New here and new to ponding

[mouseams]

We bought a house late last year. There is a big rock formation which the former owner ran a pump to a spill bucket which the water falls down the rock, very nice:icon_smile: it feeds to a middle pond and a downhill man-made little stream into the main pond. I believe the main pond to be about 2000 or so gallons, it has two humps which he covered with the liner and it is above ground on one side with a retaining wall.

He let his dogs frolic in it and when he moved we let it become "natural", or as natural as a lined man-made pond can be. Early this spring we had water skimmers move in and toads mated here. We had oodles of tadpoles, but I have not seen hide nor hair in the last two-weeks. We have had two different kinds of frogs reside here as well. Our water became very green, as there were no plants and the pond is in the full sun most of the day.

I started adding plants and then we decided, OK- let's get some fish. we bought 9 red comets and 3 shubunkins. We added 15 trapdoors. Two weeks ago we adopted 8 common goldfish which were much larger than our 3-5 inch fish. The new fish are beautiful. Temps here have been cool and we have had cloudy weather for three weeks :banghead3:. They have just started feeding in the morning and in the evening.

The other night they started getting active and as it got darker I noticed we had babies. I also had added arrowhead plants and a pot of submerged plants. The babies are of different stages. some are just over one quarter inch. I do not want to scoop these babies out into a holding tank. If they made it to this size is it possible that a few will survive? It looks like I may have two different species. I either had hitch-hikers on a plant or have propagating fish.

How much can I expect them to grow this summer? Do I need to feed the babies and if so what?

Thanks for reading my boring tail :banana:

:icon_smile:

Mary

 

[karenskoipond]

In one summer we had koi babies grow upto 3 inches. They were from a May spawn and we fished them out in September. I fed them ground up koi food and they ate that like mad.

 

[mouseams]

Thanks so much Karen! Spotted a few that are now almost an inch long. Some I can tell are gold, some are dark and not sure what they'll be. They survived this long :goldfish:. I will just let nature do its thing and hopefully, I will be able to give some babies away to good homes!

P.S. I love boxers!

 

[karenskoipond]

We caught them spawning this year about 3 weeks ago and honestly, when I thought about all the work with tanks and so forth I decided the same thing I'd let nature take it's course. It's enough work caring for an 8,000 gallon pond let alone baby tanks and such. Good luck I'd love to get progress reports as to how they're growing. It's extremely exciting to be there to watch their progress and see them discovering new things in the pond environment.
take care and good luck :goldfish:

 

[koiguy1969]

i only brought mine in because i hadnt drained the basement pond yet, holding some of my goldies for a freinds pond. didnt yank the tobies or anything just letting due course be due coarse. i am aerating and running a filter but thats it. oh and throwing in some crushed food.

 

[mouseams]

Thanks Koiguy and Karen. I will certainly keep you posted.

If one percent of the babies survive I think I'll have a thousand fish!

My profile pic is a picture of our pond. I am trying to add more plants, but it seems every week so far I am spending in excess of $100.00 on the pond and it still looks bare. It is oddly shaped and about 28' x 14' at the widest/longest and ranges from about 8" to about 3' in some parts, making it very difficult to calculate the water volume. The fish seem to be quite happy and with all the spawning going on, conditions must be favorable. We have had several weeks of clouds, now it is getting warm and sunny and I am fearing low oxygen if I can't get more shade on the pond.

I went to home depot and bought some lattice and fixed a piece on each corner just to add a little more screening, spending about 12 bucks vs. $75.00 for a lotus. Going to get the lotus this week anyway. I am hoping it will winter over.