It Was A ROUGH Year, But Worth it! 

Your pond is a work of art.

The pond truly does look amazing!

Hey guys! I never realized that you were fellow North Carolinians! I've been watching your videos off and on for a couple of years, now... and I love the pond that you've built! My great grandfather once had a goldfish pond on his property, with a little concrete and stone bridge he and my grandfather bult. I remember when I was a little girl, visiting my grandparents in the spring and summer time, we'd go to Pappy's home (that's what we all called my great grandfather) and I would sit on that little bridge, watching the goldfish swim around for hours! I been around fish and aquariums for over half my life, since my mother was into the hobby. I've even had a few aquariums myself, though nothing larger than a 30 gallon. I've always wanted to have my own fishpond but have never been able to make it happen. I will get there someday! You mentioned that you live in the northeastern part of NC. I'm curious to know where, but I completely understand if you don't want to give out that information. I live near the State Capitol, myself. I'd love to see what else you do to this fishpond! Have a great day!

Man made ponds are work. Don't let anyone try to tell you differently. But they are glorious and worth it, though. I'm glad you had your dream come true ❤

This was a great story, I’m sorry for your loss of Ed but at least you did what was needed, even made sure of that by reaching out to Micah. Humility makes the world a softer place full of welcoming information, and plants will always be an eye catcher and the fact they helped the algae and water so much too? ! B E A UTIFUL! Stay happy and healthy my friends! 😊❤

Finally. I had been waiting for an update on how your pond was doing since it was built. Looking good.

That is a beautiful pond

Nice video John and Lisa, your pond is looking really lovely

I used algaecide & water hyacinth to correct my green water problem in my new 110 gallon stock tank pond. Has been green ever since.

Good job! Good luck with the rest ☺️

Water hyacinth, though it's invasive and unsightly, is a water-purifying powerhouse. Use with care.

Love your pond.

👍🤠 When someone’s good at there job they make it look easy…I can do that. Doesn’t matter if it’s a dart competitor, an electrician, a race car driver, an artist or someone who speaks to rocks. Looks great. ✌️

I CAN NOT wait for this video next week. I love when John pisses ppl off

Thanks for posting this video. I hope to have a pond myself one day.

The pond is amazing, and thanks for the important info. If it ever stops raining up here in WI I'll get back to my pond build.

Well the pond is beautiful now. The fish and the plants look great. I'll never be able to have a pond, so I will enjoy yours with you. Thanks for sharing.

That pond is awesome! It’s a dream of mine. Thanks for the update

The pond looks amazing and beautiful

Got me itching for the next video now

Loved watching the original build and this update! Kudos on the great work, Lisa and John!

Yay! I've been waiting for this pond update. The landscaping looks great. I love the water hyacinth. Did it bloom purple flowers for you? The koi and goldfish are so beautiful! The sphere is like a piece of art. Thanks for sharing! I'm so sorry Ed the koi passed away😔

LOVE the pond!

Pond looks good. RIP Ed👼

beautiful pond!

YAAASSS Pond products pleeeezee! Esp. food, chemicals and PLANTS. Are you feeding the goldfish the same Koi food or are you using Northfin for them?

WEEDS: john, i had massive weeds ALL around my pond. i basically had to dig up all the stones (they put large river rock pebbles and that caught dirt and debris and made planters for weeds), then i put down the THICK weedcloth that's like a tarp and has lines on it. then brought in several inches of small pebbles, with some larger stones around corners and edges to keep it down aside from stakes. next to the pond i planted some things as you guys did. (this was an enclosed space below a porch and between stairs. THEN, on the back wall of the house was about 2 foot of weed heinousness. i ripped everything out, weedcloth again, MULCH though, here, and more of the area had plantings. i also put in flagstone steps so you could get back there better with more solid footing. point is: WEEDCLOTH UNDER GRAVEL. otherwise the weeds regenerate in one week. the gravel let's you do it maybe every few months, and less in the cooler moths. i think it would save your sanity, as it did mine. i did stuff like this in many areas around the house that were nightmares. one i made an entire garden bed along the side of the house, where previously it was waist high weeds and poison ivy that the neighbor wasn't dealing with either. now, a beautiful garden, mulched, and with minimal care needed. another area, i built a patio. point is, a lot of work BUT, only on the front end. now maintenance is a MILLION times easier, just much less work. keep in mind for gravel, the key for no weeds is supposed to be 4". i don't quite have that on the fire circle because of the slant of the hill, and i'd say yeah, it totally does make a difference. when i first put it in, though, i didn't have a single weed for like 6 months. lovely pond sitting area you have there! didn't realize how it was oriented to the house and porch. :D

