Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
Our pond was built in 2011 and filled with water for the very first time in March of that year. It’s hard to believe it’s nearly 10 years old. Over the years I have written about the ups and downs of creating a Koi fish friendly pond.
Today we have about 30 Koi. It’s hard to know exactly how many because if you’ve ever tried to count fish, you would understand. We have a mix of standard Koi and Butterfly Koi and a herd of little fish called Gambusia (mosquito fish). The Gambusia multiplies like rabbits. We began by throwing in about a dozen given to us by our neighbor and today who know how many? At least a hundred.
It’s a beautiful, end-of-September day in Arizona and so I took a few photos as the pond looks roday.
It’s time to trim the landscaping plants surrounding the pond once again and I’ve discovered a patch of grass in the pond island area that will have to be removed. Basically, the pond has become a rather simple and calming addition to our backyard requiring minimal maintenance.
Our external filter system with a UV light is cleaned once a year. At that time all of the filter media is removed and replaced with clean, fresh media. Every evening, the two main filter pump filters are cleaned. There is a plastic grate at the intake that stops large items like dead lily pad leaves. Then there is a a square net that collects smaller material and finally, there is a green filter mat that collects small material. It probably takes 15 minutes to remove, wash with a hose and replace.
The fish get fed once a day, consistently around 5:30 in the evening. I bring my bowl of Koi food out and call out “dinner” and they all covey up to the feeding spot. It seems to trigger their appetites because after eating the Koi pellets they will spend several hours grazing on any algae on the rocks in the pond. As the weather gets cooler, I will reduce the amount of the daily feeding and in the winter they will get half the amount they receive now.
As the mornings and evenings cool down we are more likely to sit around the pond and watch the fish do their thing.
© Joyce Clark, 2020
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This photo is looking at the pond from its west side. Because of summer winds during the monsoon season the shade cover material has stretched and has become baggy. This winter we will tighten it up.
trees rather than shrubs. They are finally getting big enough to provide some shade around the edges of the pond.
abundantly and nearly cover the pond’s surface. They are supposed to be fertilized but quite frankly we don’t do it and still they thrive. They shade the water during the summer keeping it cool and livable for the Koi.
we dumped maybe a dozen into the pond and now I suspect there are over 100. They eat mosquito larvae but since the pond water moves and is not stagnant they probably aren’t necessary…but just in case they are there.
They are still eating once a day and every time act as if they haven’t been fed in years – in other words, with gusto. In October as the weather continues to cool I will cut their food back until by December they’ll only be eating half of what they do now. One 6.5 pound bag of Tetra Pond Sticks lasts all month.
