PLUS: It provides your house with excellent humidity levels during the winter! If you have expensive wooden furniture and cabinets this will help keep them from cracking and keep them looking new. You will be surprised how many less dry air aggravations you will have like dry and itchy skin, coughs and colds. It keeps the dust down in your house as the particles can't float as easily in humid air from room to room. Dry air with no humidity will suspend particles in it forever it seems. There is no end to dusting. I personally know this to be true as I lived in Maui (Hawaii) for 4 years and we hardly ever had to dust. My skin was never dry and we rarely had a cold.
MAINTENANCE: Treat the water with Salt, and check the ammonia levels just like your regular pond. You will need to keep extra close track of it, as the levels can swing fast in a small ecosystem. See Nitrogen Cycle and Establishing a New Pond for extra help on this. If the water gets an odor to it you know for sure something is out of balance. If it is kept healthy, it will smell fresh and clean like a lake in a morning breeze.
IMPORTANT: This is a super system to have in your house if you take care of it and keep the water in balance. BUT, if you are the type of person who builds something, and then doesn't take care of it, don't do this or you will have a swamp in your house. If you can do simple monitoring of your water conditions you will be fine. If you are lost keeping things in balance you will be in trouble. This may even be a good thing to practice on before you spend thousands of dollars installing a pond in your yard?
THE PLAN
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Plan your size. Use Calculator to figure what you want. The one below is 432 gallons with 27 sq ft of surface area. The size of liner for this one is 13' x 9'. If you can get one custom cut locally you will be in good shape. The closest we have here is one for 10ft x 15ft.
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The one below is 26" (2.16') high and 8' long by 40" (3.33') wide. This one took 21 pieces of Treated 8' x 4" x 4" lumber. You can use untreated if you wish. But in this case the cost was cheaper for treated on sale. The lumber should run about $100 or less. Use the lowest grade you can find as this is not cabinet quality work.
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Use subfloor adhesive (get it at Home Depot) to lock the wood together. Lay a continuous bead of about 1/4" down the entire length of the wood. It will squish out and bond great as you tighten the lag screws. Subfloor adhesive is ungodly strong after it sets!
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Use 6" lag screws on the corners and a couple on the long runs to seat the adhesive. Pre-drill 3/16" holes into your wood, then make a 1/2" countersink about 1/2' deep to hide the head of the lag bolt and then sink 6" long x 3/8" lag screws with a ratchet handle and socket. Tighten them down as hard as you can.
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You don't need a bottom. Just use your existing floor if it can take the water weight.
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Put Underlayment down first inside using a staple gun to keep it in place on the side.
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Then custom fit a Pond Liner. Please use a top of the line rubber EPDM Firestone liner and not a cheap plastic one. You DO NOT want to have 500 gallons of water in your basement if your black lab jumps in chasing Koi and claws the sides. "Don't ask how I know this."
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Lay the edge of the liner over the top and then place 2" x 4" on top of the liner and secure with 3" sinker nails.
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Trim off excess with a box cutter.
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Set up a mechanical filter and then put a submersible pump in your enclosure to circulate the water and to get an active bacteria colony going.
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You can suspend a high intensity hydroponics grow light above the tank for plants and put it on a cycle timer to run a few hours each day.
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This can also be used as a treatment center for Koi who need medication.
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Every few days scoop the Koi excreta (poop) up off the bottom with a net.
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DON'T OVERFEED YOUR KOI! Yes we love them and we want fat happy Koi. If you can't control your ammonia levels you are overfeeding them! Ammonia spikes will kill your Koi faster than anything. Cut back and watch your ammonia levels drop day by day. Keep a chart on how much you feed and the ammonia conditions.
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KOI LIKE TO JUMP! Make a cheap screen frame to place on the top using chicken wire. If you want to get fancy, you can make a frame, staple chicken wire on it and put hinges on the backside so you can easily access the holding tank for maintenance.
