Zman's Fish Thread

[ZmanArt007]

Hey everyone, this is the topic where I am going to be posting and photos I take of my fish in my pond, as well as any news or updates I have regarding them enjoy the poor quality amateur photos and drop a reply if you like what you see!

I've had my pond for four years now. Last summer and fall I struggled with a leak in the liner, so over winter my fish were brought indoors. We replaced the liner, and the fish were moved outside last wednesday.

Here are my fish. I have three comets, one common goldfish, and a baby goldfish. I have seven larger koi, one of which is butterfly, and five babies born last summer, one of which is also butterfly. I also have a large wild-caught river carpsucker. He hangs out at the bottom and eats any missed food.

here is the butterfly yearling. He is definitely my favorite baby. This photo doesn't show it but his head is gold and his back has a slightly blue tint to it.

Here are the fish in the pond for the first time this year.

 

[ZmanArt007]

Here's some more photos of the fish enjoying the pond:

Isn't the water so nice and clean? Well that all changed when we got a two inch rain, which set the mood for this on saturday:

The spawning caused my water to become cloudy, and the eggs that were missed and unfertilized began rotting, introducing nutrients that caused a huge algae outbreak. More on my fish breeding here: https://www.gardenpondforum.com/posts/231551/

The fry began hatching today, monday, and I am excited It at least distracts me from the horrible green water for now!

 

[Mmathis]

Hey, your amateur photos are better than any I'm ever able to get of my fish, LOL! What camera are you using?

 

[ZmanArt007]

Hey, your amateur photos are better than any I'm ever able to get of my fish, LOL! What camera are you using?

Most of these were taken with my iPhone

 

[Mmathis]

Most of these were taken with my iPhone

LOL, I use my iPhone as well, but guess I'm not a good photographer.

 

[ZmanArt007]

LOL, I use my iPhone as well, but guess I'm not a good photographer.

I may also touch them up a bit and increase the saturation on some of the photos

 

[ZmanArt007]

Well I might get some hate for this, but since this is a thread to show all my fish, here are the fancy goldfish I purchased for my pond.





If you would like to yell at me for trying fancy goldfish in my pond, please do so in a PM, or check out this thread, which is basically dedicated to it: https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/ornamental-goldfish-and-a-fresh-rap-yo.15002/

I bought an oranda, a moor, a ryukin, and a shubunkin, which is not a fancy goldfish I am aware but I wanted to introduce some color to my comet/common goldfish gene pool.

After quarantining them for a few days, I released them into the pond. Normally I like to quarantine for a week or so but the water in my QT pool was just getting baked by the sun and I was tired of doing up to 100% water changes just to cool it down. I need to find a better location for it..


The four definitely have different personalities. The ryukin likes to wander around by itself and graze through the rocks. The moor and the shubunkin must have became friends on the ride home from the store, because they like to school together in a somewhat unlikely pair. The oranda is extremely social, and has nearly assimilated into the "baby herd" made up of last year's koi fry. It wriggles along behind them and even comes up for food already .

 

[j.w]

I wanna know how your fancy ones survive the winter. There have been some others on here that have said the fancy ones can handle the cold just fine. Guess the only thing is they are slower and need to be able to get some left over food that the others don't beat them to. I wanna try them.

 

[ZmanArt007]

Recorded the fish feeding this morning. Not the best quality but got to see my fish pretty well Enjoy!

 

[Lisak1]

We have a couple fantails in our pond, although we didn't plan it that way. We had them in our patio pond and then had to take them out when a raccoon found out they were in there. So we moved them to the big pond, thinking it would be a temporary thing until Mr. Raccoon got tired of looking for them - they've done just fine, over winter and all. (We're in the Chicago area, and you know what kind of winter we just had!) They may seem slow, but try to catch them in a 2000 plus gallon pond, and you'll see just how elusive they can be! So when we couldn't catch them, we just let them be. I love watching them swim with their long, flowing fins. And they do hang with the big guys and hold their own at feeding time.

Nice video!

 

[ZmanArt007]

Well these aren't technically my fish... but they are fish. I went on a fishing trip on Thursday and Friday with my high school bro Ben, who is attending the Air Force Academy in Colorado. He only gets three weeks off in the summer. We went down to a cabin by the Platte River and fished for a couple days. We didn't take many photos, but here are a couple highlights.

This is me holding a 17 inch long drum that I caught in the river.

This is Ben, holding his first ever catfish.
Other than this, we caught a lot of bluegill, crappie, and large mouth bass. I kept using corn as bait trying to land a carp that I could take home and quarantine for keeps, but was unsuccessful

When I returned from the trip, all the suspended algae in my pond was unexplainably gone!

There's a glare from the sun on the water, but trust me, it's crystal clear! It's beautiful and the fish love it.

Another story, I went boating with the family at a very large lake today and at this lake there was a baitshop. Outside the baitshop, in the water there was a large patch of arrowhead/sagitarria. Apparently, whenever any of the bait dies at the baitshop, the workers just throw it into the water by these arrowheads. The common carp in the lake made this place their home and feeding grounds, and I could see and watch them trolling through the plants looking for food. These carp seemed just as comfortable around people as their domesticated koi cousins they were adorable. I wanted to catch one so bad but I didn't bring any fishing supplies or a container to house them in to take them home . I also left my phone in the car so I wouldn't accidentally throw it in the lake so I didn't get any pictures. I just thought you would enjoy the story.

I might have another video of my fish coming soon. This one will be more professional and well edited.

 

[ZmanArt007]

Here's another video!

I've got a short film in mind involving my pond and fish, so this is me gathering some stock footage that could be used in the future. Set it to some music and its a nice relaxing fish feeding time Let me know what you think. The darn fish kept knocking the camera around as you can see in the video

 

[ZmanArt007]

I fished this little guy out of a flower pot today...
I think he might be the only fry that made it I want to take him in or separate him to insure his survival, but I don't know if I can successfully feed him to keep him alive... He's a couple weeks old so idk what he can and can't eat yet. Advice?

 

[ZmanArt007]

Here's an update for anyone who actually reads it. The fancy goldfish are absolutely thriving, I think the ryukin and oranda have both nearly doubled in size since the beginning of the month when I put them into the pond. The pond water is still quite clear but there is some variety of floating algae covering the surface of the water in clumps. The algae, combined with a cloudless sunny day, made taking pictures a little difficult. Here's what photos I got today.















This last one is hard to make out, but that's my river carpsucker, on the bottom doing his thing.

If anyone ever has the good luck of catching one of these fish, I recommend you keep it. They are quite shy, but are great for eating any algae or uneaten food that goes to the bottom. They get along great with koi and goldfish, sometimes the little ones follow him around, mistaking him for a koi. They usually only live about five years, but some have been reported to live up to fifteen. Honestly, I am betting that most fish in the Sucker family would work well for ponds, except perhaps the buffalo, which can sometimes eat small fish. They are also native to the US, unlike carp, so they won't damage any ecosystems if somehow they escape or if you have to thin out your fish stock. Just a recommendation for any fishermen out there

Here's the wiki page on carpsuckers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_carpsucker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quillback
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highfin_carpsucker
(These three species are essentially the same fish)

 

[j.w]

Video of the fish feeding looks fine to me and hope you can save the little fellow you pulled out of the flower pot. Your fish are very pretty and look healthy
No big huge fish going into my pond. I only have goldfish, no room for biggies.