Thanks for sharing, John! Your experiences are very helpful to the rest of us. Thank you (and Lisa) for being great “teachers”. Regarding selling pond supplies and plants on your website….Please do! 😊

It was great thank you for sharing. I've read an article about Koys and it said in the cold season Koys can't digest food and we shouldn't feed them regularly because it can be dangerous for them. Do you agree with it?

Plants are definitely the key to clear water. I barely do any maintenance on mine anymore other than backflush the pressurized filter once in awhile and vacuum stuff out once or twice. Mine is much smaller but had several water lillies and a big clump of iris I left free floating after it outgrew it’s pot

Sears lmao. God I love you guys.

Very informative video, great job. I have to admit I didn't think a pond would look as awesome as this. It's probably a good thing we live in an apartment or else I'd be spending even more money!

I've recently decided to come back to the fish keeping hobby. Going to start with a betta fish. Been buying all the necessary products I need and I've also got it planted to give it a more natural feel to ir.

I have a few big rocks that would look amazing out there.😊

We Always look forward to watching the videos on this channel with my 6 and 4 year old kids. My daughter went to say this is my favourite youtube fish channel..

I'm in New York and I went through the same thing. I used microbe lift products, sludge breaker and live bacteria. I also installed a UV light big enough for a pond twice the size I have. 1500 gallons. I also added three lilies, some marginal plants, and some horn wort, crystal clear within a week.. I have a mud pond for my goldfish too and I added marginal plants and hyacinth to that, it's no longer green and brown it's just brown now LOL, this pond has onestage barrel filter straight off the DIY channel Joey. But I'm going to add a three-stage, build I found on Rob Bob's aquaponics channel with a solids separator, moving bed, and a bog filter at the end.. that should take care of most of the mud and sediment that's always free floating because these goldfish love to stir up the bottom.. but with that natural Detritus in there they're getting so big. I love my goldfish too. These were theaters that I rescued. And then my old guy I have a 15 year old goldfish in there with them. My old snapping turtle spared his life.

love your pond love it sorry about ed. omg telling Lisa to put plants in is like telling the rabbit dont through me in the brair patch ha ha h aha h

Thank you for making this video. I have a pond that is green and I did the exact same thing you did to try and remedy the problem. Works for my tanks. I am ordering the beneficial bacteria today and going shopping for plants. This pond is my "little slice of heaven" and I have been so stressed about it. I would love to see more pond products on your website. I would much rather support your business instead of some big box store. Thank you again for this video and for all of your videos.

That creeping Jennie will cover a lot once it establishes

Sorry about your loss of your koi! After all you went through, your pond is beautiful!!

Nice pond and if I lived in a warmer climate I would have one. I was surprised by the lack of cats supervising .

Beautiful pond and layout. Simple , yet eye catching. Great healthy stock too. I experienced the same mishaps as you guys. I lost my entire collection of fish though. Thought about giving up and calling it day but my little one enjoyed seeing all of this and dove back in. I experienced a PH drop as well and the algae was my nemesis. Did the same thing you guys did to the tee and after a few weeks things settled down and all was corrected perimeter wise. We just added single tailed Goldies and some butter fly koi. So far so good but eying this like a hawk daily. You've got another subscriber !

Your pond on it's worst day was the same color as many rivers in Texas where the fishing is phenomenal. I say don't be afraid or grossed out by greenish water. Zooplankton eat that phytoplankton.

Woot woot! Waiting for next week's video 😈

I love the plan to continue adding plants over time. Not many can afford to do it any other way.

Mine is still far from yours but I’m starting to see shadows of fish. But I’ve also added a 700g bog/wetland filtration and plants. We will get there

Your pond is gorgeous! Lisa has done an amazing job with the plants. Sorry Ed didn't make it, you did rescue him at least. I'm glad you enjoy your pond!

Crap, sorry to hear about Ed!!! :(

Love the pond and the video. It looks amazing.!

