How to Build a Koi Pond - Waterfalls

Water falls are a great feature. Make sure that they fit in with you...

Building a Koi pond - Waterfall pitfalls avoided...

If you want to add a water fall feature to your Koi pond there are a few things that you need to be aware of. Waterfalls are a great way of adding impact (and lots of oxygen) to any Koi pond.

There are two main types of waterfall - the cascading and the laminar sheet. Whilst the laminar sheet type of waterfall is more formal in concept, it is a much quieter and correctly designed (not too high) it can be almost silent.

Cascading waterfalls though are a more natural approach with water tumbling and spilling typically over rocks on it's way back to the pond.

Pitfalls of water falls

Don't make them too high! You have to pay for the pumping costs of getting the water to the top of the waterfall... so bear that in mind.

Noise. Can you turn your water fall off? If so, what is the impact on the dissolved oxygen levels in your pond? Particularly at night, when the water is warm, and you have suffered an algae bloom (algae takes oxygen OUT of the water at night), turning off your waterfall might prove to be fatal if it is your only other oxygen source for your pond.

Splashback. It staggers me how many people forget about the fact that water splashes! This is more common on cascading type waterfalls where the poor pond owner can't get close to his own pond because of water splashing...

Evaporation. All water falls will increase evaporation. Not that this is a bad thing but bear in mind that a shallow, long meander of water will lose a lot more water than a deep short river.