The Cupertino Courier
Cover Story
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Deepa Unnikrishnan tosses bits of bread to the koi and goldfish in her backyard pond. She and her husband, Srinath, watch the fish to relax.
Paradise Found
Koi ponds and waterfalls bring a peaceful feel to area yards
By Joanne Griffith Domingue
Srinath Unnikrishnan and Chuck Cottam both know no matter how busy their day, no matter how heavy the traffic they encounter coming home, there is a quiet, peaceful spot waiting for them in their back yards.
Unnikrishnan and Cottam both have a koi pond and waterfall, surrounded by flowers, moss and cool stones.
Unnikrishnan comes home to Cupertino and heads for his pond. He doesn't read there. He does "enough of that at work." He just unwinds. "The best part is the relaxing sound of the water," said his wife, Deepa Menon. It is "so peaceful. It has become a focal point of our life."
Cottam, a longtime Sunnyvale resident, feels the same. His pond is "so restful. I come back from a hard day, and this helps," he said. "I love waterfalls."
Garden water features are increasingly popular in area back yards. "They are definitely catching on," said Mel Bretzke, of the San Jose-based Advanced Landscape Systems, which designs and builds ponds. "They create a nice, relaxing atmosphere. People are sticking around home more and like the setting."
The Santa Clara Valley Koi and Water Garden Club hosts its 15th annual pond tour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Six ponds will be featured on the tour, including Unnikrishnan's and Menon's Cupertino pond. Cottam's pond was showcased on last year's tour. Cottam and Bretzke both are docents for the pond tour.
Pond planning
After Unnikrishnan and Menon moved into their home in Cupertino, "the first thing we did was put in the pond," Menon said. When they were house-hunting this past winter, they had two requirements: to be in the Cupertino School District and to have a yard big enough for a koi pond and waterfall.
They moved in March 15. On March 16, work began on the pond.
They love fish and ponds. Menon grew up in Southern India, where "water plants and water lilies are very common."
In their first apartment, Menon and Unnikrishnan had an aquarium. When they moved into their first house, they put in a pond, a 150-gallon preformed pond from Home Depot. It rained a lot that winter, "and the whole thing popped out" of the ground, Unnikrishnan said. Raccoons ate all their fish.
"They left the tails and fins ... but the plants were toppled over, and the lilies completely uprooted," Menon said.
The couple didn't give up. They went on the Koi and Water Garden Pond Tour. They learned about pond designers and hired one who built them a larger, permanent pond--about 1,000 gallons--that included a waterfall. It was deeper. The raccoons couldn't get the fish. There was no shelf on which they could perch to scoop them out of the pond.
Five years later, when they were selling their home, a prospective buyer walked through the house, saw the pond and fell in love. "The pond sold the house," Unnikrishnan said.
Their current pond took about six weeks to complete. It was finished before their housewarming in May. The home is on a busy corner, just a block from De Anza Boulevard. But the road noise? "Now you hardly hear it," Menon said. Instead you hear the soothing sounds of a gentle waterfall that flows into the koi pond.
A rope hammock swing hangs in a corner behind the pond. It's always shady back there, and you still hear the water, Menon said.
They have about 30 fish in their pond: eight koi and the rest goldfish. They paid between $15 and $40 each for the small koi. Unnikrishnan walked up to the pond with a bag of fish-food pellets. The fish all swam to the edge of the pond in front of him. He tossed in a handful of food, and the water churned with the frenzied feeding.
Bretzke designed and installed Unnikrishnan's and Menon's pond. They tried to hurry him. He said, " 'Let me take my time and do a good job,' " Menon said. He wanted to put their pond on the pond tour.
Bretzke likes creating ponds that look natural and have simple maintenance. He wants a pond to add enjoyment for people without making them slaves to pond care. Bretzke hand-selected the stones for the edge of the pond and the waterfall, some still with their moss on them. They are set with small stones that conceal the mortar, lending a natural look to the pond.
Fish and sticks
Cottam, who also designs and builds ponds and waterfalls, wanted some specimen koi for his own pond. But the dealer wouldn't sell him the fish. His pond was too small. "You build a bigger pond," the dealer told Cottam, "and I'll sell you the fish."
So, he did. His new fishpond is as deep and as large as a swimming pool, and the water is as clear. The 8,000-gallon 7-foot-deep pool showcases his 12 koi, all 24-36 inches in length. One is as orange as a pumpkin. The scales on a creamy white fish sparkle like sequins in the sun. The golden-yellow alpha fish cost Cottam $1,500.
He has trellis arbors on three sides of the pond with a large waterfall cascading in from one side. The trellises keep blue heron and egrets from eating Cottam's koi. His pond is also too deep for raccoons. But without the trellises on three sides, the birds would be a problem. They can swallow a 12- to 15-inch koi whole. "That's 500 bucks," Cottam said. The birds need a certain amount of space to take off, and the trellis hems them in too much, Cottam said.
The koi know Cottam. In the morning they hear him opening his slider as he heads out to the pond with fish food. They spread out like a fan, waiting for their food. He tosses in handfuls. The koi slurp as they eat.
Cottam's business, C.M. Ponds & Stuff, is to design and build ponds. Cottam built his first pond in this same back yard more than 40 years ago where the waterfall is now. He was 16. His dad said it was OK, as long as he didn't have to do anything. Cottam put in a 2-foot-deep pond, thinking that was really deep. A week later the water turned green.
When Cottam went into the service, his dad had to maintain the pond. At one point the concrete cracked, and the senior Cottam repaired it with a fiberglass cloth that he put over the concrete. That lasted another 15 years.
After the service Cottam spent 20 years as an air traffic controller. He joined the Sacramento koi club. He retired in 1990 and came back to Sunnyvale to his boyhood home. When his father died, his mother went into the back yard to watch the fish, but she couldn't see them through the green water.
So Cottam took out the concrete and put in a fiberglass shell and a filtration system. That was the beginning of his pond design-and-build business. This pond worked until he wanted bigger koi. That led him to his current pond.
While he was building this pond in 2005, he kept his fish in a blow-up swimming pool. His three cats "freaked out," he said. They walked around the edge of the pool until one slipped and nearly fell in. That took care of the cat threat.
His koi are not insured. "They are pets," Cottam said. "I haven't lost a fish in 20 years."
Currently, Cottam is working on a project for a client for a 35,000-gallon pond, with an island and $10,000 worth of fish. Cottam charges $7 per gallon for his work, which includes the rock, excavation and permits.
"Ponds are becoming big business," Cottam said. And the koi are a design element of the business: "How many fish do you want in your pond?"
You can buy 5- to 8-inch koi for about $50 to $80 each if you just want fish in your back yard. Enthusiasts start with the small fish, Cottam said. Then they go for the $200-$300 fish, then for the $1,000 specimens.
Most ponds Cottam builds are 4,000 to 6,000 gallons. The average size when he started in the business was 3,000 gallons. "But that's not terribly big," he said. Now people want more koi. They can only grow so big in 3,000 gallons. "So I'm getting call-backs. 'Can you make my pond bigger?'" After a certain size and depth, ponds are subject to the same safety requirements as swimming pools.
The oldest koi on record lived to be 226 years old in Japan. It is not uncommon in Japan for koi to live 100 to 150 years, Cottam said. "They are more than pets. They are part of the family."
