Jun 14

5

Summertime at the Koi Pond

Posted by Joyce Clark on June 5, 2014
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: Assassin snails, Cane Toad, heron, koi pond, UV clarifier light, water clarity, yerba manza | 2 Comments

The other day I realized that I had not slowed down enough to provide an update on my Koi pond. The last time I posted on it was 6 months ago, in December of 2013. A lot has happened since then.

I’ve taken out all of the Yerba Manza. I discovered that it is just too invasive. Even though the original plants were still potted and submerged they send out runners – scads of runners – that seek rocks and other potted plants. The runners will even go over the edge of the pond into anything beyond. As a result the Yerba Manza was beginning to crowd out other plants and the need to cut off the runners was becoming a monthly chore. In their place I have decided to try some Spider Lilies and Cardinal Flowers.

At the beginning of May we reinstalled the shade cover over the pond. It continues to do its job but I have found that the material itself has stretched due to winds that buffeted it up and down. Right now it is very saggy. When we take it down in the fall we will resize it to take out some of the slack.

We finally broke down and purchased a Laguna Brand, 55 watt, UV clarifier/sterilizer light. It’s rather large – about 5 feet in length. The external 4 barrel filter system continues to do its job but it simply could not keep up with the tremendous algae bloom that occurs in Arizona with intense daily sunlight and temperatures of 90 to 100+ degrees. The light has only been in operation for a little over a week but the difference in water clarity is amazing. It seems to get rid of the smallest algae particles that are suspended in the water and that simply flow through the 2 regular pond filters. We placed it in-line, above ground with the external 4 barrel filters. As a result the water clarity has improved tremendously.

The water clarity is so good we are able to see the fish anytime, day or night. We have 4 under water pool lights and we can see the Koi grazing at night among the pebble bottom and the potted plants. It is really so nice to sit by the pond whenever the mood strikes and watch the Koi.

I ordered and received one of those Styrofoam rings with netting to introduce floating plants into the pond. I wouldn’t get another. The Styrofoam breaks too easily and it continually floats toward the filter system. I found myself moving it away from the filter several times a day. I finally had enough of it and removed it. So much for that gadget.

We have new visitors to the pond – snails – itty, bitty, tiny snails. We think they came in one of two ways: either on a plant I ordered over the internet or on the feet of the many birds that visit the pond. Either way, they are in the filters…everywhere. This past week I received some Assassin Snails and immediately dumped them in the pond. It seems an Assassin Snail’s mission in life to eat other snails. I hope so. I guess we will find out soon enough.

Our other visitor is a cane toad. He appeared one night about a week ago. We surmise he came in on our irrigation system or else, bird legs again, but as an egg. Cane toads are nocturnal. This one is a juvenile, maybe 6 to 8 inches long. I read that they can live for 10 years and grow to 2 feet in size. He’s not afraid of humans and will even let us touch him. He’s a very calm, little fellow.

Our greatest problem seems to be the heron that nests somewhere on our street. Our street is made up of one acre lots, irrigated. There is no curb, gutter, sidewalks or street lights. It is a dark, cool oasis in the midst of urban living and we love it and apparently, so does the heron. We think it visits the pond in the middle of the night. The only way to confirm it is to stay up all night or get a night vision, motion detector camera. I think the camera will happen sooner than staying up all night for many nights to confirm the heron.

We know it is taking fish and when it doesn’t take them it has wounded several Koi mortally. It seems to prefer Koi that are white or nearly all white in color although a few orange Koi have also disappeared. Just as the water clarity has improved for our visual enjoyment it has also allowed the heron to spot its prey more easily. We have lost more fish in the past month than in all of last year. Not a happy scenario. I will continue to research the best deterrent to this fellow’s dining regimen.

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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Jan 14

23

Winter…what winter??

Posted by Joyce Clark on January 23, 2014
Posted in Koi pond | Tagged With: koi, koi pond, new pavers, no winter in Arizona, shade cloth reinforcement, water quality | No Comments yet, please leave one

For those of you who do not live in Arizona let me extend my heartiest condolences for the lousy weather you are experiencing. Here, we have had no winter. Today it is 75 degrees and sunny. That is the forecast until the end of the month, another 10 days or so. All flora and fauna are confused. Plants are either in bud or blooming and the Koi think spring has arrived. If there is, by some miracle, a frost in February it will kill all of the tender new growth – not a good thing. Below is a photo that I took today, January 23, 2014.

