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Where should I begin...?? any good links to ideas on size and equipment needed??? Live in Northeast US so would be frozen 4 months of year...probably looking at a Koi pond..

Hi Jon --

If you're planning to keep koi, think big and deep. I keep goldfish, but am a member of a koi club, and the members there advise at least 300 gallons of water per koi, because koi get really big. According to all accounts, your koi will have a lot fewer health problems if you can provide them with LOTS of water.

(If, on the other hand, you go for goldfish instead of koi, you can get away with a lot less water per fish. I have a half-dozen comets in 500 gallons, but could probably stock twice that many -- I deliberately understocked, because my goldfish breed all summer, and I wanted room for spontaneous additions.)

In addition to volume, you should probably also aim for a pond that's three feet deep, at least in some places. Some people say you can get away with two feet, but my pond is two feet at its deepest, and I wish it were deeper, because I find that the water gets way too warm in the summer. (I'm in New Jersey.) Two feet IS enough for the fish to survive a winter outdoors, but in the summer I end up putting a canopy over part of the pond to give it more shade and stabilize the water temperature until the water hyacinths begin to multiply -- usually not till mid-July -- and take over the task of providing shade.)

In terms of locating your pond, I'd suggest the following:

1) First and most important, really do your homework, then plan like crazy. If you don't, you'll end up doing what we did, which was digging the whole thing up again after a couple years to install the larger pond we should have chosen in the first place. (And I'd still like to make some changes, even in our new, improved design!)

2) Don't locate your pond anywhere it can get runoff -- that is, you want it in a flat area, not a low area of your yard. Runoff can contain all sorts of things (fertilizer, mud, etc.) that you don't want in your pond.

3) Put it somewhere it will get both shade and sun -- if it's in the sun all day every day, algae will be completely out of control, and so will water temperature.

4) You'll have to decide whether you want a pre-fab pond (available at pond shops, etc.) or whether you want to simply dig a hole and line it with a flexible rubber liner. There are advantages to both -- pre-fab ponds are probably a little easier, but you're limited in terms of size and shape. Liners are a bit of a pain, but they're more flexible design-wise. FYI, my first pond was a 100-gallon pre-fab pond. I liked it -- it just wasn't big enough. So eventually we pulled it out and put in a 500 gallon pond using a flexible liner.

One suggestion: to determine location and shape, you can take a piece of rope or garden hose, and lay it out in a pond shape on your proposed site. Then leave it there for a day or two to see how much sun it gets at different times of day. (It also helps you figure out the shape of the pond, if you're planning on using a liner for your pond. If you're planning on a pre-fab pond shell, that obviously isn't an issue.)

In terms of filtration, you'll have lots of options. Unlike fishtanks, where the filter often consists of a single unit that simply hangs on the back of the tank, pond filtration is often an entire system that incorporates other elements.

For instance, aeration is important in ponds, especially in the summer when the water gets really warm. So we included a small waterfall in our pond design (both for aeration and also aesthetics.) The collection basin for the waterfall came with filter foam and rocks that provide surfaces for the nitrifying bacteria to colonize.

We also have a lot of trees on our property, and leaves are an issue. So we included a skimmer in our pond design. The pump that powers the entire system -- waterfall, skimmer, etc. -- sits in one of the chambers of the skimmer, drawing the water in from the pond and pumping it back out through flexible plastic piping that connects to the waterfall. We also included a UV filter (for algae) in the design; it's hooked into the piping between the skimmer and the waterfall.

So our system looks something like this:

Pump pulls water (and debris) into skimmer.

Water goes out far end of skimmer into flexible tubing connected to UV filter.

Exiting UV filter, water continues through flexible tubing into waterfall collection basin.

After passing over rocks and filter foam (and presumably plenty of nitrifying bacteria) in waterfall basin, water then spills back into the pond, providing aeration.

One last word of advice -- no matter what type of pond you choose, include plenty of plants in your design. I've had much better luck with my fish when I increased the number of bog plants around the edges of the pond and in the pond itself.

Hope this opus has been helpful -- it's all based on my personal experience, and other members may have other suggestions.

Good luck!