How Deep is Your Pond?

So, how deep a home pond should be?

Long ago when a big client of mine decided to have a koi pond in his home, he called us all to sit in with him to decide on the depth of his koi pond. Sitting with us was a koi fish supplier. My recommendation was 2 ft deep. The koi guy was not truly happy and insist on a 6 ft pond depth. Six feet depth of water in your home! I scratched my head and think to myself, “What are we trying to dig here? a fish pond or a grave?”. For safety reason, I wrestled back to 2 feet.

In most aquaculture farm, ponds for growing fish have a depth of about 3 ft (1 m). Fish will grow well with big water surface area but growth is proportionate to the fish stocking density (quantity of fish in the pond).

For home or garden pond even for koi, 2 ft at maximum is my recommendation. Koi ponds at home are not designed to grow fish but to display them instead. Fishes particularly koi are to introduce at adult size. Therefore, depth is not necessary. Fish display is best in pond about 1-1.5 ft deep of water, clear water of course! Most owners are worried that shallow pond is too hot for the fish in the day and the fish tends to hide. The fact that heat is never a problem in water from natural light but brightness is what shy the fish away. Fishes has no eye-lids and they don’t blink!

I would prefer to have a pond as shallow as 1 ft (Kayu Manis Resort). Shallow pond has less water volume, smaller pump size and therefore lower power consumption. Less operation cost and safest of all.

While having breakfast with one CEO in his home to show-off his koi pond, he proudly told me that he has no water quality problem after almost a year getting the water filtration system to work correctly. The water was clear then but I couldn’t really see the bottom of the pond. “How deep is your pond?”, I asked.   NINE FEET DEEP!