Filter house finishing touches

The windows took over four times the original estimate to make / deliver but the final product is what matters and they look superb. Amazingly between initial order to the the actually delivery was sixteen weeks. They are aluminium frame double glazed with a powder coated finish to match the colour of the wood. I now know more about the limited number of RAL colours and the difficulty getting any of cream"ish" ones that I ever thought necessary.

To actually fit the four large windows took less than four hours which was superb.

There has also been good progress inside the filter house. The stairs down from ground floor down to the filtration have been built and installed.

 

There have also been some really useful work benches made to fit along the underside of the windows on the ground level. As you will see these get a lot of light so will be ideal for cuttings and overwintering tender plants. Having the shelf will also be so useful for storage (as you can see already).

 

On the outside mini guttering has been installed on both sides feeding into water butts. Now the windows are installed the soffit boards have also been fitted to complete the built.

 

 

To finish off here is are a couple of pictures of the main pond at feeding time......

 

 

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Growing on tank is now properly boxed in

After a break from building work we have now started the push to complete all the odds and ends completed.

Firstly, we are tackling the growing on tank. This tank has been a great success and if you don't have one and have the space I would strongly recommend it. In the town months this has been up and running I have seen 12-15cm koi growing up towards 15-20cm which is superb considering that has been in such a short time.

So the tank has now been fully insulated with 150mm king span. We have boxed it all in using tongue and groove 25mm planks (same as from the filter house exterior). At the top edge we have used two standard planks of deck and then to prevent koi jumping out we have then created two frames of netting. We have put these frames on hinges so we can easily open them and see the koi. To help with with access to the filtration we have made a few steps (in the bottom right of the first picture). Very pleased with the end result

 

 

 

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The turf goes down - we have a garden back

Not much more can be added to the title. 400m sq of turf arrived and was cut into shape and laid. It looks stunning and we can finally say, we have a garden back. Only challenge was the thorough watering, which taking over four hours and not finishing until the early hours was not a quick process but will be worth it once it all settles down and the roots take hold.

 

 

 

This picture is one of the koi feeding in the main pond. They all seem the happiest I have seen them.

 

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Final layer of levelling soil and compost arrives

Quick update, the remainder of the soil has now been spread over the garden in preparation for the turfing tomorrow. Once in place this was raked thoroughly to ensure an even surface with no large clumps of soil remained.

Just when I thought that no more soil was arriving a truck load of compost gets dumped on the drive. The beds hasn't been weeded since the pond build and landscaping began so amongst the spring colour there was a lot of work that needed to be done. Two wheelie bins of weeds later the beds were covered in a good thick 4" layer of compost. I don't think they will ever look so perfect and weed free again!

 

 

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Koi happily in the main pond, new soil levelled across the garden and the new patio stones have been laid

We have had a big few days as we approach the end of project.

The patio for a seating area around the main pond has been laid and all the edges cut into shape. Personally I think it looks fantastic and a bit of good dry weather would be appreciated.

 

The roof on the filter house has now been completed and the first two / three coats of the cuprinol shades burnt ash. Again very pleased with final colour.

There is a two week delay with the delivery of the windows (non standard RAL colour) so we will roll all the final completion of the filter house including stairs and handrail in one big final step.

 

The levelling of soil across the remainder of the garden has been completed. Its amazing to think that almost 235 tonnes has been added. The remaining five tonnes has become a feature on the front drive!

 

Finally and most importantly, the koi have now been moved from the holding vats into the main pond. In advance of the move we scraped all the koi to check for any parasites. Thankfully everything was ok. We added some filtration quick start boost into the Roto Concept Gravity Showers. We checked water temperatures between the vat and the main pond and there was a difference of about 3c which was just acceptable. After all the checks we transferred all the remaining koi in the vats into main pond. Within minutes any pinkness caused by stress of the move had gone and they were gracefully investigating the new home.

First test feed this morning went well. I was unsure if they would come up for food yet but they were very hungry. I need to be mindful to maintain a good balance between feeding and the maturity of the whole filtration so will be performing water checks every few days.

We have each flow friend set to be turning over water at around 25k litres per hour so therefore 50k per hour! The matsuri programmable unit is also proving to be a good success with the air off during the day.

 

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Filter house roof - one side done and another 80 tonnes of soil arrives

Quick update this morning. We now have the feel that everything is almost there and the end of the project is within touching distance.

