Sadly every weekend is not happy progress around our ponds. We have lost three of our koi and a fourth is looking rather iffy. My little koi fry also perished in a storm that battered the quarantine tank where some of them had hatched. (Truthfully, the aeration and pump might have been a little too strong for them as well).
Ethel the friendly chagoi was pulled out of the pond a few weeks ago because we noticed an ulcer on her side. While she was in sick bay, she jumped out of her tank and was found practically dead on the concrete ground. I think it was too much for her to come back from the stress and heal. She’s buried under one of my new black pussy willow plants.Woody, our growout kohaku was perfectly fine this morning. Since he was going to the koi show this Friday, we decided to put him in a smaller stock tank for the week. Woody looked fine for two hours but three hours after being moved, he and the two koi moved with him were starting to roll and lay sideways in the tank. Bad sign, always poor prognosis. We’re not sure what happened but this 11.25″ kohaku went downhill very quickly. 🙁Kiki is a doitsu hariwake that we sent to the quarantine take with Woody. Also took a quick dive after we noticed her laying over. Koi can be very sensitive to changes in their environment. We tested the water they were in and the parameters were perfect. Maybe it was too much stress…Jamocha is still hanging on , but looking mostly dead in a different quarantine tank. We are doing extra aeration and hoping that Jamocha will be looking better in the morning.
So today the ponds and our koi were sources of stress instead of stress relief. The pond digger worked on the sump pump for the lower pond and hopefully we can get to putting some mulch down in the lower garden. I worked on the rocks for the upper pond’s waterfall and we just might finish that tomorrow.
lower pond garden is moving along
We’re a little bummed out about our lost koi. Are koi sentient beings? I think so and feel bad we were not able to save them.
The pack of nineteen tosai on a happier day earlier this week…
This is Dave from Wisconsin. (bought the equipment from you). Sorry to hear about your loss.
Speaking of loss, I have not been able to work on my pond for the past couple of weeks due to an accident with my table saw. I lost part of my left index finger and quite a bit of damage to the long finger. So I have been sitting here looking at the hole in the ground screaming at me to start running the plumbing.
I did find a couple of GREAT filters for the pond on Craigslist. I am only going to be using one (it is a Oase, Biotec 36 Screenex) It will handle up to 8000 gallons with Koi fish. When I bought that one it also included many other devices, including an Oase Biotec 30 Filtration system. That will handle up to 27,000 gallons. Going to hang on to that for now and see how it all works.
While I am at it I do have a question. 2″ TPR’s are not available..ANYWHERE. Do you think that I can get away with utilizing 1 1/2″ tpr’s. I figure instead of using only 2 of the 2″, I will use 4 of the 1 1/2″, one on each wall. The floor drain will feed two of them, while I plan on piping two other (with control valves) coming out of the UV sterilizer. Coming out of the sterilizer is feeding only the waterfall, so I plan in front of the sterilizer to place a control system out of 2″ piping. There will be three control valves. 1-2″ control valve for the waterfall and 2- 1 1/2″ control valves for the other two tpr’s. With four smaller tpr’s that should keep the water circulating. Also, I am going to have some friends come over next weekend to do the trenching for the plumbing for me and assist in installing the liner..if time allows it.
How late in the year can I go to fill the pond before adding some koi. I was thinking mid Sept. I am going to need some time to allow good bacteria to grow, and I don’t think that will happen once the temp starts dropping.
Do you still have that extension tube for the skimmer for sale? I am going to need one and I thought that you were looking to get rid of another?
Well take care and I’ll talk to you soon. Once again sorry to hear about the loss of your koi.
Thanks Dave – Tony and I were sorry to hear about your table saw accident – gives me the heebie jeebies thinking about it 🙁 How late in the year to fill a pond and add koi really depends on Mother Nature. You are absolutely right that as the temperatures drop it’s harder to get the bacteria going. There are products out there that can “kick start” your bacteria (live bacteria) by adding to the pond. According to a variety of web sources establishing a filtration system can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks depending on the size of the system. Might be close but not entirely impossible. Pond digger is private messaging you about the TPRs and extensions.
Sadly every weekend is not happy progress around our ponds. We have lost three of our koi and a fourth is looking rather iffy. My little koi fry also perished in a storm that battered the quarantine tank where some of them had hatched. (Truthfully, the aeration and pump might have been a little too strong for them as well).
This is Dave from Wisconsin. (bought the equipment from you). Sorry to hear about your loss.
Speaking of loss, I have not been able to work on my pond for the past couple of weeks due to an accident with my table saw. I lost part of my left index finger and quite a bit of damage to the long finger. So I have been sitting here looking at the hole in the ground screaming at me to start running the plumbing.
I did find a couple of GREAT filters for the pond on Craigslist. I am only going to be using one (it is a Oase, Biotec 36 Screenex) It will handle up to 8000 gallons with Koi fish. When I bought that one it also included many other devices, including an Oase Biotec 30 Filtration system. That will handle up to 27,000 gallons. Going to hang on to that for now and see how it all works.
While I am at it I do have a question. 2″ TPR’s are not available..ANYWHERE. Do you think that I can get away with utilizing 1 1/2″ tpr’s. I figure instead of using only 2 of the 2″, I will use 4 of the 1 1/2″, one on each wall. The floor drain will feed two of them, while I plan on piping two other (with control valves) coming out of the UV sterilizer. Coming out of the sterilizer is feeding only the waterfall, so I plan in front of the sterilizer to place a control system out of 2″ piping. There will be three control valves. 1-2″ control valve for the waterfall and 2- 1 1/2″ control valves for the other two tpr’s. With four smaller tpr’s that should keep the water circulating. Also, I am going to have some friends come over next weekend to do the trenching for the plumbing for me and assist in installing the liner..if time allows it.
How late in the year can I go to fill the pond before adding some koi. I was thinking mid Sept. I am going to need some time to allow good bacteria to grow, and I don’t think that will happen once the temp starts dropping.
Do you still have that extension tube for the skimmer for sale? I am going to need one and I thought that you were looking to get rid of another?
Well take care and I’ll talk to you soon. Once again sorry to hear about the loss of your koi.
Thanks Dave – Tony and I were sorry to hear about your table saw accident – gives me the heebie jeebies thinking about it 🙁 How late in the year to fill a pond and add koi really depends on Mother Nature. You are absolutely right that as the temperatures drop it’s harder to get the bacteria going. There are products out there that can “kick start” your bacteria (live bacteria) by adding to the pond. According to a variety of web sources establishing a filtration system can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks depending on the size of the system. Might be close but not entirely impossible. Pond digger is private messaging you about the TPRs and extensions.