Feeding the koi is always a concern since you want big, fat koi and in Minnesota the growing time is somewhat limited due to temperature. Over the weekend we talked a lot about feeding and Michael Hernandez of Tomigai koi food recommended to us – 2% of the koi body weight. While we have warm…
Category: My koi
Koi Roll call – June 12, 2017
“How many koi do you have?” Probably more than I should. The koi collection changes frequently for a number of reasons. First – a koi might get sick and die. Second – the koi has a flaw that makes it the first to go to make room for some other koi. Third – the koi…
Japan Visits Minnetonka
We have been doing a lot of work on the pond and yard to get ready for a special dinner. Last night I had the opportunity to host Takahiro Omosako of Omosako Koi Farm. At the end of 2015, I decided that it would be good to learn about a particular breed of koi a…
The Upper Koi Pond is Open
I feel like we have been behind about three weeks from last year but the upper pond is finally open and some of our koi are swimming around. We intended to have only female koi in this pond but I may have a male or two in this bunch. I like the balance of colors…
Weather forecasts a busy weekend ahead
Great weather means we’re outside all weekend. We got a head start on our weekend by heading up to Koi Acres in Scandia, MN to pick up my new Dainichi Showa tosai. He/She (hopefully she) is named Costello. Showa koi like Abbot and Costello take about five years to develop. The Showa and Shiro Utsuri…
New koi
The box of fun finally arrived today via Delta Dash. I have two koi sourced through Kevin Pham of Genki Nishikigoi – a Kohaku and a Showa. Their shipping was not without a few glitches. Originally they were to be shipped in April but the Delta melt down made me reconsider flying them out. We…
Fun with schedule 40 pipe
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…
Update on the Shiro Utsuri Koi
The shiro utsuri koi continue to be interesting. I did lose three this winter to illness which was disappointing. From my small sample the bottom line is that little tosai koi can change an awful lot as they grow. Picking a shiro koi at 6 inches is like purchasing a lottery ticket. Of course, buying…
always learning something new
Sad to say but I lost another koi to illness. Louie the asagi died of some internal illness. The only correlation we saw of his illness with the other koi that we lost was that the illness was brought on when we turned on the grow lights. I was visiting my koi at Koi Acres…
2017 is not starting out auspiciously
I’ve been told it’s bad luck to name your koi – ooops, I’ve named them all and will continue to do so. Maybe we shouldn’t tempt fate by congratulating ourselves as we did just before the new year. Pond digger and I were thinking that by this time last year we had lost a few…
Winter Koi
We’ve had some pretty cold temperatures this December before Christmas. The weekend before Christmas our temperatures were down to 25 below zero. The koi have been doing well in their indoor pool, water temperature around 50. They are not eating though. I throw in a few pieces of food and one or two might eat…
Never a dull moment around the koi pond
All summer the pond digger has been sighing and commenting that he’ll have nothing to do next summer. Basically the pond digger is an over grown kid who wants to be outside as much as possible and play with power tools during the good weather months. Since I said we could not have a third…
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