It is 70 degrees here so my fish are out swimming, enjoying the nice day:) I noticed that my koi are all trying to hide from me behind plant baskets, under their koi castle. Meanwhile the goldfish are prancing about my net as I clean out leaves without a care in the world. This is something I noticed last summer too.
So are koi more suspiscious in nature? Or are they just smarter then goldfish and know I could be a potential threat? It also seems that my koi seem to react to my most skiddish koi, Lightning, and follow what she does. They were starting to get a little more tame by last fall(with the help of food of course) but seems we will be starting over on that this spring.
Are Koi smarter or just more suspiscious???
ahhh, don't tell me that. Mine never came up from the bottom-that and the illness made for a boring, hard to maintain pond. I hope mine are friendlier than last year. Before the "Plague of 08" I had a fish that I adopted purely on it's friendly nature. It would attack your fingers if put into the tank. It made all my other fish more friendly. Unfortunately, this fish is in the KOI CASTLE in the sky. . . All my fish were quiet and boring and sick after he left the pod. . . I have to find another ugly friendly guy again this summer. . .
They come up if they don't know I'm there but if I move they start darting and swim into the castle. The goldfish don't pay much mind and almost seem to be curious. Especially the small goldfish I raised in the baby tank last year. I see why they are tamer but many of the goldfish have had as much exposure to me as the koi.
It was funny, I looked down and there were 3 of my 6 koi in the castle. I could just see the tips of their noses and their eyes looking up at me. Then they quietly slid backwards like eels when I spotted them! I love when they do that:)
Koi have to have larger brains, don't they? I know my goldfish in my aquariums aren't the brightest. They have absolutely no fear of the gravel vaccuum or me moving stuff around. They chomp on my arm, try to eat gravel, and attempt to eat the same piece of their own poop about a half dozen times!
I also like it when they "slide" as you called it backwards. The nervous slid. Anymore than a slide and it become a "shuffle" in my pond with one going in one side and another falling out the other side. Quite amusing!
Poppy the koi was finally to the point when he didn't mind me futzing around with his tank. He investigated my arm if I was moving something around in there and was always on the hunt for food. I miss him so much.
None of the new fish are tame, they are all skittish. They don't want to even eat with the light on above the tank, they hide and wait. As soon as the light is off (I don't want the food to rot), they come out and eat.
I wondered if that slide is normal or not! It sounds common - my new tancho does that quite a bit. The others just turn tail and hide.
I have found at this time of the year, the koi tend to swim away from me in that very slow flowing way. I have found this in previous years too. I don't know why it isn't until the water seems to warm up that the koi seem to be more friendly and will come towards me. Perhaps it is a safety mechanism as the koi are so mucn slower in the cooler water than in the warmer water.
When we had goldfish, they were always more active in the pond at any given time during the year, than the koi. In the winter they would come to the surface of the water right up by the hole in the ice where the deicer was. I typically did not and still do not see the koi until the ice has melted from the pond.
IC: Turning tail and hiding is the first step of fear. "sliding backward" is a cautious movement but not completely terrified movement like turning tail and doing a crazy lap or two or three looking to hide somewhere. I forgot, my fish used to turn tail and hide and now they are "sliders" so I guess they are slowly becoming more at ease.
BTW: I saw a few fish today. They usually hide in a different section of the pond but today they came out from the koi castle and went in a spot under a rock but a little section under this rock gets some sunlight. It became a warm and sunny day and they were sun bathing.
Three of my four do the "turn tail, swim laps, then hide in the koi kastle" routine. This morning, though, I noticed that in addition to the tancho doing the sliding, the kujaku was also sliding, so that is coming around pretty fast, I think. My indoor tub is heated and stays a constant 72-75 degrees. I've just been trying to give the new guys a lot of space. I used to leave a full spectrum light on above Poppy all day but the new guys seem terrified of the bright direct light. So, I leave it on an hour in the morning and evening (at feeding time), then during the day I leave on a light nearby and there is also some natural light that comes in through the windows.
IC.... you are spoiling those babies! They will probably want you to hold them before too long:)
And they will want cookies and milk and a bedtime story . . .
Mine charge me if I just walk across the deck! More like Pavlov's dogs....
Maybe I just need to send my fish for training to Mary!
I'd be friendly too if I were in Mary's zone...lol
Well spring in Florida is like Fall in other states. This is when all our our trees drop their leaves. My ponds look terrible, and thousands more fall while I'm trying to scoop out net fulls. The oak pollen flowers from the neighbors big oak tree makes the water a mess (as well as being toxic to koi) I don't like them anyway (the neighbors, not the koi) so maybe if they go on vacation I'll hire a tree company to come take off the big branch that hangs over our yard only. O:-)
Mary -
I'll take your 'fall' over our winter anytime!
:D I suppose I understand! lol...