This 1650 gallon growing on pond was built during early 2008 as what Iain describes as a complete bonus. When he and Sally bought their new property in the middle of the fens the land that came with the house allowed Sally to have the greenhouse she’d wanted for some time.

Having looked around it was decided that, due to the cost of greenhouses, a 16ft model would be more than enough, that's until Iain’s dad advised him of a 34ft house that just needed dismantling and collecting for a very good price, the deal was done and the job of moving it started.

This extra size gave Iain an idea, why not put a small pond at one end, no wind chill to fight against, free heating in the summer and a dry location to enjoy the fish!!

The pond was dug and the bases for both the pond and greenhouse were laid, Iain comments that he would have liked to go a bit deeper but the very high water table at the time of construction prohibited this.

The pond was constructed using 4” solid concrete blocks laid on edge, with the bottom 3 being back filled or extra support, the final finish was acheived with the pond being foam lined and fibreglassed. The pond is filtered using a Nexus Eazy 200 which is fed via a Richdon Koi 4” bottom drain, both the drain and the Nexus receive 40ltrs of air a minute via 2 Airtech 40 air pumps.

So far the free heating idea has been proved to work very well with the pond keeping a stable temperature of over 23 degrees and a maximum temperature achieved of over 30 degrees, the fish certainly like their food at these temperatures and the growth being achieved is superb.

To see some pictures of the build as it progressed, please click here.