How true. We shouldn't try because we would pick favorites.
Off to bed for me.
Jeri's Oasis
fredrump;
was just killing time and running through this forum. what I usually do to increase the number of koi hatching. is several things, I have used the nylon scrubber balls like for the shower. Tie several together, and tie off on a rock or something. Then after a spawn pick up the bundle of scrubbers and put it in your hatching area. I really like water letuce better for this but don't really get any started by the first spawn, the root mass is an excelant place to find a lot of eggs.
A couple years ago I had well over a hundred hatch that I had put in a preformed. When they got to nearly an inch long, the raccoons started having a feast. Think I saved about 25.
Now I float a tub in a floating island with 1/4 inch holes for the fry to get out, when they are big enough. Trouble is , frogs and snakes like them too. so they need lots of hiding places.
I think you are going to have a PH problem for a while with all that concrete but there are measures you can take for that. I wouldn't put fish in though untill you have the PH under control.
Happy ponding Russ
Hi Russ, that was interesting. Do you sell fish, or just have a large enough pond to support that many little ones if they all made it to maturity?
Hi Russ,
I guess I should start my own oasis thread but here we are in Jerri's. My pond ist still not finished and it's been four weeks now. They've been doing sealing, priming and have two coats of paint on there now. They start with a light beige type color and then get progressivly darker brown to resemble ledge rock. It's coming along nicely. Today I had an electrician here all day wiring my two pumps and all the lights. I have a 2 PS above ground pump which will mainly do the bio filters (2 150 gallon tanks) with a throttle to direct water to another waterfall if the flow through the filters is too heavy. Then I have 5000 gal/hr submerged pump to help with the main waterfall. Everything collects in various basins and will then drain and overflow as needed to form a water fall.
I don't think I'll have to worry about babies just yet but will take your advice to heart. I guess I'll just buy some 4 or 6 inchers and let them grow up a while first. When do they have babies? This is all new to me as my other pond was just full of feeder fish (gold fish) who survived as they could and grew to some size over time. No real care was needed.
As to the pH - my irrigation water is very unhealthy with lots of sodium and bicarbonates but since it will fill the pond I took a rather rare step (for a private home owner) and had a commercial system installed which will remove the salts and limestone as well as regulate the pH level. Normally it was around 7.5 and now it will be between 5.9 and 6.1. The injector pump squirts sulphuric acid into the water as needed to accomplish this task. The pump I have now is not sufficient as it only gets the pH down to 6.5. So I'm waiting for them to install a larger pump sometime this week. It's quite an eleborate setup with digital readouts all over the place. Next time the guy comes I'm going to video his instructions so that I have a record of what to do. I already forgot everything he told me the first time around.
What should the pH level in a pond be? There really won't be any direct concrete to water contact as everythng will be sealed and painted many times. Does paint bother fish? I wouldn't think so. But I'll get a test kit anyway.
Fred
Wow Fred, you're dong a very thorough job. You may have to start a thread to show it off when it's done!