Arizona Koi Pond in Winter

The water quality remains fantastic. We can see the Koi and right now we only feed them occasionally so they are out sucking up residual algae on the rocks. Here are some photos of the Koi feeding. I put a hula hoop in the pond and throw the food within the ring. The Koi are trained to go there to eat. The white stuff in the photos is the food. We call the black/white/red Koi, Yum Yum. He or she is as wide as long and eats everything in sight. We call the orange Koi, Silky. It has the most beautiful flowing fins. Both are the largest fish we have and are easily nearly 2 feet long and each weighs a couple of pounds. We still lose an occasional fish. I have decided that when any variable in the pond changes, the weakest ones are affected and die off. The ones that are left are very hardy little dudes.

I spent the past two weeks reinforcing the grommets on our shade cloth cover for the pond. During the monsoon season we can get some pretty strong winds. They put a tremendous amount of strain on the weakest points on the shade cloth — the grommet holes. I purchased some duck cloth (under $8) and used a flexible pellon fusible cloth ($5) that I ironed on the shade cloth. It is now ready for another season. Here is a photo of the reinforcement.

Since the pond was constructed I have had to slog through the dirt edging the south side of the pond. A few weeks ago we finally installed pavers in that section. It looks and feels so much better. Here’s a photo of the new pavers.

New pavers around the pond

Soon we will do a water change and trim and fertilize all of the water plants. When that is accomplished we will be ready for the Koi breeding season as the water warms up. I read somewhere that cotton string mop heads are good havens for fish eggs and fry. I plan to get a couple and test that theory.

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Dec 13

9

Our Koi pond in winter

Posted by Joyce Clark on December 9, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond • Musings over a cup of early morning tea | Tagged With: December, hibernation, Iris, koi, koi pond, Lilies, water quality, winter | No Comments yet, please leave one

Koi pond in winter

Here it is December 9, 2013 and everyone is in the throes of preparing for Christmas. We tend to ignore our outside environment and focus on Christmas baking, shopping, and decorating. What about the pond?

If you do not live in the Phoenix Metropolitan area, here’s what our weather has been like. Highs during the day are in the mid-50’s. Since we live in a city adjacent to Phoenix our part of town is subject to freezing at night despite the fact that there may be no hard frost in the Phoenix downtown core. We have had about a half dozen nights of frost so far. For those of you who are dealing with snow, ice and really cold temperatures our weather seems wonderful and it is.

Iris and lilies

Gravel at pond bottom
Fish shelf

The pond is in semi-hibernation. The shade cover was taken down in the beginning of October. The tropical lilies no longer cover most of the surface water and what leaves they do produce are small. The pond’s Iris are thriving. The cold doesn’t bother them a bit and we look forward to their show of blooms in the spring. We spend the most time covering and uncovering the plants that landscape the pond area — the palm trees (still relatively small), Lantana, Ruella and Verbena. The large Agave and the Yucca seem to do just fine uncovered.

When I staggered outside about 8 AM today the outside temperature was 37 degrees and the water temperature was 46 degrees. The water is cold but crystal clear. The external filter and the two waterfall filters are running and won’t be cleaned again until spring. No algae dare grow at this time of year! Later on in the day, usually about 2 or 3 o’clock, after the water has warmed, the Koi will come out from beneath the fish shelf. They seem to spend most of their time doing nothing – just lying in place with occasional foraging for some remaining algae. As long as the water is this cold we don’t feed them and they do just fine.