Maybe you've seen the latest Serpa video, but he also had a lot of green algae in his pond from nutrients being washed in. But nice plants can eat the nutrients away from the algae :).

The fish are gorgeous! WoW the coi are huge!! The pond looks amazing! One day i will have a pond so i can have some coi too right now i will take care of my 10 huge goldfish 😂❤

I'm surprised that no turtles or frogs found their way into that haven.

I feel the way you are planning to take on the weeds is the best. And the words about sitting on those blue chairs...❤❤

Honestly there seems to be a “new pond syndrome” just like with tanks. I went through this with my pond too. Now I dose it with beneficial bacteria two or three times in the spring and it’s good. There’s sometimes some hair algae that I fish out and throw in the compost but it’s much more stable and the goldfish are happy. Even have a few babies every year that survive.

Hey, John & Lisa! Another important thing to add to your pond would be Assorted microfauna! They’re the antibodies of bodies of water. Not only do they eat algae, but they also eat fungal, bacterial and parasitic diseases. I recommend Phillips Fish Works! Just be sure to add them at night when your fish don’t see them. Fun Fact: Scuds eat Ich!

John, I completely understand. I had a beautiful white ghost fyieri. I had a similar thing happen with him. He just got here a couple days ago and the day after he arrived - he was swimming upside down. I did everything I was able to do, but there was just no saving him. SIP lil’ guy. Thank you for the advice and the tips. Lisa is a fabulously green thumb… and I LOVE the fact there’s a willow tree!

My pond has UV sterilizers and algae scrubbers. UV sterilizers keeps algae out of water column.

You got it totally right! Plants in the water to chose out the algae; plants above the water to choke out the weeds!!!

Hey KG, been following your content for a while and have learned a lot from your work, to a point where it got me back into fish keeping. At the moment, I am in desperate need of some help. I am also based in NC and have been really struggling to get my 10 gallon set up. It’s been a while but the nitrite levels of our tank doesn’t seem to get low at all. I have tried prime, multiple water changes, spring water but nothing seems to work. My nieces are super excited about their first fish but this issue has kept them waiting for a few weeks. I hope you are able to reply and help because people online and pet stores give me wrong answers

I have been watching your channel off and on for a long time now, but after that Lord of the Rings reference, I'm definitely one of your biggest fans.

I fancy goldfish over the koi. Some nice colors on goldfish, plus some have colors that are cool. I had koi, but if power goes out, they just died on me. Not so with the goldfish. Don’t get me wrong. Koi are super cool, but not in my pond. Tuff going for them.

“Send his little brother”. How old is his little brother? 9 years old? 😂😂😂

what's weird is for how big it was when scooped out, it didn't end up being very big (swimming room wise) after all the big rocks. i wonder what the gallons is after all those honkin things got put in? (dang, i didn't know i missed pond vids and some pond fish rescues, i'll have to go back!!) it was sad seeing that one little guy picked up out of the other pond... he looked dead. : ( or maybe he was and the others were survivors. will have to see. SO glad this pond has hiding spaces! just watched a 2M fishpond (ugh probably it was a tiktok. annoyingly 7 parts and vertical. title is about waterfall restoration) came out great but those fish are sitting ducks. huge pond and the only cover to hide from winged death from above is a single bridge. crystal clear water and no plants. oof. i really worry for those fish. i love goldfish and koi. hate to see them get unnecessarily yeeted out the pond and into x__x

