Go to koishack dot (om and sign up for the board or just read. There is alot of koi and pond forums but there is a heap of back stabbing among various boards in a struggle to be the premier koi / pond board. Koishack is by far very knowledgeable and does not get involved in squabbles with other boards, and the majority of foks on that board are those that got fed up with the other boards and left and they started that koishack board.
Read, read and read some more, do not buy any equipment or dig any holes until yu run your thoughts past the forum. They wiol not steer you worng. YOu cna spend a heap of money and not get anyhting that is even close to being right but still have a resemblence of a pond, which will be a BIG headache to keep right. Trust me a improperly designed and equipped pond is about as bad as it gets. No enjoyment looking at green water sick fish and a heap of other associated problems and a never ending need to clean and clean again filters. I am into koi and ponds myself, and raise koi, and fancy goldfish types but I only fool with mud ponds....koi does especially well in a mud pond as compared to a liner or preform pond. Two different ball games and each has its own sets of problems. Of course most times my fish are not all that visible since my water is not gin clear like in a liner pond, but my fish usually do better as its a natural type pond they are in....and I do nothave problems associated with water quality and such. Natural ponds for the mostb part are self sustaining and do fine if properly built.
There is a bunch of different ways to filter water, and lots of ways that can be home brewed and still look presentable. Depth is necessary for freezing coinditions so there is a free space thats not frozen, plus water stays cooler, and also deeper water is a koi's safety net, as it gives the fish a chance toget out of the reach of predators, which yu can pretty wellguarantee yu will have come visit justas soon as you plac eyur koi in that pond. Makes no difference where you live at either, in the country or heart of the city, in the north east or south or west, your gonna have predators visit.
Whatever yu do do not get wrappe dup with a pond and then get told to add gravel init on the bottom or add big rocks here and there inside the pond as your only looking for problems with injured koi.....There is a company thats promoting gravel bottom or large rocks inthe liner type ponds and it amounts to a cess pool in short order or an never ending job keeping dtrius and mulm cleaned out. Their selling point is cheap built pond, and then they get folks with a maintenance contract. Nothing shuld go in a pond other than fish and water. Plants are also bad in a way., They are nice but yu can count on koi messing with them, but its pretty well a hassle to keep them out of the plants. There is a big difference in a pond built for "water gardening" and a pond built for "koi keeping". Koi do get huge, so you may want to consider some wakin or other fancy goldfish. Much easier to keep. Shubunkins, comets sarassa, veiltails, wakins are all nice species of goldfish that look fine in any pond and are also a lot less trouble. While a 10 x 15 x 3 may sound laarge now and haing a few koi in it seems fine, it will not take long before those koin are too large for that size pond and inundate the filters. But you can easily keep a lot more goldies in that same sized pond without a problem.
