12th Annual Pond Tour
Saturday, July 26, 2003

Thank you Marlene Hyden for organizing our largest pond tour ever. Our group included over one hundred people, but with Marlene's map packets no one got lost! We had 8 visitors from the Genesee Valley Pond & Koi club join us for this event, which included 11 ponds this year.

STOP 1: Nancy & Rich Wojnowski's pond. Where we all met at 9:00, had coffee, juice and donuts. We were given our map packets, as well. The packets gave us the order, time, directions, and a description of each pond.

STOP 2:

Timothy Moeller's pond is 25'x 40' and holds approximately 22,00 gallons. It includes a 4-foot high waterfall, stonewalls and stream. They use 2 pumps, a 420-gallon biofilter & falls filter. The pond is home to 10 koi and 8 goldfish. There are water lily, lotus, reeds and water hyacinths in the pond.

STOP 3:

Ed & Rose Marie Schaefer's Pond. This pond is 14' x 22' and holds approximately 2400 gallon. It is only 9 months old and is self constructed. Only the pump, lava rock and liner were purchased. Since the pond is in a natural low spot, drainage ditches were constructed, and hidden, to avoid a flooding problem.
There are 20 goldfish and many plants including, large and dwarf papyrus, water lilies, chameleon, umbrella palm, grasses, hyacinth and floating heart.

STOP 4:

Irv & Amy Slater's. Their pond is 8'x10' and was built by Ulbrich's in 1998. In 2002, the pebbles were removed from the bottom. The center section was redug to a depth of 3 feet, and now holds 1400 gallons.
There is a thick foam filter fed by 2 pumps, one going to a biological filter and one to the waterfalls. There is also a UV light.
There are 2 koi and some goldfish, whatever is left after the heron visited. The heron made off with our brightest and biggest fish! The fish remain outside all winter with the aid of a bubbler. There are hardy lilies, umbrella palms and papyrus, with annuals around the pond.

STOP 5:

Les Wolf & Family. The pond has grown considerably since last year's pond tour. They now have two ponds joined together for an approximate total of 6400 gallons. The smaller pond is approximately 12'x18' (2200gal.), 32" deep. The larger pond is approxmately 14'x30' (4200 gal.) and 48" deep. Both ponds are lined with Firestone rubber roofing, are run with 3700-gallon submersible pumps with pre-filters and also have biological filtration.
Several goldfish inhabit the smaller pond and the larger pond is home to 8 koi, and one bullfrog.
The pond has many plants - Water lilies, irises, cattails, water hyacinths, umbrella palms, taros and other plants and grasses (names unknown).
Both ponds were designed, constructed (hand dug) and landscaped by the Wolf Family.

STOP 6:

Riverview School. This pond is 16'x7' and 3 1/2' deep. It has an 18"x24" skimmer and a 22" diameter biofilter. There are 25+ goldfish along with water hyacinths, black leaf elephant ears, cattails, iris, water lilies, taro and ribbon grass.
The pond was built in October 2002 by a dedicated crew of several hundred parents, students, teachers at Riverview School and Niagara Frontier Koi and Pond Club (Greg, Don & Phil). The plan was to construct it in two days. Due to the "red clay", the hand digging took much linger than expected and added one more day to the construction schedule.
The first inhabitants of the pond were eight goldfish, overflow from Don's pond. Later 17 more goldfish were added. Many births have taken place this spring. Children have had a great time watching all size of fish. One class is "in charge" of feeding and maintenance under Don's tutelage.

STOP 7:

Mike Petix. His pond started out as a rock garden. He built it himself. The second season he developed a major leak and took the entire pond apart and put in a new liner. It grew from rock garden-to pond-to waterfall and-to waterfall pond, channel and second pond.
There is a 5' waterfall into a 15 foot diameter pond, then a short channel connecting to another 15-foot diameter pond. The system is maintained by an 1800 gph, magnetic pump with a biofilter.
There are approximately 20 goldfish, with water lilies, water hyacinths, cattails and umbrella palms. There is a park like setting around the pond and waterfalls.

STOP 8:

Ed & Rosemarie Shelp's Pond. This pond is a 7800-gallon double connecting pond system maintained by a Aquadyne, 2.2 with blower and settling tank. It is 5 years old and was constructed by the Shelp family, no easy task in the Grand Island clay. The pond has a unique bottom drain that leads to a settling tank, then it is pumped out and filtered by a bead filter. The pump is a 4800 gph external. The 2 ponds are connected by a 26-foot waterfalls.
There are 5 koi over 18" and 14 koi under 12". There are white, red, pink and changeable water lilies, lotus, water lettuce, water hyacinth, water iris and floating heart in the pond

STOP 9: Bob Colling & Mary Waddington. This pond was started in early September, 2001 and finished on December 1, 2001. It is 16 1/2" long, 12 1/2" wide, and varies in depth from 1-3 feet (about 1800 gallons). The pond is backed by a three tier, four-foot high waterfall with terrestrial planting areas on both sides and behind. It has a 45 mil EDMP liner with underlayment which is covered with cut to fit fieldstone.
The pump is an Alita 250 high efficiency 3800 gph that only consumes 275 watts of electricity per hour. The two filters consist of a Pond Sweep #PS701P skimmer with a 8" weir and a 24" Pond Sweep #PF24DL biofilter with a 24' detachable waterfall lip.
The pond has a variety of comets and shubunkins ranging in length up to 12", along with frogs and newts. There are 10 varieties of water lilies and a wide variety of marginals along with submerged and floating plants. The plants and animals were introduced in May of 2002. This is only the second summer with aquatic residents, but everything seem to be thriving. That is good news to any ponder!!!

STOP 10: Ron & Jeanne Herrmann's Pond. They have two ponds. The front koi pond is 14'x8' and has been reconstructed three times. The back pond, for goldfish, is 12'x7' and has a butyl rubber liner which will hopefully be the final replacement! They use mag drive filter pumps with external biofilters that were home constructed. The water features also have biofoam filters attached.
There are various varieties of koi that they keep to a minimum. The goldfish are presently being restocked due to the loss of numerous shubunkin and goldfish along with a turtle.
The flora includes water lilies, arrowhead, umbrella palm and papyrus along with ornamental grass and floating hyacinth in the ponds. Surrounding them they have numerous varieties of perennials including lilies, hosta, iris, Japanese ivy, Solomon seal, ferns and annuals in different locations around the property.
 

STOP 11: John & Marlene Hyden. There first pond was self-constructed in 1992 and naturally; it turned out to be too small. They added a second pond with connecting stream in 1996. The lower pond is approximately 8'x16' and is 36" deep. The upper pond is approximately 12'x14' and is 4' deep, 2 of those above ground level and 2 below.
Filtration includes a home constructed biofilter going to cascading small ponds. a small box (bruch) filter supplying the water wheel, and a veggie filter of water hyacinths. Three pumps have a total capacity of 3700 gph.

The tour ended with a full dinner at Marlene and John Hyden's. The Club provided the chicken, and members brought a dish to pass. Which was certainly enjoyed by all attending!

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