Spring returns sometime in April







Moving day for the koi
I’m not sure who was more excited, me or the koi! The pond was starting to clear and the waterfall had been reshaped, lengthened and running well. Just like a canary in a coal mine, we chose Pinto and Tito as the test koi. After a few minutes, it was clear they weren’t going belly up so the rest of the koi joined them. The koi had been growing the last few weeks in the polyvat and ranged in size from 8 to 12 inches.

Landscaping…
Of course once the koi went in we felt good but there was a mountain of landscaping to do. There were a few tons of rocks to position, making stairs, buying and transplanting plants, etc. It literally consumed much of our weekends. Here’s a little movie clip of what the place looked like just after the koi moved in… CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CLIP




Little surprises…literally
When the koi moved into the new pond I noticed they were acting strangely for a few days. Some of them were chasing each other into the edge plants, swimming recklessly and after a little research, I thought they might have been spawning. The online research states that females tend to have rounder bodies and the males are generally slimmer. Hard to say with this crowd. We think Fatchiko and Tito might be the females. Frankenstein, Tarzan and Gunga Din act like males but who knows. I looked for eggs but saw none – of course most eggs get eaten in the wild by the adults so I promptly forgot about the odd behavior. Our pond rocks get a little algae on them so every now and then we do a little scrubbing with a pool brush in addition to the usual chemicals. Looking in the pond one day, I saw a little orange flash. It turns out that there are 6 little koi. One is blackish, one is greyish and the other tend to be white/orangeish. They stayed under rocks most of the time and finally joined the rest of the koi when they were two inches long. The babies:

Late summer-
Once the plants were in, the steps done,






Winter returns again…
Only this time, it’s quite nice to see the snow falling on the pond through our new window! We have a little heater at the bottom of the pond and aerator going for oxygen. The koi have slowed down and generally hang out at the bottom of the pond around the heater. During the polar vortex, air temperatures dropped down to a windchill temperature of -45. The pond ice opening varies and we were a little worried it might close up. We did feel compelled to throw a few buckets of hot water on the ice occasionally to keep it thin. You might wonder why we just didn’t break it – koi can die when disturbed during their semi-dormant stage.




What we learned in 2013…
1. There is no need to handpick rocks. It’s better to have a few tons delivered to you. 2. People like to stand at very edge of water, place some flat rocks that will accommodate this tendency along running water and the edge of the pond. 3. When fed properly, koi tend to grow quite rapidly (even goldfish can get pretty big). 4. Always buy multiples of more expensive plants and take a photo. It makes it a lot easier to return the plant that dies because you can show that they were planted at the same time under the same conditions. 5. Puttering around the koi pond is a never-ending and extremely satisfying process.[learn_press_profile]
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