Lessons Learned

• Don't make adjustments to the pond pump, filter, amount of water flow, etc. in the last day or two leading up to a vacation, because it is guaranteed to wreak havoc and require a midnight pond rebuild before your trip to Europe.
• Don't ever fill your pond with a submerged hose that has any sort of pressure on it. I did that, and caused a horrendous death to five of my large koi. Basically it causes them to have something akin to the bends.
• Pursuant to the above, when you have to dispose of 100+ pounds of dead fish, keep in mind that the city of Dallas' trash crew is a sensitive lot, and if it "smells too bad" they will refuse to pick it up. Seriously.
• 100 pounds of dead fish smell really bad.
• When building a waterfall or any other elevated structure, keep in mind that dirt compacts forever... put some concrete or other substantial formation under it so that it will keep its height
• When you're re-filling the pond, always remove the hose from the pond. We accidentally left the hose in the pond, with just a trickle of city water coming out, and burned our poor fish
• When your fish are jumping about, there's something wrong! Check it out immediately!
• Always have chlorine removing chemicals and test kits available. It's no fun to go to all-night Wal-Marts and Home Depots hoping to find test kits at 3am after the jumping koi have awakened you.
• Always have lots of cheerios so that people can feed your koi something they love.
• Don't put mosquito fish in your koi pond -- completely unnecessary, they breed like rabbits, and you can never get them all out.
• Put your bottom drain ALMOST at the bottom, not quite... I know that's not recommended, but it saved our bacon many times. That way, if the pond empties out, there's still some water for the poor fish.
• A ton of rocks is really not that much
• Make your pond as big as you possibly can. Bigger is better in this instance.