A little taste of springtime this weekend – temperatures in the 40s! It’s hard to think that my koi still have four more months of indoor koi land. We are hoping for an early spring since the pond builder is itching to fiddle with the outdoor ponds. He can do some work now like rebuilding manifolds that cracked…and I should hire a designer for the upper pond. We’d like to create a different type of walkway around it, maybe a little bridge over the center…

Back to reality, over the weekend the pond builder completed a major water change, flushed the filters and I decided to sweep away some of the algae that has been growing on the pool walls. The koi eat some of it but it grows pretty fast and I don’t really like the brown look. So I took out the broom and swept off some areas. There’s plenty of algae still in the pool. The koi are very funny, preferring the algae that grows on/above the edge of the waterline. They will poke their heads a few inches out of the water to slurp off the higher algae.

Billy the Kid was sent back into the pool this weekend. In the QT tank this week, his red area continued to clear and his fins were looking much better. In too small of a QT the koi can drag his fins, maybe the ammonia is too high and we start getting those straggly fins. In the larger QT, he swam better, hid under the pink insulation board and improved but did not eat well. I think Monroe ate most of the pellets thrown into QT. While I would have preferred to have the red completely gone, I felt it would be better to get him eating again. He seems much happier being back with the other big koi. I’ll be watching his shoulder carefully over the next few days. Hopefully we will continue to see the last little bit clearing up.

While the QT system could be dismantled, I decided to keep it going on the off chance that someone else gets sick. While they aren’t very happy, Monroe and Marilyn will be living in QT until the ponds open. These are the two koi that spent most of their time in the upper pond skimmer. Small, not bright, not the best specimens, but good koi for maintaining the filtration system of the QT. They look kind of cute but the beni is already showing a future of breaking up. They’re around primarily because they are kuchibeni koi.

I’m finishing up the weekend with some 4K footage of the koi in the pool. The video is slow-mo and pretty much a snoozer. Six and a half minutes of swimming around that I use to check on the undersides of the koi. While I was filming, a number of the koi would come up and nibble on my fingers or push my hand. This friendly factor will disappear the second they are moved into their outdoor ponds in the spring. Probably a good thing since I certainly don’t want them exploring a little raccoon paw.

Watch if you have insomnia…

Just a side note – the pond builder is a lifelong Vikings fan. Big weekend for us as they play for the NFC championship. Some day, some one will breed a koi that is purple (more so than the goromos) – let me know if you see one!