Most koi ponds are something you look down into. Cap'n Brien Spina, CEO of Off The Hook Comedy Club, built one you look straight into. Brien's raised concrete koi pond sits right beside the swimming pool, with four viewing windows and a bar top where guests can pull up a seat and watch the koi swim by.
Skip ahead to explore Brien's pond in 3D
A raised koi pond beside the pool
The pond is a raised concrete shell set between the pool deck and the fence line, and it goes deep. Glass mosaic tile wraps the pillars between the windows, pale stone caps the walls, and a stainless steel shower filter stands on the back wall, spilling clean water back into the pond.
The windows are the point. From the pool deck you see the koi from the side, at eye level, the way you would in an aquarium. With four windows, there is more than one angle to watch from, and a koi pond that usually only shows you the backs of the fish shows you all of them.
A seat at the koi bar
Along one side of the pond runs a bar top, with stool pedestals finished in the same glass mosaic tile as the window pillars. It turns the pond into the spot where people gather: a drink in hand, koi drifting past a few feet away. For someone who runs a comedy club, building a pond around a bar makes a lot of sense.
How the pond was built
A raised pond with windows is a masonry job from the ground up. Brien's crew formed the walls, sprayed concrete over rebar for the shell and floor, and set two bottom drains in the floor. The clear acrylic panels went into the walls during the build, still wrapped in their orange protective film.
Want windows without custom acrylic work? Our Pond Portals koi viewing windows are built to set into a block or poured concrete wall, and you can see two more window ponds in Leo's raised pond in El Paso and Kevin Tran's indoor/outdoor pond.
Why the water is clear enough to show off
A viewing window hides nothing. Every bit of floating debris and every cloudy day shows up in the glass, so a raised pond with windows needs filtration that strips out the fine stuff, not just the leaves. Here is how Brien's system moves the water:
- Bottom drains. Two Aquadyne Rhino II 4-inch bottom drains with air diffusers pull waste off the floor before it can settle.
- Drum filter. The drain water runs to a FREE 30 rotary drum filter, which screens out solids and rinses its own screen. Brien added the FreeDrum IoT Box and the FreeDrum Auxiliary Relay Box to monitor and control it.
- Pump. A PerformancePro Artesian2 Low RPM 1/2 HP pump (MPN A2-1/2-76-C) moves the clean water. Low RPM pumps run quietly and cheaply around the clock, which is exactly what a koi pond asks of a pump.
- Biological filtration. The pump lifts the water into a stainless steel FREE Drum shower filter (FS150) packed with Seaside Aquatics Bio House ceramic media. Water rains down through the trays, the bacteria on the media break down fish waste, and the shower's weir spills the water back into the pond.
- Skimmer. A Savio Standard Skimmerfilter with the 16-inch weir faceplate and the Savio external pump kit takes floating debris off the surface.
- Aeration. A Hakko 80LH air pump feeds the drains' diffusers through a Matala 1/2-inch 3-valve heavy duty air manifold, so each line can be balanced.
- Top-off water. A Savio mechanical auto fill valve keeps the level steady, and the fill water runs through a 30-inch Evolution Aqua Detox dechlorinator first, because chlorinated tap water harms koi.
Interested in bottom drains for your own pond? Read Play It Koi's Complete Bottom Drain Buyer's Guide to learn about sizing, types and installation.
Curious about the FREE 30 drum filter Brien chose? Explore our Complete Rotary Drum Filter Guide, our review of every RDF model and our RDF installation tips. For the rest of the system, see the koi pond pump guide and the pond aeration guide.
See it for yourself
Brien's pond is a great example of what a raised pond can be when the koi are the centerpiece of the yard, and we are glad our equipment is part of it. Thanks to Brien for letting us share it.
Brien's pond at a glance
- Owner: Cap'n Brien Spina, CEO of Off The Hook Comedy Club
- Style: deep, raised concrete koi pond beside a swimming pool
- Viewing: four acrylic viewing windows and a bar top for watching the koi
- Finish: glass mosaic tile and stone coping
- Filtration: two bottom drains and a skimmer, a FREE 30 rotary drum filter, and a stainless FREE Drum shower filter with ceramic media
- Pump: PerformancePro Artesian2 Low RPM 1/2 HP
- Aeration: Hakko 80LH air pump with a 3-valve manifold
- Top-off: Savio auto fill valve fed through an inline dechlorinator
Equipment list
- FREE 30 drum filter, with the FreeDrum IoT Box and FreeDrum Auxiliary Relay Box
- PerformancePro Artesian2 Low RPM 1/2 HP pump with 115 V 8 ft cord (MPN A2-1/2-76-C)
- Stainless steel FREE Drum shower filter FS150 (weir)
- Seaside Aquatics Bio House ceramic media
- 2 Aquadyne Rhino II 4-inch bottom drains with air diffusers
- Savio Standard Skimmerfilter, with the Savio external pump kit (K1002) and the 16-inch weir faceplate assembly
- Hakko 80LH air pump
- Matala 1/2-inch 3-valve heavy duty air manifold
- Savio mechanical auto fill valve kit
- Evolution Aqua Detox 30-inch inline dechlorinator
- Four custom acrylic viewing windows
Plan a pond like Brien's
We rebuilt a version of Brien's pond in our free Pond Planner: a 15-by-6.5-foot rectangle with poured concrete walls 3 feet 4 inches above the ground, 6 feet of water and about 4,400 gallons, with four viewing windows (one 32 by 80 inches and three 24 by 48 inches), two bottom drains, a skimmer, a FREE drum filter and a stainless shower filter. We sized it from Brien's photos, so the numbers are close rather than exact. Open Brien's pond in the Pond Planner to walk around it in 3D, follow the plumbing in 2D and see every part on the build list, then start a plan of your own.
Where Brien's exact parts are out of stock or the planner sizes things a little differently, the plan uses the closest match we carry today: a FREE 60 drum for the FREE 30, an FS100 shower for the FS150, ArtesianPro Low RPM pumps for the Artesian2, a Hakko 100L air pump for the 80LH, and Pond Portals windows for the custom acrylic panels. The planner also adds an AlphaONE bead filter as a second biological stage and a 75-watt UV on a bypass. Brien's shower filter does the biological work on its own.