I built my first garden pond in 1972, in the days when only a handful of people in the UK had ever heard of Koi, let alone seen them. In those days it was a shallow, waterproofed indentation in the ground with plants, water and a fountain. It was a few months later before I saw my first Koi!

It’s really not good enough writing, advising and lecturing about ‘proper’ Koi ponds unless you have one of your own, and here’s mine.

I designed this system one evening in 1991 and the original design was followed to the letter despite the fact that excavation commenced in mid 1991 but it was not to be until September 1999 when the pond started up for the first time.

Throughout this section of my site I will be covering all the aspects of Koi pond design and build methods and I will be referring to all of these in great detail. They are, however, based on the best way to go and, believe me, there is only one BEST way to go – everything else is merely a compromise and I am not best known for compromise in any aspect of Koi pond design.

If one makes a comparison between a Koi pond system and a house then filter system is obviously the ‘lavatory of the pond’. Whilst many still state that the origins of our modern day lavatories were first described in the mid 1500’s, there can be no doubt that it was a certain Thomas Crapper who later developed the original ideas and then promoted them to UK and the world then followed.

(Some of this is continued from 'Filter Boxes' on the previous page but in greater detail.)

Whilst the information on this page is aimed at our biological stages of the filter boxes rather than the mechanical stages, some of it will ‘overlap’ naturally. However, I am trying to outline here how best to harness and pass ‘ammonia-rich’ water produced by our Koi over ‘surfaces’ that are positioned and contained within our boxes.

There are other vital items required in designing and producing the perfect pond apart from the filtration system and the pond base and drain/s. Here are the ones we will always need, there are multitudes of ‘others’ advertised and promoted to the beginner but you will not find them on this page and I have valid reasons for NOT including them because simplicity is the real key to a perfect system.

If you're looking for a list of items to avoid at all costs when selecting a ready-made filtration system for your pond, then take a look at these enclosed Koi pond filtration systems below. All these and more are on offer today in 2009 and don’t they all look positively shiny, colourful and impressive?