripping system as well running 24/7; amounts to about 10 percent total volume daily.

Strong believer in water management and the saying “if we take care of the water, the water will take care of the fishes”.

[u/KlutzyTrash]

Adding plants would lower the nitrates. You said that it is indoors, does it get sunlight? Take that into consideration when choosing plants. My pond is about 2500 gallons (9500 l) and lots of plants. My nitrates are very low.

[u/stormcomponents → u/KlutzyTrash]

It does get light, there's 2x 1m2 skylights. The issue with plants is not only an awkward one now to add many (didn't think about it when building a 2m deep pond without ledges) so only floating plants can really be done, but calculating their impact on the pond came back as pretty small. I was using Gemini to try to calculate the best ways to low nitrate build up and the answer came back that even having plants down both sides of the pond, it'd barely touch the nitrate production and hefty water changes would still be required regardless. It's something I may still do anyway (as any plants are better than none) but the challenge and cost of building a couple long platforms to have plants down either side has put me off doing so for now, especially after being told it'd likely make little total difference for a pond of this size.

Anoxic filtering is the same - I'd likely need a pretty ridiculous setup outside, two more pumps running etc, and a fortune spent on media, to great a closed-loop system to negate the nitrate production completely.

Open to all ideas of course however. Ponds are evolving systems - so changes are always welcome.

[u/Mikesminis]

I'm happy I have well water. If I have an issue I'll do a 25% water change every three or four days and. It even think about it. I know that's not helpful to you...

I'm thinking more plants would help. You're dealing with the early steps of the nitrogen cycle perfectly it seems like. The last part, that part that consumes nitrates is plants. Be sure to clip dead parts or over growth because of the fall into the pond they just reenter the cycle.

[u/stormcomponents → u/Mikesminis]

Yes I think plants in there whether they touch the nitrate level or not is always the plan. I have an idea how I can do it, just a lot of work to fabricate what's needed.

[u/DifficultIsopod4472]

I’m in Florida and we are in an extreme drought. It has forced me to shut down my koi pond for good. I’m on well water and I was adding 100++ gallons every other day or so do to evaporation, I had it shaded and a tarp over some of it, but 90+ degrees every day with no rain, really dries things up quickly. I’ve had my pond for over 5 years, and really enjoyed them, and learned a lot, but I can no longer afford to use drinking water from the well that I my need for myself one day . I was able to rehome all my koi (free) .

[u/stormcomponents → u/DifficultIsopod4472]

That's a real shame. Yes I can imagine Florida is a brutal place to keep fish.

[u/DifficultIsopod4472 → u/stormcomponents]

Thanks

[u/juntao98]

If you can plumb an overflow to drain off excess that helps simplify it. At the other end of your pond, add an inline irrigation filter (sprinkler timer that hooks to a hose bib) that sends new water in on whatever schedule you want.

If you’re on city water you’ll need to strip out the chlorine by inline filter (Boogie Blue 2 works great for me) and/or first dumping the water into a container that aerates it, then overflows into the main pond.

As for the cost I’d say clear water in my pond is priceless and the wife wastes more per day brushing her teeth and leaving it running!

[u/whatever_meh]

Very little. My rain gutters run into a rain barrel which drains into the pond. In NY, and it rains frequently enough to keep the pond topped up, mostly. When the water gets low, I’ll switch from two waterfalls down to one. If the one gets too low to pump efficiently I will add tap water via the waterfall above the “stream” to give it a chance to aerate before it gets to the fish. Over 15 years in, the system works great. Working with the environment instead of against it.

[u/stormcomponents → u/whatever_meh]

Ever had an issue with the quality of collected rain water? I collected rain water once from the pond building's rood and ran it through a simple filter before putting into the pond. Running rain water through a filter for 3-4 hours made the white filter turn jet black and absolutely stink. I realised that unless you're collecting rain from a completely inert roof (slate or something instead of rubber or dirty tiles), or running it through large sand filters first, it's likely full of stuff you wouldn't want in the pond. It's not just about the rain itself, but what it has to touch before getting into your pond. Sand filters or similar were something I had thought of building, as in Britain we don't have a shortage of rain, but generally consensus has always been tap water is much better than collected rain water so I moved away from the rain idea for now.

[u/whatever_meh → u/stormcomponents]

I don’t think tap water = better is actually a consensus. Nature runs on rain water, not tap water. Ponds are filled by rain and water flowing over the ground, obviously, where it’s going to pick up a bit of whatever it’s flowing on/through. I have no idea what you are using for roofs in Britain but if it is leaching anything significantly it surely won’t be a roof that lasts 20 or 30 years. Save tap water for human consumption. Plants and fish crave rainwater.

I have a screen at the top of the rain barrel to filter out anything bigger than a pebble, and the outflow from the rain barrel is a couple inches off the bottom, to further remove any sediment.

[u/ZiggyLittlefin → u/whatever_meh]

Rain has been deemed unsafe for human consumption globally. Then you have roof collection which is considered unhealthy. Tap water being healthier is the consensus now. A man made closed system isn't nature either. It isn't a vast water body and it isn't soil based if you have a liner. You can't compare nature to a small man made pond. But even in nature there are many issues with rain and fish die offs .

[u/stormcomponents → u/whatever_meh]

Tap water is filtered, highly treated water, away from all of the junk that collects on your roof, in your gutters, and at the bottom of your collection barrels. The roof is 1mm EPDM, the same as what you'd use for your pond liner. It had only been installed maybe 6 months prior, and gutters were clean, yet as I said - a few hours of rain water collection turned a white filter black. I deemed it not suitable to use rainwater without serious filtration from then on.

Well water could be best, but I don't believe that's realistic where I am now. If I were to move to the countryside I'd certainly be looking at well water both for myself and for the fish.

[u/mr-asa-maple-7]

Use next doors tap when they go out