Spring arrives for most of the world in two days but in Minnesota we’re lagging behind a few weeks. The saying is ‘never plant anything before Mother’s Day.’ Consequently there’s a pretty lengthy time that my pond builder has to think about stuff he wants to do outdoors once spring weather kicks in. On my last post I noted that some manifolds showed up via FedEx. This week, some long pipes came home in the back of the truck.

My pond builder ordered some CLEAR schedule 40 pipe off a industrial supply website called Zoro. I think he has a really good idea to use the clear PVC in different spots of the filtration system. I believe he plans to put pieces where it connects in and out of the RDFs…and who knows where else. It will be great to see how clean or dirty the water is going through the system and maybe an unlucky tiny koi…. He tested it out this morning using a little piece to a flex pipe that he uses when he back flushes the bead filters on the indoor pool.

The koi in the pool are not very excited about clear, schedule 40 pipe. They are more focused on eating. Nothing very exciting going on with them.

My pond builder and I made our arrangements to go to the Louisville Koi Show this year. Many koi crazies do spend the entire weekend at a koi show but we really don’t like missing out on time to work on our own ponds. So we’ll do a quick turn around at this show. I’m excited to see if some of the koi I visited in December will be at the show this year. We won’t be showing any koi but there might be some members of my local club, the Upper Midwest Koi Club, showing their koi. Hauling around your koi to these local shows is pretty tough. Koi get stressed being moved and I get stressed just moving my koi 15 miles. I’m not into driving them 8-11 hours to a show, but lots of people do travel significant distances with their koi. The koi show hosts do everything they can to make sure the water parameters are good and the whole community can be counted on to give you advice if your koi are looking stressed.

Happy spring to those of you who live in a seasonal clime…we’ll be waiting a few more weeks.