Nature has graciously cooperated with our busy human schedules. The Koi and the pond are quiet, husbanding their strength for the burst of new growth and activity that will surely occur in February leaving us free to enjoy the season.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to :http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Aug 13

9

Shade over the Koi pond

Posted by Joyce Clark on August 9, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: fish pond, koi pond, shade, shade cloth | 2 Comments

Another lesson learned from our visit to some California Koi farms was that our pond needed shade. California’s temperatures are much lower than those of Arizona yet every Koi farm had shade. Shade covering serves several purposes. It keeps the water cooler, it inhibits the growth of algae that is aided by direct sunlight and it prevents debris from going into the water. We plan to use the shade cloth during the summer (July-August-September) and take it down for the rest of the year.

This project was perhaps the most difficult we have tackled due to the very size of the shade needed. The Koi pond itself is 15” X 25” which necessitated a shade cover larger than those dimensions. We planned on a cover 18’ X 33′. The 18’ dimension would cover the pond proper – not the main waterfall or the stream waterfall. The 33’ dimension would allow the necessary posts to be set to the left and the right of the Koi pond.

Shade cloth diagram

Shade cloth assembled

Grommet corner

Our first chore was to find shade cloth. It’s readily available at big outlets like Home Depot and Lowe’s but they carry cloth no wider than 6’. I called a lot of stores and all had 6’ wide cloth. We ended up getting two rolls of shade cloth 6’ X 50’ (at a cost of $69 each) which would require cutting and piecing together to end up with the right size. Since I do not own a sewing machine I started assembling the shade cloth by hand sewing. It took a day or two for me to realize that I might finish the job by next year. So I started calling upholstery shops. I finally found one that could do my rather unusual job in a week at a cost of $75. My fingers were very grateful!

Posts set in concrete

Cables attached to posts

Shade cloth attached
to house

In the meantime my husband was acquiring the necessary hardware and would be setting two posts in concrete. His list included grommets – many, many grommets, turn buckles, cable, nuts and bolts, 3 pieces of rigid pipe and several bags of concrete mix at a cost of about $150. The total cost of the project was about $365.

It took a week to assemble the shade cloth and another two weeks to set the posts, string cable, insert grommets on the shade cloth and assemble pigtails, etc. We worked on it periodically and didn’t rush.

Shade cloth covering the pond

The shade cloth is up now. It looks like a giant parachute. It looks homemade and is not elegant but it is doing its job. The cloth was rated at producing 80% shade but we think it’s more like 60%. Since putting it up the surface water temperature has never risen higher than 85 degrees. Prior to putting it up we were seeing surface temperatures of 92 to 95 degrees. The water at the bottom of the pond is now between 75 and 78 degrees. Previously the bottom water temperature was 82 to 85 degrees.

There were definitely lessons learned on this project. The next time I will order the shade cloth online so that I can obtain a wider bolt of cloth that does not require so much piecing and assembly and perhaps find cloth that is denser to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the pond’s surface even more. The grommets were placed on the outside hemline of the shade cloth but there are tears next to a few of the grommets due to the tension created in stretching the cloth. I would reinforce the areas where the grommets are placed.

Would we do it again? You bet. With the new external filtration the water is incredibly clear and with the new shade the water temperature has lowered. These were the outcomes sought and we achieved them.

Fish grazing on the bottom

When the pond water was clouded with algae and the fish were not to be seen I assumed they spent the day underneath their “fish shelf.” Now that we can see them we realize that they are busy all day grazing on the algae. I am happy and the pond is happy until I dream up the next “honey-do” project.

©Joyce Clark, 2013

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Aug 13

7

Another filter system added to the pond…Part 1

Posted by Joyce Clark on August 7, 2013
Posted in fish pond | Tagged With: external filter system, filtration, fish pond, koi pond | No Comments yet, please leave one

In July my family and I vacationed in California. While we were there we visited two Koi farms. Lessons learned from those visits were that we needed to beef up our filter system and we needed to add shade. Our adult children committed to working on additional filtration. My husband and I would work on the new shade component.

Our Arizona summers with temperatures over 100 are prolific breeding grounds for algae. When the temperatures rise above 100 you can see the algae practically multiplying before your eyes. In dismay the water turns dark green and murky. We know we have fish. We just can’t see them anymore. We knew we were on the right track with our small external filter.

