Winter is almost here.....

[Jimmy Gibson]

Well got home from work, and as always the first thing I do is clean out the skimmer, check the temperature of the pond and then get all the leaves off the top of the pond. As I am doing this "The Crew"...... AKA Our Koi babies followed every move I made..... When I finished I sat down and put my hand in the water and they all came up and most of them sucking on my fingers, it was all I could do not to grab the Honey Nut Cheerios.....but I didn't, water temperature 55 degrees, and lows next week in the 20's..... But they are doing a great job of cleaning the liner, the rocks at the base of my waterfall and they are even cleaning the black stuff off my Rock on a Roll.....lol

 

[BarbO]

Getting cold here too. My new pond is full of water, but I have not added fish yet. Hard not to when it has been so warm lately. But I will wait until Spring.

 

[teeemkay]

All my koi are now in what I've been calling "hovering torpedo" mode--they are hiding under the flagstone plank in the center of the pond. I haven't seen the fry in almost a month as they are hiding too. If the older fish do come out, they work on eating the algae along the water's edge.

The leaf net is working well, as always. Worth every penny.

 

[addy1]

Mine are still cruising around, pond water is a warm 43F. They have hornwort, anacharis, lilies to snack on. I see them eating here and there.

One year I decided to really clean the pond, put all the lilies in the 1000 gallon tank netted debris, not much there, closed it down for the winter.

When I put the algae covered lilies back into the big pond in the spring the fish where like piranhas. They attacked each lily pot as I put it back and stripped the algae off in a frenzy. They were starving, the water was still darn cold.
Since then I have never done a deep clean to the pond before winter.

 

[Gemma]

Well got home from work, and as always the first thing I do is clean out the skimmer, check the temperature of the pond and then get all the leaves off the top of the pond. As I am doing this "The Crew"...... AKA Our Koi babies followed every move I made..... When I finished I sat down and put my hand in the water and they all came up and most of them sucking on my fingers, it was all I could do not to grab the Honey Nut Cheerios.....but I didn't, water temperature 55 degrees, and lows next week in the 20's..... But they are doing a great job of cleaning the liner, the rocks at the base of my waterfall and they are even cleaning the black stuff o ff my Rock on a Roll.....lol

If they're still eating, why would it be so bad to let them have a cheerio? (I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious)

 

[Jimmy Gibson]

If they're still eating, why would it be so bad to let them have a cheerio? (I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious)

Don't tell anyone, but the water was up to 61 this morning, couldn't stand the begging.... They had some cheerios for breakfast...... I am an old softy.....lol Jimmy

 

[Nick83]

"Winter is almost here....."
You could've fooled me, the water in my pond still hasn't dipped below 65° yet! So far this has been a pretty warm winter which I don't mind considering it will be my ponds first winter. My Goldie's are still pretty active and hungry and the pleco is still roaming around in the shadows searching for its next meal.

 

[Gemma]

Don't tell anyone, but the water was up to 61 this morning, couldn't stand the begging.... They had some cheerios for breakfast...... I am an old softy.....lol Jimmy

Lol you're funny!

 

[Lisak1]

@Nick83 - we love Weeki Wachee! We were kayaking there last March with the manatees - so beautiful!

Why do you feed them Cheerios @Jimmy Gibson - is it the koi equivalent of junk food?

 

[Jimmy Gibson]

@Nick83 - we love Weeki Wachee! We were kayaking there last March with the manatees - so beautiful!

Why do you feed them Cheerios @Jimmy Gibson - is it the koi equivalent of junk food?

You are probably right about it being junk food, read about feeding them cheerios somewhere, Sarah used them to get them to hand feed. If you grind up one cheerio there is almost nothing there, basically they are eating air. But my Koi are very discriminating...... They don't like regular cheerios, they have to be Honey Nut.....

 

[Lisak1]

I've seen people mention it many times and I'm always like "I won't even eat those things... I'm not sure who decided that koi should eat them!" I'm sure as an occasional treat they're fine!

 

[Gemma]

The only "people food" I was ever able to feed my fish, is chopped carrots!
I tried watermelon, peas, strawberries .... if it even went in their mouth, it came right out, so I gave up
I now feed them Omega one koi sticks, and different freeze dried
I really want to try feeding the lettuce but I don't know how to introduce it so they know it's food

 

[Nick83]

@Nick83 - we love Weeki Wachee! We were kayaking there last March with the manatees - so beautiful!

@Lisak1 The river is beautiful and so much to see under and above the crystal clear water. The manatees certainly draw a lot of attention on the river during the peak of the season.

 

[sarah walter]

The only "people food" I was ever able to feed my fish, is chopped carrots!
I tried watermelon, peas, strawberries .... if it even went in their mouth, it came right out, so I gave up
I now feed them Omega one koi sticks, and different freeze dried
I really want to try feeding the lettuce but I don't know how to introduce it so they know it's food

Hi Gemma

After discovering that grass carp like greenery we started just throwing ripped up pieces of Cos lettuce which they loved. The Koi ignored them.
Sarah

 

[Gemma]

Hi Gemma

After discovering that grass carp like greenery we started just throwing ripped up pieces of Cos lettuce which they loved. The Koi ignored them.
Sarah

Hi Sarah!
I guess I can always give them pond lettuce then