😮

YEAH! carry some pond stuff, i'd buy from you. previously was using "the pond guy" but would rather get from someone i know. things like dechlorinator, ammonia remover, and microbes seeding (forget the name, it's the foul smelling pond starter stuff, just like our fishtank quickstart). all things i had to use when my pond crashed last year. the prev owner who set it up.... man. mickeymouse'd most of the work on this house and that was no exception. picture a 55gal drum on it's side, on a wood support like a manger, but while a bolt was used for the cross section, the upper part was nail. NAILS. nails pull out!!! so of course he also used a variety of sizes and many were super small. well, i had put a little K2 filter media in the thing and that little extra weight a few days later CRASH!!!! the thing ripped itself apart, broke it's jenky plumbing as it fell. (i wasn't around to hear this), but later i look and the pond is at 40% full and i panic. luckily it wasn't a leak, i think that would have been worse. determined that shutting off the pump would stop the water flowing out (AND luckily i'd sat the pump on a rock because of debris that it got on the bottom, and i think that saved their lives.) TLDR; didn't realize the whole biofilter crashed. so my first clue was the loss of my fav fish. RIP. then, the next day, another looked weird, took him out to try and save him. lost another. i didn't know if it was some kind of disease or parasite introduced by 2 large waterlilies i bought. where they were kept didn't inspire total confidence. but i realized it was the whole pond. ended up being a massive AMMONIA SPIKE. did the microbes and water changes weekly (or more) and testing and de-ammonia daily. almost TWO MONTHS i had to babysit this pond (600-900g) never sure if it would ever stabilize. i'd never seen something established take so LONG to get back up on its feet. ----------- *john, i'm sorry you lost that koi.* it broke my heart to lose two, and i developed like... PTSD with the pond, afraid that every day was going to be a new loss. three in a row was enough to get me like that. i did save #2. quarantine, frequent water changes, and that was before i knew the issue but he was obviously struggling more than the others. ironically, 2 baby KOI that i'd put in with the waterlilies made it through fine. LITTLE DID I KNOW, the big koi started spawning for the first time right around then and i've had babies last year (5) and this year at least 2 sets a few weeks or a month apart! they LOVE having the huge lilies in there and it works great for fry. it's about 1/4 - 1/3 of the surface of the pond, also keeps the water cool, and gives them extra cover from predators. plus water clarity. UV bulb helped with algae. and the frequent water changes for a bit. *when i got the house, the pond was pea soup.* i've also had it do that periodically, as you describe. i think the magic recipe is the massive lilies, plus frequent water changes for a bit, just to flush out extra 'nutrients' the algae is exploding off of. right now i've been crystal clear, and that was just a bunch more water changes for a bit. UV bulb that was supposed to last a year DIDN'T. of course. *oh, and you might think to carry filter media in your store! (things like K2 but also filter pads)* what i replaced the broken system with was the upgrade i planned to do later down the road which was a vertical 55g barrel, with plumbing, and K2 filter media to allow the pond to carry a higher bioload because frankly it was overstocked. LUCKILY i already had researched and know what i was going to do, so when the disaster hit i had to refresh myself, take emergency time off work and build it. my intro to plumbing. no pressure. -__- also the previous owner thought it was reasonable to unbuild the brick wall to let water out for water changes. i added to my filter a valve and a line to let water out that way, out into the yard. 10,000 times easier!!!

Why would you abandon a pond... mental😂. Lovely looking build. I was planning one but its had to be put on hold this year. Fingers crossed next year the mini digger will be used 😂

When the koi eat is it like bobbing for apples upside down?

Do you feed the goldfish a different food?

When John was talking about adding beneficial bacteria, was he talking about Fritz 7? I have a pond and it's green right now, I've done a big water change like John was saying he did to his pond and the same thing happened, nice one day and back to green in a few days. My pond is only 150 gallon and I have two potted waterlilies growing in it, the pond is in a area where it's in full sun from 8am to 4pm, do I need more plants, do I not feed the fish I have in there (2 fancy goldfish and about 12 guppies) for a few days?

Do you get a problem with the fish eating the plants? We bought loads over the last couple of years and they all get ruined by the fish and die off

That pond is way to shallow... needs to be 3' deep or greater in most areas IMO...

Never name fish.

LOVE IT, I AM A KOI POND OWNER AS WELL, MANY DAYS SITTING AT MY POND.

What a beautiful escape you made for yourselves and those beautiful fish! #jealous Love your channel AND your shop! I just received my magenta mystery snails, Gary and Jerry, and they are thriving. Thank you and keep up the great work!!

This is something I was going to do for years. I was going to build a couple of herb spirals (starting 10' from the back porch, off the kitchen for easy access) that would connect to a series of 3 Japanese-style ponds, on a sloped piece of land before running off into the neighbor's large pond. Then we had a septic failure... -.- We had to put in a new tank & a new drain field where where my ponds were going to go as that was the only space where it wouldn't potentially flood & back up. Grr... I definitely recommend adding an herb spiral if someone there loves to cook & have the lowest, pondlet level be a filtration layer that would keep the nutrients from higher up from clogging up the bigger pond.