The weather has warmed up a bit here today so I went to check the ponds. The koi are all happy and swimming around. HUGE amounts of string algea from having the deicer in there this year but that will provide food if the little beasties get hungry and I can always clean it out later.
The goldfish pond has been frozen over for some time since it did not have a deicer in it. Since the weather is supposed to be good for the next few days I took the deicer from the koi pond to thaw a hole in the goldfish pond. It did thaw the hole out and when I measured the ice it was almost four inches thick! The fish did not seem to mind at all but started swimming up to see what I was doing. Did not see any dead fish under the ice but I suppose time will tell.
Checked the goldfish pond today
Thats Great!!! I've been watching the goldfish here swim around even when it was -17! Big deicer in a little pond. But it was just this morning when I managed to see the koi moving around at the bottom of the big pond. It's too murky to count noses but there are definitely koi moving around down there. I know I've got some that are ok. If the warm weather holds for another day or two I might be able to see more. I don't have string algae, but I do have a lot of suspended green pea soup algae. Makes it really hard to see what's going on. Wasn't this an ugly winter?
Yipeeeee!!!!!!!!!! This morning I could see 8 of the 11 koi. They were fat and moving around pretty good. The other three I don't know yet. They could be just fine, just too dark to see in the murky water.
I am so glad that your fish are looking good! I seem to remember more snow here in past years instead of the killer low temps.
Took the pups out for a walk through the garden and the deicer had melted all that ice overnight. That is just encredible to me. That stuff was thick. The goldies were happy as could be and I could see some swimming but the water is cloudy so could not see everyone.
Doesn't it feel good just to get outside without stumbling through snow drifts and below 0 biting winds? Honestly,this winter here was like having moved to the antartic. I'm sure your pups loved the outing.
We've had a few days of almost 70 degrees and my pond is completely free of ice! My cat decided to knock a large rock into the pond which pulled down the net so I decided to remove it. My fish are all alive and looking well:) The water is really clear and even a few of my water lillies are trying to put out new shoots. Maybe we will have an early spring!
This message was edited Feb 8, 2009 3:55 PM
Today's high was 43. No seventies here I'm afraid. But above freezing is a real treat. I'm so glad your fish are doing fine and you're water's clear. My pond koi is always murky come spring. The goldfish pond is crystal clear though. One's in full sun ( koi pond) and one is in complete shade (goldfish pond ) . It's the sun I guess. Just grows the algae.
My pond looks a mess with yuck floating around and now with all the snow melt I have an additional 6 inches of water in it (I needed the water anyway but it is dirty). My pond is at the bottom of a hill. Fish are hiding in the koi castle I bought for them last fall. Two fish have fungal issues. One I treated about a week ago and another I noticed two days ago I treated and the tissue on the fish was so mushy feeling. A lot of dead scales/cells. When I applied the PP with a Q-tip it felt like I could poke a hole right through the fish. This fish actually swam to me and nearly got into the net for me. It easily laid on it side in the net while I applied the PP not making a fuss. It swam away afterwards down to the bottom of the dark, dark pond. I am concerned it might have died because it had a very soft spot with this fungus and it was quite large. It grossed me out when I applied the PP. Has anyone ever had a fish with such a soft and rotten spot of flesh? Will this fish survive?
I'm afraid I haven't had that experience. Your'e doing the best you can. Cold water is such a harsh environment for an infected fish. Other than cranking up a quarantine setup in a warm environment and keeping the koi there until about mid May, there isn't anything more you can do. I sure hope you get the water quality issues sorted out this coming year. I'm only guessing but I suspect it's at the root of most of the problems you've been experiencing. However, I could walk out to the koi pond tomorrow and find myself in the same situation. Sometime stuff just happens, in spite of your best efforts.
