you will need shade. build that into the design. there is going to be no way to
keep a pool cool enough for koi or GF without some kind of shade.

understand that nobody can go "pee pee" in the pond with fish in there.


On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:25:56 EDT, Chip wrote:

There is a movement afoot (mostly in Europe) to design "Natural"
swimming pools with veggie filters (they call it regeneration zones).
They build the pool about 1.5 times the swimming area, build a wall that
is just short of the top of the water in front of the 1/2 and use that
for planting lots of veggies. This allows NO chlorine or other killing
chemicals to be needed for pure clean safe swimming water.

I bought the book (Natural Swimming Pools by Michael Littlewood) that
preached this eco-friendly concept and I am buying into it. It has a
lot to do with this list and your approaches to low-maintenance ponds
with veggie filters. In fact, reading the book is almost like reading
this list. I want both fish and swimming and this seems to fit that to a T.

Now the questions since I had a pool guy out and he raised a few.

1) If I have a 450sq ft surface, how big do I need the veggie filter? I
will have pre-filters for the big stuff.

2) What veggies will survive a PHX summer of 110F days on end? The
water in the veggie filter will get warm if not hot, since it is only
about 3' deep. But I will be drawing water from the 8 1/2' depth with a
bottom drain.

Chip