How deep should your first pond be?

Your first pond is a great place to start.  Too often I am told within the first couple of months that "My pond is too small and I would really like to expand."  It takes just as much effort to expand a pond as it does to build a little larger one in the beginning.

Think about this.  You already purchased the pump, filters, lights, liner, and worked on digging the hole for the pond.  If you only went a foot deeper or a foot longer, how much does it really cost you?  In fact, at A Touch of Class, we look at the cost as one of our important factors of how large your pond should be.  We talk about he size of our ponds.  Length and width are important parts of the sizing, but we must consider depth as well.

It would be uncommon to see a pond having a size of 4' in width by 6' in length by 4' in depth.  But, in fact, depth does affect the size of the pond.  My words of wisdom and recommendations are these points:

• Know and follow local depth building codes for your pond (if any)

• Size the pond by including the depth of the pond.  Here is a chart I created:
        - Below 100 sq. ft. - 2' 6" depth
        - 100 sq. ft. - 200 sq. ft. - 3' depth
        - 200 sq. ft. - 300 sq. ft. - 3' 6" depth
        - Over 300 sq. ft. - go deeper

• What type of fish and plants are involved?  Koi would like 3' or more in depth while fancy gold fish can adapt at 2' in depth in most situations.

• Climate - You must think about temperature when deciding the depth of your pond.  In the South, it could be so hot that it would warm the water too much.  In the North, you much think about ice build up for over wintering the fish.  So I always say, the deeper the pond the better.

• Predators - The deeper the pond, the harder it is for predators to get at your fish, even birds.

• Shelving - With smaller and shallower ponds, the less shelves and plant material you are able to place.  Special features can be created in larger and deeper ponds.  Larger stones can be used creating unique areas.

• Shadowing - Depth is very important to create shadowing in the pond to make it look as natural as possible.