Hi from Steve,
Now that I have a bit more time.
My fish hobby started with my Dad and grew to a room full of tanks and tropical fish. Somewhere around 1956 I bought my first Koi that went from a twenty gallon to a fifty gallon tank before one of the cats forced him onto the floor. Long stories, but suffice I learned that Koi are pond fish.
I have a different approach in as much as I have springs at my ranch and instead of designing ponds for Koi I had to make ponds to put the water that always runs to a non wasteful use.
I live in the so Ca foothills so we are not talking about a huge flow of water, but in the 36 years that I have lived here there are now 7 small ponds, the largest is shallow and about 20'X30' depending how much water I put in. In the summer it is about 15'X20 and about a foot and a half deep. In the winter I increase the depth to about 3 feet. Some of the others go as deep as six feet and I had to put windows in to see the fish. The shallow one works best for fish viewing and I have very mild Winters.
Like most people I spent a lot of time over thinking and I have a lot of filtration equipment I seldom use. I began to bio-balance my ponds after about five years of big electric bills. So the last 30 years have been far less work.
I was reading a couple of blogs and have two cents to put in. I seem to find a lot of people putting in Koi caves. Most use rock or stone. As these guys get bigger, they get rougher and tend to knock scales off on the rocks. I use three gallon or larger greenhouse black grow pots. I cut the ends off; so by increasing the number of pots you can make the cave long or short. Hold them down with a rock. They almost become invisible.
My ponds tend to last a long time, but occasionally I have the trees that line the ponds getting their roots over the banks and beginning to fill the pond for me. When this happens I move the fish and restart using the fish inch area rule, which works out to about 20 new fingerlings in my large pond and two 3 gallon pots lined up along several lily gallon pots to give them a place to hide amongst the pads. I use cattails at one area, being careful it stays contained. Its not as invasive, like bull rush, but it can cause problems if it gets going in the bank.
Decoration; I like Zen natural, but one of my kids has a hobby mold making business; so over the years these things tend to be 400 pound objects in strategic areas. LOL.
Anybody want to talk about Blue Herons, ducks, Canadian geese, mud hens, S,ea Gulls ETC?????
Now that I have a bit more time.
My fish hobby started with my Dad and grew to a room full of tanks and tropical fish. Somewhere around 1956 I bought my first Koi that went from a twenty gallon to a fifty gallon tank before one of the cats forced him onto the floor. Long stories, but suffice I learned that Koi are pond fish.
I have a different approach in as much as I have springs at my ranch and instead of designing ponds for Koi I had to make ponds to put the water that always runs to a non wasteful use.
I live in the so Ca foothills so we are not talking about a huge flow of water, but in the 36 years that I have lived here there are now 7 small ponds, the largest is shallow and about 20'X30' depending how much water I put in. In the summer it is about 15'X20 and about a foot and a half deep. In the winter I increase the depth to about 3 feet. Some of the others go as deep as six feet and I had to put windows in to see the fish. The shallow one works best for fish viewing and I have very mild Winters.
Like most people I spent a lot of time over thinking and I have a lot of filtration equipment I seldom use. I began to bio-balance my ponds after about five years of big electric bills. So the last 30 years have been far less work.
I was reading a couple of blogs and have two cents to put in. I seem to find a lot of people putting in Koi caves. Most use rock or stone. As these guys get bigger, they get rougher and tend to knock scales off on the rocks. I use three gallon or larger greenhouse black grow pots. I cut the ends off; so by increasing the number of pots you can make the cave long or short. Hold them down with a rock. They almost become invisible.
My ponds tend to last a long time, but occasionally I have the trees that line the ponds getting their roots over the banks and beginning to fill the pond for me. When this happens I move the fish and restart using the fish inch area rule, which works out to about 20 new fingerlings in my large pond and two 3 gallon pots lined up along several lily gallon pots to give them a place to hide amongst the pads. I use cattails at one area, being careful it stays contained. Its not as invasive, like bull rush, but it can cause problems if it gets going in the bank.
Decoration; I like Zen natural, but one of my kids has a hobby mold making business; so over the years these things tend to be 400 pound objects in strategic areas. LOL.
Anybody want to talk about Blue Herons, ducks, Canadian geese, mud hens, S,ea Gulls ETC?????