The wood shingle roofing has been completed one side which is excellent news. Externally it's just the second side of roofing, the top ridge, the end plates, fascias, guttering and pipework into a water butt to be done. The four large windows won't be ready for another couple weeks so we will have to wait for them plus the flooring on the mezzanine level, lock + insulation on the stable door, the stairs down to the filters and hand rail before we can say all is done.

 

Another huge delivery of 80 tonnes of soil arrived yesterday. About 80% of the garden has been levelled now so another day and this will be complete.

The final refill of the pond is almost complete with only three inches remaining. As you can see both aerated bottom drains are now on.

 

 

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Pond edge slabs down and wood shingle roof progress

The patio stones have been cut and laid around the pond edge. Whilst I've not a fan of rain during the rest of the build, when the stones get wet all the colours burst out which is really positive and makes up for the outlay.

After having the pond running for five days we emptied all the water and hoovered the bottom. This is an important step because the crystal bio gives off a lot of dust when new and therefore the pond floor was covered. There were also a few type 1 stones that had made there way into the pond but they were soon gone. As you can see above the partial refill to about 4ft 6in has happened and the air has been connected to both Spindrifter bottom drains. We have successfully tested both but only left one running for now.

 

In the filter house, the ply has been completed on all four internal walls and the insulation has been placed in between all the roof timbers which is another good milestone.

With a bit of good weather the wooden shingle roof has started to go down. This is quite slow progress because of the random nature of the wooden tile width but that will be the whole appeal once complete. It is one of those things where you just have to wait and you can't rush the final finish.

 

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Growing on tank operational plus pond edging and filter house build progress

It was a day of intermittent showers yesterday so the weather was against us but there were some really big steps of positive progress.

The fibreglass growing on tank (first time I've mention it) was bought second hand is 7ft (long) x 3ft (wide) x 2ft 6in (deep) with a 1.5in out in the side of the bottom corner. To get it in place took a lot more than was initially thought because the sill edges weren't taken into account when I measured the door width. The only way to get it in was to take the window out and get it in that way. The simple "get it in through the door" turned out to be a three hour exercise!

So once in the outhouse the tank was moved into place to the corner of the outhouse. The tanks was levelled and then insulated on on all four sides and underneath with 100mm kingspan. It had a few bumps and scrapes so we decided to re-fibreglass it so this was completed Wednesday. On Thursday morning it was quickly washed out and then the filtration was attached. We are using a pipe from the tank into ball valve then to a dry mounted oase aquamax dry 8k pump then to an Eazypod and then return to tank. For air I'm using an Hailea 9730 (60 litres per minute) into a coastal koi 7" diffuser (great bit of kit). For heating we have just added two 150w floating heaters. Whilst water from one of the vats was pumped in this all powered and connected up to a blagdon three way remote control switch box. Impressively the temperature has increased from 12.7c upto 17.6c already. We will leave the system running for a few days before boarding it all up in case of any leaks although so far so good.

 

 

The laying of the indian sandstone for the pond edging is over half way complete and its really looking good so I'm very pleased.

 

Finally the external walls of the filter house have had another coat of paint. The majority of the internal walls and the mezzanine flooring level have been covered in ply wood. The remaining 100mm insulation is being cut (not yet complete) in between the roof timbers to give us that extra bit of heat protection.

 

 

 

 

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Filter house build progress, plus more soil and type 1

Steady progress today after the bank holiday Monday.

The placement of 100mm insulation sheets in between the timber frame of the filter house is complete on three of the four walls so that really moving forward with a burst.

 

The outer walls of the filter house have had their first coat of paint so again thats another positive step. We used Cuprinol Shades Natural Stone which is a really great colour but goes on very thin so its looking like it will need at three to four coats.

 

Another truck load of soil (40 tonnes) and two cubic metres of type 1 arrived and has been moved into place on the garden and pond edge so the levelling continues. Still a lot to go go though!

 

 

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Filtration system test progressing well

Quick update now the filtration has been up and running for a couple of days.

As we expected, there are a couple of minor drips coming from two of the 4" ball valves and also another from a T-piece pipe. The roto showers need to be raised up by 60mm because the full pond level causes a slight overflow plus when the flow valve goes up and down the water does get very high in each roto.

The very positive news is that the pond level hasn't visibly dropped in these three days.

Five cubic metres of type 1 (broken up concrete) has been delivered and placed around the pond edge and where the new patio will be. A lorry load of soil (40 cubic metres) has also been delivered and moved into place so parts of the garden are now level. The 30 metres of Indian sandstone for the patio and pond edge has arrived on site and ready to be laid.

 

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