After about three large skips, the plan began to expand along with the hole, and after reading several koi magazines and looking at websites, I decided that it would be a koi pond.

The hole grew and eventually I laid an 8 inch thick reinforced concrete base with a bottom drain. (regret no.1, it should have been an aerated bottom drain.)

The walls were constructed from 9 inch concrete blocks and are about 30 inches above ground level as I have two small children. This gave me a final depth of just over 5'6" deep with a benched bottom of about 6" down to the drain.

The filter is a vortex and 3 bay which currently contains jap-matting and static kaldnes in the final chamber. I have an Aquamax 5500 on the filter and another running the surface skimmer through a 30 watt UV. The filter bay is quite tight for room and in hind-sight I should have made it wider as I would now struggle to accommodate other ancillaries like a heater or another UV.

The outer wall is finished using York buff slap top and the pergola is all my own work and I learnt an awful lot in doing it.

The pond was fibre glassed in black and cost £500, and it really finished it off.

All the work was finished in about April 2005 when I filled the pond through a purifier giving about 2000 gallons, I was hoping for a larger capacity and now feel I should have gone bigger.

In my foolishness I let my heart rule my head and after about 3 weeks of the pond running, I introduced 2 lovely koi from Avenue fisheries, a Yamabuki Ogon and a Hi Utsuri, they seemed to settle in well but started to be very lethargic, laying on the bottom, and tragically they both succumbed within 4 days. I was gutted, not to mention £150 worse off. After phone calls to Paula Reynolds, posts on other web-sites, getting the glasser back, and ultimately joining the club, I formed the opinion that my water was to cold for the koi after, unbeknown to me, that the fish had come from a heated source. One of many lessons learnt to date.

Its June 2005 as I write this and the pond now contains a Purachina Ogon and a ghost koi (bought from the club auction), a Mirror carp, a Gin Rin Showa (bought on the club trip to the Crouch valley section), and recently a Kohaku and a Shusui from Avenue fisheries. All are feeding well and, touch wood, thriving.

After my initial teething problems, I'm very glad that I joined the Northants koi club, as you quickly realise that a problem shared is a problem halved, and also as a family we have had a couple of really good outings together.