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.
Today I walked out to the back patio and it was eerily quiet. No waterfall…no fish. It also meant no birds coming to bathe or get a drink. No fish to feed at 5 o’clock. No filters to clean in the morning and evening.
Pond drained
It is literally a shock to hear nothing and to see algae covered rocks in what was once a thriving eco-system. I imagine with time I will get used to it. I am looking forward to the construction of our pool with another waterfall. The next step will be to start totally dismantling the pond and the landscaping surrounding it.
Netting the fish
Anita and Sebastian, from Koi Rescue, came and took the fish today. They were gentle with the fish and very professional. They had all the equipment they needed to take them. In all, they took 31 fish. One tragedy occurred, however. One of the Koi, apparently very frightened, would not leave the cubby under the fish shelf and so we missed collecting it. After the pond was drained, we discovered that fish who by then, had succumbed to the lack of water.
I’ve included some photos of the now drained pond, the collection process and some of the fish in the bins ready for transport.
In bin ready for transport
Almost as large as the bin
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After 15 years of enjoying and caring for our Koi fish we decided it was time to get rid of the pond. We are in our 80’s and taking care of the pond has become too difficult. That was made abundantly clear recently while trying to clean vegetation around the pond I took a fall. I scraped up every available limb on my body!
go. I could have sold them for some of them are valuable, but I just didn’t want to scatter them. Instead, I contacted Koi Rescue and one of the members lives a stone’s throw from my home and was willing to take all 30 Koi and put them in their pond. Perfect solution. I will be able to go 5 minutes away occasionally and visit my fish.
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rigid hosing that leads to the two major filter pumps…one for the large waterfall and one for the small waterfall. Another photo shows the filter media. The green pad is a major component. It can be fine to very coarse. We use a medium value. 
These pads also serve the filters at the top of each waterfall. The net goes in front of the green filter media and collects very coarse material such as decaying lily pads. The white grate is something we started to do a very long time ago as it prevented small fish and the tiny Gambusia (mosquito fish) from being pulled into the filter system which has a strong pull.
around the pond is mature and generally only requires pruning. The photo of the fish shows one of my favorite Koi. The Koi with the red spot on its forehead is called a Tancho by the Japanese. The rounder the red spot the better.
purpose is to eat mosquito larvae. We introduced about a dozen of them into the pond years ago and seem to host a constant population of about a hundred of them at any given time. Ming was the first fish we put into the pond about 5 years ago. This was after refilling the pond when I had added so many chemicals to rid the pond of algae and killed off the few fish that I had. I let the new pond water settle and age, if you will. Then I placed a 3” to 5” Ming into the pond as a sacrificial test to see if the pond water was healthy enough. Ming survived and thrived and is the oldest of all of the Koi. I estimate that Ming is probably about 3 feet long and weighs in at 10 to 15 pounds.
copper coloring…after all, Arizona is known for its copper mining. Mud Puddle is one of the last fish we acquired and is a hog. He eats all the time. He can be seen grazing on the algae on the rocks all day long. His prolific eating has caused him to grow and outpace many of his brothers and sisters purchased at the same time. Mud Puddle is slightly smaller than Ming. Probably about 2 feet long and coming in around 10 pounds.
nosiest of the Koi. When I go to the edge of the pond to trim vegetation he will cruise on over to see who’s there and what is happening. Convict is about 2 ½ feet long and between 10 and 15 pounds.
affect Koi fish.
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.
quite hassle-free. The photos are the pond after last night’s monsoon storm. We probably had winds of 50 mph and a bucket full of rain. We had more damage, i.e., tree limbs falling, in our yard than any damage to the pond.
created a toxic waste dump and all of the fish died. Disgustedly I vowed no more fish, drained the pond completely and let the pond rebalance itself for a year.
Gone are all chemicals. Realizing that the original filter system was inadequate to deal with algae growth we researched and ultimately built an external, 4 barrel filter system. The pond water recirculates through the barrels each filled with different kinds of filter media. For example, one barrel has carbon pellets, another has fluffy polyester batting and yet another has sponges and the last has filter pads. The water remains crystal clear and when some algae does emerge during the hottest part of the year the easiest solution is simply to take it out by hand. There is never so much that the task is overwhelming.
February. It’s an all day job as the barrels must be drained and cleaned and new filter media placed into each barrel.
I have learned that a pond plant called ‘Snowflake’ replicates itself like crazy. Every time I think I have removed all of it I discover another new crop. The same can be said for some plants surrounding the pond. Yerba Manza, Taros and Ruella grow and spread prodigiously. I’ve managed to get rid of the Yerba Manza completely. There is still one clump of Taro that will be removed this spring and all of the Ruella ‘babies’ will be removed as well.
installed the pond? Yes, most definitely. There is something special about hearing the waterfalls splash downward. I have discovered when the pumps have been turned off for an electrical outage, the absolute silence is disconcerting. We watch the fish whenever we have time (as a councilmember my time is now very constrained) and we still take joy in watching them. I read somewhere, sometime, that watching fish in an aquarium or pond lowers one’s blood pressure. I think it’s probably true as there is a calming effect in just sitting and watching, really watching the fish. Is there maintenance work? Yes but nothing so intense that it consumes all of your time after the pond and plantings have become established.
