What to do with un-natural water feature

Hi all,

I am getting a place that has a roughly 5x4 koi pond on the back with tiny waterfall from a natural stone ledge etc. and a water pump that runs 24/7. I want to convert this into a natural space if possible but I am unsure of what to do with this space. I was considering a bog garden since a poly liner is already buried there. How else can I convert this or should I pull the entire thing up to get the liner out of there?
Thanks for your advice and I hope you are all well!

Would it suit an aquaponics setup perhaps?

I was in a similar situation and was seriously shocked at the amount of electricity it used. We couldn't turn the pump off, as then it would overflow as depending on the design, it would need a reservoir for the circulating water. If the sun hit it, the evaporation was huge and risked damaging the pump if we weren't watching it.

Eventually, I decided to just ignore it and see what would happen. Local ducks brought duckweed (a Lemna species) which brought frogs who controlled the mosquitoes. I have domestic ducks, so when the Lemna gets too thick, I harvest it for the ducks (Quack Coc___n). This helps to remove enough of the organic load that we have not had any issues with algae blooms.

If I was doing this again, I would look for useful plants that would like the pond, such as cattails, or if you're warm enough, Lotus Root is edible and wonderful.

Because it's not natural, I do have to top of the water depending on the weather. When I'm not so busy, I try to save barrels of rain-water for the job as our well water is high calcium. I would be less happy if I had to use chlorinated water.

Depending what the liner is actually made of, they have to be inert enough not to kill the fish, so continuing to use it is likely not any worse an environmental thing than sending it to the land-fill, in my opinion.

If you were able to plant bog/swamp/cattail/rushes and have an overflow system to somewhere useful, it could be the start of a stealth grey water system.

Nancy Reading wrote:Would it suit an aquaponics setup perhaps?

That's a really good idea I hadn't considered. My only concern is if I have to run a pump but Im not sure that I would need to. Thanks for the suggestion!

Jay Angler wrote:I was in a similar situation and was seriously shocked at the amount of electricity it used. We couldn't turn the pump off, as then it would overflow as depending on the design, it would need a reservoir for the circulating water. If the sun hit it, the evaporation was huge and risked damaging the pump if we weren't watching it.

Eventually, I decided to just ignore it and see what would happen. Local ducks brought duckweed (a Lemna species) which brought frogs who controlled the mosquitoes. I have domestic ducks, so when the Lemna gets too thick, I harvest it for the ducks (Quack Coc___n). This helps to remove enough of the organic load that we have not had any issues with algae blooms.

If I was doing this again, I would look for useful plants that would like the pond, such as cattails, or if you're warm enough, Lotus Root is edible and wonderful.

Because it's not natural, I do have to top of the water depending on the weather. When I'm not so busy, I try to save barrels of rain-water for the job as our well water is high calcium. I would be less happy if I had to use chlorinated water.

Depending what the liner is actually made of, they have to be inert enough not to kill the fish, so continuing to use it is likely not any worse an environmental thing than sending it to the land-fill, in my opinion.

If you were able to plant bog/swamp/cattail/rushes and have an overflow system to somewhere useful, it could be the start of a stealth grey water system.

I never even thought of just turning the pump off and letting nature reclaim it as a natural space. I could certainly help it along with some plants and a bit of runoff or drainage. A grey water system would be ideal. The reason I was thinking bog vs pond garden or rain garden is that it has a high stone wall on the back and whoever installed it put it next to a non-permeable patio they also put in and it's fairly close to the house so I worry about overfill with rain. But runoff on the back would be perfect! Thanks for the suggestions and I'm glad Im not the only one who's run into this.
Now I just need to find someone to give a home to these koi...