"Happy'Cam'per" wrote in message ...
Hello Porgers

Wheeeee!!!! I'm so excited, after lurking here for the last year or so I am
finally getting ready to start digging my wee pond. YAY. Please be patient

Welcome to the Collective. DW & I are planning to start digging pond
#2 sometime soon. Pond #1 can be viewed here (memo to self: post some
pix more recent than three years ago!!!):

http://members.rogers.com/swatsons

As you can see, we are seriously addicted. "Hi, my name is Steve, and
I'm a pondaholic...."

with me as over the next few weeks I will probably be a prolific poster
asking for all your expert advice If any of you can answer some of my
queries below it will be mightily appreciated.

Due to my small (tiny) garden it will be a wee pond so unfortunately (as
much as I love them) I will not be keeping Koi The trouble is I want fish
in the pond but I'm not so hot for Goldfish. Are there Goldfish that
resemble Koi? I mean the shape of their bodies, I can't stand the look of
those bloated goldfish that seem to "wobble" around the place. Know what I
mean? Any suggestions?

Specifically which kind of GF don't you like? The "common" goldfish
is a Comet: a little thinner side-to-side than a Koi, but otherwise
similar, and usually a plain orange (sometimes with white/black
patches). Then there's Shubunkins -- same shape, but in a calico
pattern.

I'll be converting an old rubber maid container (approx 50gallons) into a
bio-filter/waterfall, Will this be overkill for my small pond? Considering
the pond will be roughly 2 1/2 metres square and a depth of roughly 3 feet
(how much water will this hold?). Should I go deeper? I also want this to be

That's 2.5 meters square, or 2.5 square meters? There's a difference
;-).
I assume you meant the first, and I make that ~5600 litres = ~1500 gal
US.
My pond is 5000 litres (shallower but wider than yours), and in
addition to goldfish I have butterfly koi. They're not recognized as
koi by the official breed societies, but a lovely fish all the same:
the basic koi torpedo-shape, with the barbels ("whiskers"), but
somewhat less energetic.

OVERLY stocked with plants, a small water jungle if you will Will the
plants get along with the fish or should they be in a separate vegie
filter? Is it feasible to combine the bio filter and vegie filter into one?

The plants and the fish should do just fine together.

I have a small pump, it says it is rated for a 1500 gallon pond and head
pressure of 2metres, it will be submerged in the bottom of the pond and will
pump directly into the DIY bio/vegie filter and then gravity fed to the
waterfall. Does this sound good? Does the pump need a pre-filter? I'll be
using batting and alfagrog as bio material, this will be handling mechanical
aswell as bio filtration, will a system like this yield high DOC as a result
or do the plants take up the extra doc? Is it better to have the plumbing
input to the filter to fill from the bottom up or from the top down?

OK, I think thats more than enough for one day. Any help and input will be
greatly appreciated. Thanks

-- Kizhé