After they had left it was now down to me, so on to the filters it was, the large filter is best part of 18ft long and is split into two bays of 1m wide and around 1.15 deep. All in all this filter alone will hold around 2300 gallons of water along with 25 sheets of jap matting and 300ltrs of K3 and K1 aerated by an Airtech 120.

There's another one of these working on the same principal on the other side of the room which is 14ft long.

The 2 pipes you see in the photos are transfer ports, each 4" wide which will have bends on both ends. The 90 degree bends on the left hand side will be facing the back wall, this ensures that the water is flowing to the next chamber smoothly and allows the K3 to do it's job. The filter will be split down on the bio with metal sheeting to keep the K3 in place.

The window frame and lintle are now in place. Not your ordinary lintle on this one though as after 3 attempts at making one long enough and straight, the company gave up and supplied a 4", 10mm thick steel right angle instead, how heavy was that at 3600mm!!

On the 23rd of September we had a phone call that resulted in the pond build being put on hold for at least 6 months, the conservatory company couldn’t do the job. This meant that there was no point in having it rendered as this would only be ruined by the winter weather, and whilst we could have had it rendered and then fibreglassed and thus filled, trying to put the conservatory up with the pond full of fish and water would be a nightmare, so, the decision was made to hold off over winter and start again in the spring, how annoying!

March 31st 2009 – The footings have now been laid by the builders in preparation for the dwarf wall for the conservatory; once again things feel like their moving in the right direction. We decided to have some decorative panels built into the walls to compliment the matching ones on the other side of the house.

April 4th – Not only my daughter’s birthday but also the day that Sally decided she wanted another window in the pond, this brings it up to 3 in total with this new addition being the same as the one on the gym room face at 1.5 x .6m. This window had been discussed previously and ruled out as ‘just more money’, but once  the walls for the conservatory were up and we saw how much room we had on that side, we realised we could fit a sofa in there and thus a window would make sense. So, a quick phone call to Dave @ Coastal Koi and a few hours later a new frame arrived for fitting over the next couple of days! It had to be done before Monday the 6th as that was the date the brickies had said they would get onto the facing brick work!

The 22nd of April saw some major changes start to take place, the conservatory was finally going up!

It went up quite quickly all in all with all the frame, most of the roof and alot of the glass being in by end of play on the 24th and by the end of the week all was done and finished.

The 30th saw the first visit of Dave Arnold the master fibreglasser with his trusty side kick Al, they started on the filter bays due to them being the first bits that were actually ready to be dealt with and cracked on.

The 15th of May saw Dave and Al descend once more to start on the pond, on this visit (which was to span a few days) they laid up the insulation boards which were now being used instead of having it rendered. This option made the whole ‘pre-fibreglass’ stage far quicker than rendering and also gave the added benefit of the insulating factors. Once the insulation boards were in place it was time for some fibreglass matting, i have to say i didn’t envy the guys working that pond.

The temperatures were near 40 degrees, the smell of the fumes was awesome and all in all it looked like hard work lol.

The pond was fibreglassed using a 600grm matt and finished with a black flow coat, the finished result looks terrific and both Sally and I would recommend Dave to anyone for his great work and fantastic sense of humour. As a side note, and with this being the third pond we’ve had fibreglassed, I had less to do on this pond in the way of sanding out nibs and sharp bits in the finish than on any of the others, considering this is by far the biggest pond we’ve had done by some 4 or 5 times, that says alot about the quality of Daves workmanship.

The next few weeks saw us laying flooring joists and boards whilst we waited for the specially made glass to arrive for the windows, those 9” x 2” joists weigh loads!

The 3rd of June saw the windows arrive and with big windows you need people to help lift them, so with Dave Pope, Dave and Kate from Coastal Koi, Dave Arnold (yes it got confusing with all the Daves) Little Al and myself, we set about lifting and fixing the 3 rather heavy bits of glass.

The next few weeks saw more hardcore being tipped in behind the pond wall that faces the back wall of the conservatory, the wall being plaster boarded and plastered, a shalf being created and the polished porcelain tiles being placed as capping tiles around the pond top.

On the 18th of June 2009, the time had come and the tap got turned on and it ran and ran, constantly until the 25th when due to some small leaks around the tops of the window frames it had to be turned off and some water diverted to the filters to drop the level of the pond, once the stand pipes to the filters were pulled we lost around 18” of water off the pond level – seriously big filters lol

It took nearly another month to get the little leaks sorted, the pond refilled and everything running, but on the 17th of July some fish went in – finally!