zs_phil

iTrader: (1)

might of been pinched arn't koi worth £1000's .
seen some at a local koi place and they was well over 4 figures

Spoon

Ah, I assumed you were as you gave your advice on a thread.

Again, filtered properly the water can be clear in the summer too. Unfiltered and no UV and nature works against clear water in the heat.

Spoon

There are Koi and there are Koi. The difference between decent Koi and garden centre type offerings are huge.

David Lock

It's a funny old market. Yes in a shop large Koi can be that but real specialists can charge much more.

Yet every now and again your local paper will have an ad reading "good home wanted for old Koi!"

Personally I don't know enough about truly valuable fish or spare money to spend so I just get the smaller ones and watch them grow

Plus even reasonable fish specialists can sell you with a fish with a virus which can wipe out an entire pond collection.

dl

DDS789

iTrader: (2)

Admittedly i was wrong about cold water. Still the second part of what i said isnt far off. The fact that ice on top of the water will seal off oxygen supply into the water and contain cO2 emmitted from the fish in the water. not only leaves in the ice will cause this, what about any leaves on the bottom of the pond? The fish can/will actually suffocate.

It is recomended that smalls holes should be made in the ice to allow some gas flow, not by breaking or smashing the ice but by thawing it.

Being no expert, i guess i should just keep quiet

DARB

my pond is 21ft x 11ft and 6 1/2 ft deep approx 8500 gallons

the filter system is a 1000 gallon set up ( four 250 gallon chambers ) it has two pumps (one for the filter system and one for the surface skimmer) it also has 2x 55w UV's and a small compressor

it costs about £40 a month to run ( glad I'm not on a water meter lol) then the food about £20 a month in summer, **** me I could have got the STI

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

If you have plants in your pond they have said your actually better off leaving it frozen.

Spoon

Sounds lovely. Your gallonage though is nearer 9500 (9384). Unless of course you deducted for shallower areas like shelves. I see you said approximately but gallonage is important if you need to treat the pond at any time.

What make filters are they and do you have a vortex or sieve? Do you run air stones too or are they off your compressor you mention?

Spoon

Yes, as the link on the other thread in the week suggested.

It is 2010 and still people come out with different views. Most garden ponds have plants, though most dedicated Koi ponds don't. I know people that haven't even so much as bothered in the slightest about their ponds and fish in the winter and haven't ever lost one. On the other hand there are those that do whatever they can to seemingly help through the winter months and lose fish.

Leslie

They are expensive fish though-could someone have nicked them?

Les

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Maybe a case of ain't broke don't fix, don't play god, let nature sort itself out etc.

(I know nothing about fish, but have seen plenty of cases with the more anally retentive folk who can't stop messing with their cars and ends up making them break more, the same may apply to keeping fish, but who am I to judge? ).

< gets coat >

Spoon

There of course is a lot of truth in that. However, the old age argument that decent Koi aren't the same as your common Goldfish etc, and therefore require more work than simply leaving them to cope naturally.

After all said and done too you have technically already played god by bringing fish into sometimes a tiny unnatural pond.

SunnySideUp

Just buried my Carp this morning .... not seen the others at all, - hope they start appearing soon!

Spoon

If you have room for more water then why not use some dechlorinator and run the hose gently over the ice to clear it.

Hope you haven't buried your fish in the garden with a GSD around.

DARB

a few pics

first chamber is a vortex, then brushes, then K1 (this is what the compressor is for ) then last chamber is flocur

Leslie

Thats a very impressive set up DARB. I could spend ages just watching them.

Les

Spoon

Nice set-up, Darb. What are the dimensions of your filters to get 250 gallons each?

apples24

iTrader: (1)

blimey thats huge !!!!!!!!!!!!


i thought the father in law was mad for building this he could of put a nice hot tub there lol





its huge goes under decking ontop etc, he built it a year ago think its japanese koi he has??? i know they cost him 30 quuid each and they were only small

bob r

iTrader: (46)

I doubt it. We are really secure at the back and the Koi were only 6" or so.
Still get attched to them tho.

SunnySideUp

Lifted some huge ice sheets out of the pond this afternoon .... yes, fish in garden (GSD wasn't watching me!)

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Web-cam !

I've just been out today to skim the leaves and "green stuff" from mine, all present and correct. Phew ! Perhaps being over-stocked means they keep each other warm.

LOL

dunx

DARB

TBH I'm not quite sure, all I know was I was told the whole set up was 8500 gallons and this included the 1000 gallons for the filter system

SunnySideUp

Just found another lying on the surface

Another funeral ........

pauld37

Chuck him in the pan Pete

Spoon

Ah okay. They look smaller than mine to be honest (though pictures can be deceptive) and I do have the biggest Kockney Koi make so I was interested in the make of yours. I can't see yours would be 1000 gallons unless they are bigger of course.

My vortex is 3' 4" in diameter and 4' deep and each module is 3' deep, 3' long and 3' 4” wide.


Vortex= 261 x 3 lots of modules @185= 818 Gallons.

Each module is capable of filtering circa 2500 gallons of pond. Stocking levels adjusted either way.

Is that your slide valve to waste in the bottom of the picture?

Spoon

Not good. This cold weather has claimed a fair few fish amongst owners.

You never did say how deep your pond was though?

pauld37

The cold weather shouldn't be a problem, as long as the pond surface doesn't freeze over. I've got mine in a 2.5ft deep 900 gallon paddling pool, since the beginning of December, because our pond had a landslide in all the rain we had.

SunnySideUp

The deepest part of my pond is about 3' or 1 metre .... it shallows to about 6" under the decking - this never froze over, but - there is a ledge where it drops steeply from 6" to the 1 metre.

If the fish were under the decking, in 6" then decided to go deep, there is a possibility that 1" of ice had formed over the deep - thus giving them a depth of just 5" to swim through .... I think a couple got trapped under the decking

There may be more under there - I have shone a torch and cannot see anymore ... but I cannot see any fish at all!!

Spoon

Are we talking Koi or fish in general?

The prolonged cold weather this year has caused no end of problems for lots of Koi owners. The water temperature has been very cold for a long period. Freezing conditions have been thought responsible for Koi deaths.

Whether the entire surface of the pond is frozen over is a separate issue to water temperatures that Koi live in. It seems a long time ago that I saw 4 degrees on my pond thermometer, a temperature regarded as sustainable for Koi during the winter. Also a temperature found further down than the surface for obvious reasons so ice on the surface is irrelevant.

Obviously there will always be exceptions. I have 2 ponds, 1 50ft x 20ft and 1 30ft x 15ft. One pond is totally natural and was completely frozen over, and still is, though it is thawing.

The fish pond was also frozen over originally except for an area along the side half way around the pond. This was due to the water return from my filters via a 4" pipe flowing. However, even this flowing water soon froze over, all the way back to a small hand sized hole right around the return pipe. A few more days, or just one more day of the freezing temperatures might have seen the small hole disappear. So even with a large amount of relatively fast flowing water my pond nearly completely froze over.

Today I still have a frozen area in the middle of the pond but I've seen all the Koi and so far so good, they are all moving. Whether my water was a decent enough temperature down below or I've just been lucky, who really knows. I know lots of people that have lost their Koi that haven't lost Koi before in 15 winters. I also know people that haven't lost any Koi in shallower ponds than you'd not ideally like to keep Koi in.

Spoon

The pond designer needs keeping in a fridge for 18 hours of the day then.