What to do with that pool (money pit) in the yard?

[LFMc]

Have a pool you don't want or the house you want to buy has a pool you don't need? 

This happened to me in 2012. I found the home I REALLY wanted, but it had a very nice 12,000 gallon pool I didn't want. We put up with it for about two years and got tired of the algae, chemicals, water bills, electric bills, cleaning and for what? No one hardly ever went swimming in it. Plus with all the trees it was shaded, too cool and was a leaf magnet. Then I found out it was going to be $6k to $8k to remove it as it was pretty much unreachable with heavy equipment. So we decided to unplug it and see what happened. No more chemicals, no added water, no cleaning. About a month later we threw in some bait minnows and they loved it. So, we started on a very interesting project. 

Now we have a beautiful 12,000 gallon pond in our yard. The conversion was pretty straight forward. I added a 250 gallon bog filter to it with landscaping bricks and a rubber liner. It provided a wonderful place for many water plants, a very nice laminar waterfall and gives us all the filtering we need.

Then I added about 100 Koi to it that I got for free on Craigslist from other pond owners. I just ran a want ad and said we'd come and rescue any Koi in your pond you didn't want. I was surprised how quickly we got that many Koi including about 15 very large ones, 18" to 24". 

I ripped out the old pool pumps & filters and sold them to finance most everything I did. I use low energy submerged pumps 2-3,000 gph (about $50 ea.) that use about 3-5% of the original pool pumps power. I dump most of my roof water run off into it which I calculated to be about 15-20k gallons per year saved and reused.  I bought and use a 270 gallon IBC tank ($30) as a settling chamber from the bottom of the pond pickup. I now use the pond water to fuel my toilets, but the wife still will not go for using it to shower.? So my water bill is much lower. During the winter (with no irrigation) we use less than 30 gallons a day, total. I would like to use the pond to water the yard, but that is a later project.  I also built from PVC, two 55w UV lights and a ballast a UV filter to clarify the water in the spring. It is not necessary, but it is nice to have clear water to better see the fish. 

We also get about 30 gallons of pond sludge to fertilize the entire yard per year.  I vacuum it about twice a year so it's a lot less maintenance compared to a pool also. The fish can live on the algae and plants growing in the pond, but I supplement their diet during the warm months with some fish food. During the winter they don't eat and they pretty much stay on the bottom.  

Of course it is all run with my ISY and insteon outdoor switches. 

Advantages: Great place to hang out, low maintenance, attracts raccoons, ducks, herons, possums, dragonflies, damselflies and a noticeable reduction in mosquitoes. Significant savings on electricity, water and yard fertilizer. What is really interesting is the pond water with it's algae/bacteria actually cleans the toilet, so no ring around the bowl. I never would have believed that. 

LMK if you have any questions.