Four barrel external filter system

It just wasn’t large enough to handle the job. The small external filter was a waste receptacle with holes drilled on the bottom of one side. It was filled with polyester batting and a small pump and hose pushed water into the receptacle. The water filtered down and exited through the holes at the bottom side of the receptacle. It works and would work well in a small pond of perhaps no more than 500 gallons. But our pond is large. It is 15’ X 25” with a depth of 2’ to 4’. It is 7,000 gallons and the little external filter was like the little engine that could. It could do the job but didn’t have enough horse power to do the job well.

Each barrel has different media
with a layer of A/C filter pad on top

The first thing the kids did was to yep…surf the internet. They got a lot of great ideas from You Tube. Many other ponders have apparently faced the same problem and shared their ideas. They decided on a four 55 gallon barrel system. A heavy duty submersible pump would deliver water from the bottom of the pond. It would go to the bottom of the first barrel filled with lava rock which would filter out large clumps of algae and other junk. The water would then move to the bottom of the second barrel filled with ordinary kitchen sponges. The water moves to the third barrel filled with A/C filter mats and lastly to the fourth barrel filled with polyester batting. In each barrel the water is forced to the bottom and must move up to the top of the barrel so that it can move to the next barrel in line. From the last barrel an outtake hose takes the filtered water to our little creek and into the pond proper.

Intake hose and pump
at bottom of pond

Outtake hose dumps
water into the creek

©Joyce Clark, 2013

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Jul 13

25

Pond update…July 25

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 25, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: fish, fish pond, koi, koi pond | 3 Comments

Those wonderful monsoon rains we experienced recently were great…except for the pond. We had a “gully whomper” one day and another entire day when it rained off and on. The rain cooled everything and washed away the dust and dirt…into the pond. Rain water, so I am told, does not contain oxygen and so it depleted the oxygen level in the pond. As a result we lost 3 fish after the rains.

We lost this goldfish. When my husband bought it, it was no more than 2″ long. It had grown to a whopping 8″.

Goldfish

The same fate awaited this metallic black and white skeleton Koi. He was no more than 3″ or 4″ when we got him and he, too, had grown to 8″.

Skeleton Koi

Skeleton Koi

The saddest loss of all was one of my favorite Koi. This guy was also 3″ or 4″ when we bought him and he had grown to a foot long. The coloring on this fish was really good. The front half was red and the back half was predominately black.

Red White and Black Koi

Red White and Black Koi

It’s always sad to lose pets whether it is a dog, cat, hamster or fish. I guess that’s nature’s plan and sometimes even with one’s best efforts, we cannot prevent their loss.

Jun 13

24

Pond Update…end of June

Posted by Joyce Clark on June 24, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: fish pond, Gambusia, hula hoop as feeding ring, koi pond, pond water quality, yerba manza | 3 Comments

Time for another pond update! The pond water, despite temperatures of over 100 degrees in Arizona, remains clear enough to enjoy watching the fish feed every evening. We find ourselves spending about an hour every evening watching their antics.

We also have Gambusia (Mosquito fish) in our pond. The females grow to about 2” to 2 1/2” and the males are about 1 1/2”. They live for a year, year and a half. They breed prodigiously and breed at least 2 times during our summers. They are our “canaries in the coal mine.” If something is going to happen to the water quality, they will die off first. So far, so good. No losses of Gambusia, Goldfish or Koi.

The hula hoop aka feeding ring is working. It now sits about a foot from the edge of the pond, over the fish cave. The big fish, being ever wary, took a few days to get used to being so close to us but now they all come into the ring to eat.

We find that the littlest Koi are very curious and will come over and check out our legs when we are working in the pond. So the other day we decided to try to hand feed them. No problem! They readily came over and joyously ate to their hearts’ content without being bothered by the big guys.

The Aqua-Sphere that we purchased several weeks ago is not a hit…yet. When floating food is placed within it the Gambusia will readily enter and eat the food. The Koi want no part of it so far. We have also discovered that it has to be taken down and cleaned about every 2 weeks. Since we get so little rain in Arizona it becomes quite dusty on the outside and whatever algae is in the pond tends to collect within it. We will hang in there for awhile longer, waiting for cooler weather to see if that makes a difference.

