KIP
4th August 2007, 08:01 AM
Hello
My name is Kim and I live in Perth. My interest in aquariums from the age of 14 (a very long time ago!) started my interest in fish, water quality and the tropics (they were tropical fish). Over the years the interest has waxed and waned until a few years ago my wife and I decided to build a new house. Being the patron of the Koi Society in Perth, I decided I would put in a large pond with attendant bits and pieces. Our block has a reasonably steep slope, falling 5.5 metres from front left to bottom right. So I used the slope to pump feed everything with a gravity return. ‘Everything’ consists of the koi pond of about 30,000 litres, 3 fountains, a frog pond and a future gravel bed flood and drain gravel bed. All these drain back to a biological filter, then to a chinampa and then to the pump (12,500 lph). The water will pass through a UV steriliser before returning to the above mentioned. My guess is that the commissioning of the system is about two months away, after taking about three years to build (including the house). Additionally I have a sophisticated rainwater collection system. The water is stored in a very large concrete tank under the garage floor. All the overflow and other surplus water from around the house (airconditioner drainage, reverse osmosis filter etc.) drains into a sump tank which is a concrete tank sunk into the ground at the lowest point of the property. Added to the sump tank is the fish faeces gathered in a vortex at the first exit point of the koi pond bottom drains. I have to flush the vortex out on a periodic maintenance cycle. Also the cleaning of the bio filter flushes into the sump tank. The sump tank has a sump pump which feeds a reticulation system to all the garden beds around the house.
The chinampa will have a pea gravel bed to help break down the nitrites and on this will rest mesh pots with economic plants in them. I was hoping to reproduce something like the Aztecs did (mind you, I didn’t know it was called a chinampa until about a year after I had built it! Then an engineer told me of chinampas and it described exactly what I was trying to achieve).
So far I have laid what seems to be miles (kilometres?) of pipes to install the various systems before the builder poured concrete floors and built concrete-reinforced retaining walls (the highest is 2.5M).
After all the investment of my time in planning and installation, and the money, I hope it all works!
My name is Kim and I live in Perth. My interest in aquariums from the age of 14 (a very long time ago!) started my interest in fish, water quality and the tropics (they were tropical fish). Over the years the interest has waxed and waned until a few years ago my wife and I decided to build a new house. Being the patron of the Koi Society in Perth, I decided I would put in a large pond with attendant bits and pieces. Our block has a reasonably steep slope, falling 5.5 metres from front left to bottom right. So I used the slope to pump feed everything with a gravity return. ‘Everything’ consists of the koi pond of about 30,000 litres, 3 fountains, a frog pond and a future gravel bed flood and drain gravel bed. All these drain back to a biological filter, then to a chinampa and then to the pump (12,500 lph). The water will pass through a UV steriliser before returning to the above mentioned. My guess is that the commissioning of the system is about two months away, after taking about three years to build (including the house). Additionally I have a sophisticated rainwater collection system. The water is stored in a very large concrete tank under the garage floor. All the overflow and other surplus water from around the house (airconditioner drainage, reverse osmosis filter etc.) drains into a sump tank which is a concrete tank sunk into the ground at the lowest point of the property. Added to the sump tank is the fish faeces gathered in a vortex at the first exit point of the koi pond bottom drains. I have to flush the vortex out on a periodic maintenance cycle. Also the cleaning of the bio filter flushes into the sump tank. The sump tank has a sump pump which feeds a reticulation system to all the garden beds around the house.
The chinampa will have a pea gravel bed to help break down the nitrites and on this will rest mesh pots with economic plants in them. I was hoping to reproduce something like the Aztecs did (mind you, I didn’t know it was called a chinampa until about a year after I had built it! Then an engineer told me of chinampas and it described exactly what I was trying to achieve).
So far I have laid what seems to be miles (kilometres?) of pipes to install the various systems before the builder poured concrete floors and built concrete-reinforced retaining walls (the highest is 2.5M).
After all the investment of my time in planning and installation, and the money, I hope it all works!