My goldfish pond

[CountryEscape]

Awwww shucks. RIP pretty fish .... now another fish will take it's place in "biggest and oldest".

 

[j.w]

So sorry to hear this about your poor fishy Keith

 

[callingcolleen1]

sorry to hear about the fish Keith, it was a really hard winter for you guys down there. Plus with a smaller pond, it probably froze very hard and then there was much less water under the ice. I try to never let my ponds freeze that hard, and I use the big heater and plug it in when all winter hell breaks loose. You could get maybe get away with a smaller 250 watt heater that would keep ice from getting so thick next year. Did you use a heater this winter?

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks everyone. I have had fish get sick before but this was really weird. It would lay on it's side all the time and when it tried to swim it was really crooked and couldn't swim straight. It look like either it's fin or it's side was damaged somehow....by another animal? better not be the frog....Well yes when one goes it leaves room for others to grow and take it's place. I still have over 30 fish and I can count on one hand how many I bought and the rest were all born in the pond. Colleen, I didn't have a heater but my waterfall ran all winter without freezing. Overall the fish population appears to be in very good health and so far no sign of disease other than this "injured" fish. Typically every spring I do a bunch of water changes on the weekends. Yesterday I noticed a small leak from one side when the water got too high so I started rebuilding some of the edges to make them higher. It looks like with the rebuild I will get about 4"-6" of more depth which translates into 150-200 more gallons of water in the pond so it should work out well.

 

[callingcolleen1]

How exciting! "The fish are going to love the bigger pool of water once you get than done!

Amazing Grace!! You got away with no heater and fish are fine! Good Job!

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Colleen. I think the fish already like having a little more room to swim. Too bad it has been in the 40's for the last week. It doesn't make it much fun for them or me!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Man that is crappy weather compared to here. Was nice today and in the 70's . I finished my new upper pond and it's all flowing nicely with the other connecting ponds. Sitting outside tonight with the solar lights and a small fire.

 

[CometKeith]

OH, That sounds nice! Today was the first day we didn't have super gusty winds. It's been going into the 30's at night. Today I think there was a heat wave because it hit 51 degrees!.....and it's supposed to be colder than usual for at least the next week! I did connect my biofilter last week because i figured it was mid April. I guess I could have waited a few more weeks.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Gee your weather is way behind this year, how strange the weather so changed here too, now we have non stop sun and no rain though and we really need some raiN so my grass will turn green. Watering tonight and sitting by ponds. I am still out here tonight, not sure why but I think the excitement of building new pond has over stimulated me! I have been playing with the back splash edge of new upper pond to hide it with old worn driftwood and really old weathered boards. I am happy with how it is coming nice. I have build up edge now around this new upper pond cause with a depth of five feet will mean the big koi can jump higher. I only moved 5 of the smaller 5 pound koi a few hours ago and somehow the small 5 pound koi look so darn big in this new bigger pond. I am really afraid to move the two biggest koi but I have a plan to guide them to swim them into a big jersey blanket and then Hubby will lift one end and I will lift the other side. We shall see how that goes.

 

[CountryEscape]

I want to see pics, Colleen!!! That's just wrong, Canada is having 70's and US is stuck in the cold stuff yet. Boooo .... Well, nice for you, though!!!
So, how long is a 5# koi? That sounds huge to me. And, I thought you only had a couple of large koi, so these 5#ers must be your smaller ones? Yikes!

 

[callingcolleen1]

They somehow grew over the winter and are really fat now. The five pound koi are about a foot long or so. The weight caught be by surprised when I lifted them out of pond and I had to catch the bigger fatter ones with two nets. The longer fined koi were longer but not as heavy as the short fined fast heavy fat koi. My two biggest and 24 year old koi I have not moved them yet, the really fat orange koi is well over a foot long and is very dense and strong. I would say for sure she is larger than 10 pounds but never weight her or ever caught her for about 18 years maybe. That big orange koi sucks so hard on fingers and then tries to rip the finger off and that it can hurt. I think she could drag a small child into the water with that strong sucker mouth.

I dumped a bottle of pond peat concentrate into the ponds to prevent any potential injury from the move from turning into fungus. The larger koi splash up a storm when you catch them and scales and fins could get damaged.

I can get a good picture in a couple days when the darkened water clears up. The liquid pond Peat concentrate darkens the water a golden dark color for a few days. Plus I am still doing the finishing touches. I put some pictures of the new upper pond on my thread but you can't make out the fish too well just yet with the darker water.

 

[CometKeith]

Hey Colleen, Nice to hear your pond(s) are doing well. I went to your thread last week and it looks like you are very busy doing new stuff. Well I finally raised most of my sides of my pond. It looks like it will hold a few hundred gallons more of water. The fish seem to like it because there is more room to swim.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes, I have been busy doing things and lazed around the house for a couple days. I have a week off but wasted two days doing not too much cause a flower pot fell on my big toe and it was very sore. It's much better now That I soaked it in hot salty water. Now I am up and ready to plant more things but big black clouds gathering and next day or two night time temperature will be very close to freezing.

So much to do with spring here. I need to get off my butt now that I rested two days and get back to hard labor in my yard!

 

[CountryEscape]

Bigger pond ... we want to see pictures, Keith! Bet your fish are happy indeed.

 

[CometKeith]

Ouch!! that doesn't sound good Colleen.. get better soon! Do you know more people are killed every year by coconuts falling than shark attacks? CE, I'll try to take some pics. My frog seems happy and the fish did a little bit of chasing last night as the water is warming up. Last night was amazing it was like 80 degrees at 9:00 at night.I hung out watching them cause no skeeters yet to push me inside. I just finally switched them off the spring food and fed them a little two days in a row now of regular food.