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EMKC Visit to Cambridge

The 13th September saw 17 of our members heading south on a coach for the return visit to the Cambridge Koi Club. It was a long journey but the members took along strong refreshments to ease the way. 5 members made their own way across country and met up with us at Huntingdon.

Pond 1 - First port of call was to Dave Pope’s home in Earith to see his array of award winning Koi.

Dave’s set-up consists of a block built formal pond of 7,500 gallons with a purpose built multi chamber filter with Jap matting, 500 litres of K1 and a 4 tier bacti shower filter. Dave also has a growing on pond of 2 thousand gallons filtered by a Nexus 200. Both ponds are heated by the house central heating boiler.

Dave Pope's Pond 

Pond 2 - Next up was Steve & Cherry Gibsons beautiful informal pond in a fantastic landscaped setting. Built in 2007/2008, this 14½ thousand gallon pond is block built and concrete backfilled. The pond has been fibre glassed and is 7 foot at its deepest point. Steve told me that he built the foundations for the incredible waterfall separately from the pond because of the weight of the weathered limestone may have pulled the pond apart. Filtration is courtesy of garibourne filters with a vortex and Jap matting as the media. Water circulation is by Aquamax 15 pumps.

Steve & Cherry Gibsons Pond 

Pond 3 - Back on the coach heading east to a beautifully renovated farmhouse that is the home of Iain and Sally where the pond house is something to be seen. 

Situated on the side of the farmhouse, the pond is enclosed in a purpose built conservatory. The pond itself is of formal design and at 7½ foot deep and containing 19 thousand gallons of water, this is the biggest pond of our tour. The pond has only been up and running for 8 weeks so it is yet to reach maturity. Located in the farm building is the filter room which contains 2 separate block built multi chamber filters with a settlement chamber, Jap matting and K3 (with a bit of K1 thrown in for good measure) each side of the room. Added to this, there are 2 skimmers each with their own Ultra Sieve III and Aquamax 16k pump.

A fine lunch was put on by Sally (with the help of their 2 children) and Cake was definitely the order of the day. Some of us even sneaked a look at the Italian F1 grand prix on tv too. Happy days.

The Grand Prix 

Pond 4 - Onward to Wisbech for a look at the pond owned by Rob & Jan Jacks. Although this is the smallest of the ponds on our visit (2¾ thousand gallons), this pond ticks all the boxes and shows that small is good in the right setting.

The pond is brick built and fibre glassed and home to some fine looking fish. With the Clover Leaf quad filter working away, water clarity is excellent.

Rob and Jan are keen gardeners and that is reflected in the Japanese themed landscaped garden.

Rob and Jan Jacks Pond 

Pond 5 - Our final pond took us to Holbeach St Johns in Spalding and to the home of Nigel and Janet Rouse.

Nigel & Janet’s pond is a traditional informal pond set at ground level. At 4 thousand gallons it is bigger than it first looks and home to 15 Koi. Filtration is courtesy of an Aqua-max submersible pump and 2 multi-chamber filters containing brushes and jap matting. The filters are hidden behind shrubs to the rear of the pond.

Nigel and Janet Rouse's Pond 

Nigel and Janet also hosted the superb evening buffet with an incredible raffle that should have guaranteed that everyone went home with a raffle prize. However, as usual the same faces kept having their tickets drawn out with our very own Simon Nourse walking away with 5 prizes and turning down 2 others (jammy git). Well he did buy £20 worth of tickets. (Lol.)

There then followed a short speech from the chairman of Cambridge Koi Club, Dave Pope thanking EMKC for coming and Daz responded on behalf of our club thanking our hosts for opening their ponds and making us so welcome. Everyone agreed that the day had been a fantastic success and despite not being the warmest of days it didn’t rain while we were pond side.