You can do a mid winter water change. Lower a submersible pump to the lowest part of the pond with a hose attached and remove about 20%- to 25% of the water and then add dechlorinator and fresh water. In Dr. Eric Johnson's most recent koi vet book he does this as part of his winter routine, so it must be ok to do. He recommends it. Use a pump that can handle large solids to prevent clogging. Savio has a good one.
http://www.petdepot.com/Water-Master-Solids-Handling-Pump-2050/M/B001L47RVO.htm?traffic_src=froogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=froogle
We are forecasted to get 3" to 4" of rain tomorrow and Wednesday!! My pond right now is the fulllest I've ever seen it. I will have an overflow situation here for the first time ever and the ground is too frozen to absorb the runoff. What to do? I've a plan. I have a Savio submersible that I use for water changes. I'm hooking that puppy up, adding an additional 100" of hose and plan on draining the excess water out to the curb and the sanitary sewer. It's illegal to do that here and I don't give a rats patootie. By the time I get caught, if I even get caught, I'll be done and the stuff will be put away. We are manning the battle stations! This is the whackiest winter ever!
With your pond at the bottom of the hill how do you manage runoff from a big rain?
Do you have a rock bottom pond? It might be time to pull out the rocks and do a big spring cleaning before putting them back. I would think that might help the water quality issues and kill off any bacteria lingering in there.
I had rocks too, for a while. It was the single best thing I did to improve water quality when I took them out. To take them out I had to lower the pond level to about chest high, climb in and pull them out one by one. I had large smooth granite river stones. Some of them weighed over 20lbs. The volume of rock I took out added 500 gals to the water capacity. It was filthy, exhausting work. When I was done I showered with a toothbrush. I would never recommend rocks to anyone with a pond, with the exception of a stream. They're ok in a stream where water is continually flowing over them, but at the bottom of a pond they turn into a toxic waste dump.
I don't know if you remember all of you guys telling me to remove my pebbles off the bottom which I did and it nearly killed me and my back. So the deepest part of my pond does not have hardy any pebbles but the ledges still do and I will continue to work on that this summer. I also have a river with pebbles-I can't see removing those otherwise the river would look horrible.
Regarding run-off-I have a curtain drain but when the melt off is huge or huge rains it ends up in the pond. We never use chemicals on our grass and we are adding additional curtain drains this spring so keep the water out of the house and pond.
I am looking into biofiltration and want some advise-I will start a new post with that-please go to it and tell me what you like and don't like.
It's funny, even though I read up a ton on koi and ponds prior to starting mine I still know I have a lot more to learn. My contractor is now less knowledgable than myself. He lost all his fish this winter and asked me if I knew why since he knew I was so into my pond. LOL!
Don't worry about the stones in your stream, the constantly moving water will take care of any possible toxicity problems there.
Good to know.
Hhmm... sounds like rocks aren't the problem then. I have rocks on the sides too but I have a bottom drain, which I love. I just spray the rocks I do have and open it up. It isn't hooked to the pump yet so I just open the gate manually and let gravity do the rest. I've heard that a pond like mine is called a hybrid pond. It is a watergarden with plants and rocks, but has the filtration and bottom drain are more like a koi pond.
I think you are right, you probably just need more filtration. That should be easy enough. How many gallons? How many fish? When I added my second filter I couldn't believe the change in water quality:)
I have about 2000 gallons and I think 10 smallish koi. I vacuumed the pond and did another water change today. That's two days in a row with a water change. I have read so many varying opinions about water changes but most vets who treat koi recommend weekly water changes of at least 25%. The only thing I was unsure about was it being winter and all. The fish don't seem to mind. They are probably used to it from me doing it last summer.
BTW: Both fish that I teated with the PP are still alive and swimming and no longer hanging out by themselves by the heaters. Both are with the school of koi in the koi castle. I suspect that is good news for now.
Yes, it is! You're sure working hard.
Hope you had a warm day to do all that work!
It was a gorgeous day! No coat was needed which made a lot of algae work with the vac a whole lot easier. That Oase pond vac is great though. It can take some time but it really does SUCK. I sucked a ton of stone off the bottom as well as dirt but it is discharged all over my patio. Oh well, I will sweep it tomorrow after it is dried off. A couple hundred stones on the patio and only a few hundred thousand more to go!