How to Build a Koi Pond - Commissioning your Pond

Take a few deep breaths: slowly in, slowly out...

Make sure your Koi pond builder cannot get away.

Your contract with your pond builder should have a clause that includes payment only upon successful commissioning of your newly built Koi pond.

A professional Koi pond builder will have your interests at heart and will have in his contract some form of warranty or recourse for you in the event that a problem develops with your Koi pond.

Commissioning is the final step in the construction process. Everything will have been built, the filter systems installed, pumps and electrical work completed and all that remains is to fill the pond.

You MUST buy, beg, borrow or steal a water flow meter to check the exact capacity of your Koi pond, in case you should ever need to medicate your Koi - Heaven forbid. Medication is an EXACT science - to the closest 5% is simply not good enough and you risk either killing your Koi, or not successfully medicating. You need to know precisely the volume of your pond to within at least 1%.

You only need to do this once, and at the time of commissioning this is the ideal time at which to obtain such a reading. If at any stage you ever need to empty your pond and fill it again, take another reading. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get this figure as accurate as possible.

Commissioning (filling the pond) can take some time. By now, the bottom drains and pipe work will already have been checked by any pond builder worth his salt - commissioning is NOT the time to establish that one of your bottom drain pipes has been shattered by the tons of concrete poured on top of it! Yet this happens time and time again to YOUR great expense and hassle.