My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

Colleen,I think I chickened out of the koi idea already.Too bad they don't have small koi. I wouldn't want to upset my largest sarasa comet. He is the king of the pond other than my frog and I wouldn't want to upset him by getting a bigger fish. Well the last time I bought a fish was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. It's fun watching the babies grow. Right now I think there are about 30 fish that were born in the pond in various sizes and only 3 original store bought ones.
CE, That sounds fun to try counting them.The first two were bought on the 15th. I built up the back side of my pond today next to my waterfall. I think I'm done raising up the sides now. One of my rocks fell to the bottom when I redid my waterfall. That will be another project to get it out.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Well of you get a really small baby koi then your fish should be fine. I have a Baby koi in the bottom pond with just goldfish and everyone seems fine.

Really happy to have that new skimmer, even though I have to clean it lots, cause did I ever get lots of seeds from big elm trees down the street. Pond was horrid there for a while with tons of floating seeds and flower peddles everywhere. Thank goodness for skimmer cause it kept surface Like glass. You should have seen all the tree litter it sucked up. I got trees everywhere and today hubby got rid of some of the smaller trees and bushes today.

 

[addy1]

Those maple spinners are a pita this time of year, then they grow like weeds, I am constantly pulling maple trees out of the bog, the pond, the yard. The skimmer does a great job in sucking them in.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I get those too, but these other seeds were small and round, and VERY plentiful! Not exactly sure where they came from, will have to look for the culprit tree!

 

[sissy]

I get the spinners from the trees but they seem to get caught on top of the window screening and stay there and I just pick them off .

 

[callingcolleen1]

Hey that's a good idea Sissy! I could do something like that on my upper ponds just for the week that everything suddenly falls in spring. The stuff falling seems to be over for now at least!

 

[CometKeith]

Colleen i think getting a small koi is probably like getting a small tree. There is no such thing because they both grow! Well the first day or so I lost like 5 inches of water because my new waterfall rebuild was letting water flow the wrong way. Another project this weekend to try to fill it back up again. Oh its been a pleasant 40-45 degrees the last few days brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[callingcolleen1]

I think its finally going to rain here, been extremely dry this spring. Clouds are gathering so there is hope for rain.

Keith if you just get one or two really tiny koi, it will be several years before they out grow the pond.... then you can plan building bigger pond and have two or three years to work on it!

 

[CometKeith]

We have a silver maple. I think there are like 10,000 little helicopters al over our yard. The former owner of the property planted it and we should have cut it down before we built our house. I think it is like 50 or 60 ft high now but a huge nuisance. My wife and I decided to cut it down tonight but we have to get a permit first....I think my pond finally cycled because there is a lot less hair algae all of a sudden. Colleen. I have heard that butterfly koi get along well with goldfish. i'm not quite sure why. I almost bought one today but the garden shop I go to was closed. Still a little on the fence about it. My goldfish are really active. They were chasing each other like crazy tonight. I would hate add anything that would cause them to be less aggressive. They don't seem too scared of my frog so maybe this would not be an issue.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes Keirh, The butterfly koi I have were all fine cohabitating with smaller fat goldfish. They outgrew the smaller middle pond and now that I moved most of the koi to new upper top pond, (8X8 and 5 feet deep)I wonder how they all lived ok in the 11 X 4.5 fft (3ft deep almost at the deepest) . I moved 8 fat koi 6" to 12" sized koi, from that pond, two butterfly) and left one 8" black butterfly and one sliver 6" koi behind cause they missed the "net" somehow....
Just take another long look at the beautiful small butterfly koi at that shop next time. The worst that could happen is you might end up with funny looking fish one day, not quite koi, and not entirely goldfish either. I seem to have some odd looking fish in bottom pond this year that I never noticed last year. They are small still, and appear black and reddish gold, not quite sure what they are...

 

[CometKeith]

Hmmm. that's interesting.... i know when goldish and koi mate their offspring are sterile. I am leaning against adding any more fish and taking it as maybe a sign from you know who that the garden shop was closed and that was the decision today not to buy a koi. It's been at least 4 years since I have bought any fish and my fish have been basically headache free and easy to care for in that time. I read about people having problems with their ponds all the time and I never have any kind of big problems. I lose a few coming out of winter every year and the babies keep growing and replacing the lost fish. I think it has found a balance of fish population of around 30-35 or so and this includes both adults and frys and only 3 of those were store bought. I know if I had more hungry mouths in the pond I would be less likely to have babies and it been fun seeing about 1/2 dozen new fish every year.

 

[addy1]

I like a nice balance, let the fish in the pond replace fish as needed, sure makes it a nice enclosed system. No qt'ing needed, I lose fish now and then, babies are born they get replaced.
I love the look of the butterfly koi, but nope not going into the pond to get cross breeding issues. Wish they could sterilize fish lol.....then I might put one in.

 

[rodsboys]

I think its finally going to rain here, been extremely dry this spring. Clouds are gathering so there is hope for rain.

Lots of clouds here last night too, but still no rain. We need it badly too.

 

[rodsboys]

I'm not a big fan of the plain/jane goldfish(regular short tails), but I have a trio of them that are 10+ years old. 1 female and 2 males. I keep them around though because the female (We call her Breach) is probably my tamest fish.They spawn all the time and I always fish out babies whenever I see them. I suspect some of the other fish will be spawning this year so it may be a crap shoot as to what I get. I have plans to build a bigger pond anyway in another year or so for just my koi and relocate this pond for all the common, sarasa, shubunkin, and fantail goldies.

 

[addy1]

Most of mine are shubunkins, just love them, very colorful and long beautiful fins.