We also did some work around the pond. We have discovered that Yerba Manza is almost weed-like (or else it really likes our pond environment). So we ruthlessly cleaned it out and ended up with at least 3 large trash bags of cuttings and root balls and still have plenty left around the pond.

In July I will be in California and plan to visit Andrews Koi International in Anaheim and the Laguna Koi Ponds in Laguna Beach. I plan to take plenty of photos and will share them here. I have also visited EBay’s auction site and checked out the Koi that they auction on that site. So far I have not been successful in acquiring a fish because I often forget to go back and check my bid status. I do not want to pay “an arm and a leg” for a fish when the shipping charge for overnight is $35.00 so I tend to be a very cheap bidder!!

Jun 13

12

June fish pond update

Posted by Joyce Clark on June 12, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: aquasphere, fish, fish pond, koi, koi pond | No Comments yet, please leave one

Surprisingly we can still see the bottom of the pond and the fish despite the fact that the temperatures have been running in the 105 to 110 degree range. We have a new addition to the pond and it seems like I have to stop trolling the Net for pond information for awhile or we will go broke.

I visited YouTube and can spend hours watching videos of koi fish spawning, feeding, etc., or I can watch fish growing or just swimming around. Everyone once in awhile a video leads to some new discovery. That’s how I happened on the Aqua-Sphere. I saw it on a video, went to the site, bought it and it is now sitting in the pond. While a neat idea, I would not recommend getting it until the company does some modifications. The concept of putting floating food into the ball and seeing the fish magnified is a very good one but their equipment needs modification. The base is too short and not wide enough to provide stability. Since the opening in the sphere is only supposed to be a few inches below the water line we found the base legs to be woefully short. The company should supply taller base legs that can be cut to your appropriate height. So we took an old, plastic tub turned upside down, drilled holes in it and wired the base to in essence, another base. Here is the tub and the Aquasphere:

Tub used as base for
Aqua-Sphere stand

Aqua-Sphere in pond
at dusk

The base ring that the sphere sits on should be wider as well to provide more stability. The first day I discovered that cleaning the pond and creating a strong current will tip the sphere over. Solution is to be more gentle and careful in my movements to clean around the sphere. Have we had fish in the sphere? Yes and no. If you count our hoard of Gambusia (mosquito fish) attacking the floating food, the answer is yes. The Koi are very wary of it so far. One of our Goldfish has exhibited great curiosity and may be the first to venture into it.

Here’s our current Fish Roster. We currently have about 20 fish but I am only going to share photos of half of them. I classify them as Large (between 12” and 24”); Medium ( between 6” and 12”) and Small (up to 6”).

First up is “Big Alice”, an all white, Large Koi. We were calling her “Big A” but during breeding season we realized that she is a female.

Big Alice
White koi

Then there are “Ying” and “Yang”, both are Large Butterfly Koi. Ying is orange and Yang is white with black spots.

Orange Butterfly koi
Ying

Black and white butterfly koi
Yang

Next, unnamed and Large is a Koi that is primarily white with some red and black on its back.

Unnamed Large koi
White with red and black

“Half and Half” is a Large Koi whose front half is red and back half is black.

Half Black and Half Red koi
Half and Half

Another unnamed and Large Koi has red on its head with mainly black on its body but with some red and white showing.

Red, white and black koi
Unnamed

“K1” is also a Large Koi. He is a light, golden color.

Light golden koi
K1

In the Medium category there is “K2.” He started off looking a lot like “K1” but as he has grown he has become more orange and has lost his golden luster.

Golden turned orange koi
K2

Also Medium size and unnamed are our two Skeleton Koi. One is orange and black and the other is silver and black.

Orange skeleton koi
Unnamed

Black and silver skeleton koi
Unnamed

I will post about the pond in July and introduce you to the rest of the pack. They all appear to be healthy. I feed them every evening at about 6 PM and it is a joy to watch them hone in on a morsel of floating food. It is the best time of the day.

