Aquatic By Design
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Koi in a stone-edged pool beside a shingle-style shop and garden terrace at sunsetConcept rendering

Mattituck · North Fork of Long Island

A living koi sanctuary, filtered by moss.

Aquatic By Design is a Long Island koi farm built around display pools you can walk through. The water is kept clear by willow moss and planted bogs, not a wall of plastic filters.

Join the opening listSee the koi

Opening soonBy appointment during build-out

Three things, one ecosystem

What we're building

Red-and-white, tri-colour and gold koi swimming in a clear, stone-bottomed pondConcept rendering

Japanese koi

Kohaku, Showa, Sanke and more, to be quarantined on site and chosen at the pool edge, by appointment.

See the koi
Terraced koi pools and waterfalls among hydrangeas, with visitors on a garden path at sunsetConcept rendering

The sanctuary

Display pools designed as a place to slow down: stone, moss, water, and some very large fish.

Explore the sanctuary
Escargot snails on fresh greens in raised beds inside a timber-and-glass growing house, with shelving racks behindConcept rendering

Farm escargot

Gros Gris snails raised in a sealed snail house and fed greens grown from the pools' own filter.

About our escargot
Moss-lined stone channels stepping down into a koi poolConcept rendering
Moss-lined filtration channels

The system

Water one way, nutrients the other

Fish waste becomes plant food. Our pools push water through a settlement chamber, then across runs of native willow moss (Fontinalis antipyretica) and a planted gravel bog, where bacteria and plants strip out ammonia and nitrate before it falls back into the pool.

What the filter grows gets trimmed, washed, and fed to our snails, which live in their own sealed building.

Read the full filtration breakdown
Aquatic By Design water and nutrient loopWater flows from the koi display pool through a settlement chamber and a willow-moss and bog-plant filter, then returns by waterfall. Trimmed moss and bog greens are fed to escargot raised in a separate sealed snail house.Koi display poolbottom drain · skimmerSettlement +mechanicalsolids out firstWillow-moss runs+ gravel bognitrifying biofilm · uptakeWaterfallreturn + aerationSealed snail houseescargot · no pond waterclean water returns by gravitytrimmed moss + greens (washed)
Water loop (solid) and nutrient loop (dashed). Snails eat what the filter grows, but they never share the koi water.

Why "by design"

Engineered first, then made beautiful

The pools, the fish in them, the moss that cleans them and the paths around them are planned as one system, each sized to the others. That is the design.

  • Designed pools

    Built for fish health first: bottom drains, proper depth, turnover sized to the stocking load.

  • Designed balance

    Stocking, feeding and filter area are calculated together, not guessed at.

  • Designed to be visited

    Paths, viewing edges and quiet corners, because a koi farm should be a place people want to be.

A staff member talking with two visitors at the edge of a koi poolConcept rendering

Chosen in person, not from a photo

When we open, koi are picked at the pool edge after you've seen them swim, and we'll talk you through each one.

By appointment during build-out. Public hours will be posted once the sanctuary opens.

Plan a Visit

Join the opening list

Follow the farm as it takes shape: one note when we open, and occasional word from the build in between.

One email when we open, occasional updates after. No sharing.