May 13

28

Another Rube Goldberg pond contraption

Posted by Joyce Clark on May 28, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: external filter system, fish, fish pond, koi, koi pond, water quality | 2 Comments

Pond Vac

Having put together our shop vac system to muck the bottom of the pond I wanted something to combat the free floating algae in the pond water. Back to Internet surfing again. This time I found a suggestion for an external filter. Our filters are doing a good job but there is so much fine, lacy algae they simply cannot keep up with it all.

I went to Wal-Mart and bought another bag of polyfill batting, a round sprinkler and a tall kitchen garbage receptacle. Again, my purchases were under $20. The only other items needed were a piece of hose and a submersible pump. Fortunately we had both lying around.

The old pump is submersible and moves 600 gallons of water an hour and can completely recirculate the pond water in about 12 hours. We placed the pump is in a sack we made of old, screen door netting to protect it from becoming clogged by algae. We attached an old shovel handle to it so that we can pick up the pump and move it around without having to get into the pond.

Inside of external filter
Poly fill batting
Sprinkler and hose

External filter
trash container
holes drilled in
bottom, front

External filter
hose from submersible pump
to sprinkler in trash container

A piece of hose runs from the pump into the plastic garbage can filled with polyfill batting. Again we drilled about 9 large holes at the bottom of the garbage can on one side only and drilled a hole at the top on the side to slip the hose into. We attached the sprinkler to the hose end draining into the garbage can. We run this external filter system during the day from about 7am to 11pm. It has been working for about a week and we can see that the water is clearing.

Fish in May 2013

We will never rid ourselves of all the algae nor would we want to. The fish do eat the algae and as they root around the bottom and sides of the pond eating algae they disturb it and the fine stuff floats up to the surface. We do see clumps of this fine stuff on the water’s surface. I have tried skimming with our trusty pool net it but it is so fine, it just dissolves. However, it does float over to the internal filters where it is sucked into the system.

Water quality in May
in Arizona

As we enter the really hot part of the year in Arizona the water is becoming more cloudy and with time, we will not be able to see the fish. The filters will not be able to keep up with Mother Nature’s algae production. I am determined, no matter the temptation, not to use chemicals this summer for summer will end, the water will clear and we will be surprised at how big the fish became while invisible to us.

Apr 13

9

Ze pond

Posted by Joyce Clark on April 9, 2013
Posted in fish pond • Koi pond | Tagged With: fish pond, koi, koi pond, pond plants | 4 Comments

It’s the beginning of April, 2013, and spring has definitely arrived. All of the plants surrounding the pond are starting to bloom and in a few days there will be more riotous color than there is now.

The pond seems to be in “balance” right now and one can see the pond shelf that borders the perimeter of the pond underwater. An abundance of fish is there for our viewing pleasure as well. My husband counts 18 fish. I, not being as diligent, can count maybe 14 fish. No matter, at this time, they are all healthy, voracious eaters and have just started spawning. This morning we observed a pod of them chasing a white Koi that my husband had named “Big Al.” I suppose the more appropriate name, given the activity we saw, would be “Big Alice.” I doubt that we will suddenly be overrun with baby fish. The eggs will be eaten almost as soon as they are spotted as we are not set up to breed baby fish.

Other creatures are in mating mode as well – the birds, the butterflies and the dragon flies. We are not happy about the return of our dragon flies. For you see, they lay their eggs which hatch into nymphs. These nymphs are voracious little suckers and last year, they happily attached themselves to the smallest of our fish and killed them. These nymphs are about an inch long and dark in color. We find some, but not all, in the filter net of our pond.

We have not had to worry about predators like raccoons but our greatest foe is a resident heron. The folks in our area all live on one acre, horse properties. A heron has nested on a property several houses away from ours. He often comes over to visit by sitting on our roof which is a wonderful perch for him as he can see everything in the pond. We’ve installed a heron decoy and move it from time to time as instructed. Does it work? We don’t know yet. If we see fish carcasses lining the pond perimeter we’ll know that the decoy didn’t work.

With our cool, 60 degree nights and mornings in the 70’s, there is nothing better than sitting on our back patio, listening to the sounds of our waterfalls, viewing all of the vibrant color and watching our fish madly darting after one another. This is undoubtedly the best time of year not just for humans but for the fish as well.

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