Category Koi

Oct 15 2012

Costia in the main pond :(

So I have thought for around the last two weekends that something hasn’t quite been right with the main pond and my big fish. I’ve taken scrapes from several koi, found nothing….

 

Then this last three days, my shusui who is already struggling.. she’s egg bound, has had fin rot and well she didn’t look so good on Saturday. She was sulking on the bottom of the pond.

 

I had thought she was just on her way out, kinder to put her to sleep than let her suffer with impacted eggs and septacemia. But I’ve very reluctant to give up, so I was thinking of transfering her to my QT tank and seeing if she responded to heat better…

 

Of course after a scrape…

 

Well the scrape showed Costia. Not in massive numbers like what was killing my babies back in July, but in enough of a number to cause concern.

 

So, I text a couple of my Koi Buddies. As I was preparing the treatment for the whole pond. Potassium Permanganate. PP for short.

 

Used it a lot in the last four years, nasty stuff. Turns the water purple and strips the oxygen out of it. But, it works… and it works well.

 

So the deed is almost done, nearly 2 hours in. Still purple, although got some more settling just in cast I have to top it up.

 

Fingers crossed for my big girl, she’s been through the wars, not the best looking fish, but I still love her 😦

 

Sad right now, so gonna have a beer and relax for a little while.

 

 

Oct 8 2012

Pond build Pt 4 (finally we can add koi)

Finally we can add some koi….

Here is the pond, full, 3800 gallons.

 

 

 

 

Looks amazing!!!

 

 

 

 

So pleased with it, lots more to do though.

 

 

 

 

Love this little guy, cracking orange head too. All our original koi/fish were put in just before we got this one.

 

 

 

I know it isn’t clear, but the mark on his head has no gone. He’s one of our best koi and so friendly I can pick him up. 🙂 ‘Hoover’ because he just hoovers up everything you feed him.

 

 

 

 

 

With the bunker covered and the water feature set up, was looking great. Didn’t take long for New Pond Syndrome to set in though and the water to turn green. 😦

 

 

 

All planted up, nearly complete for a bit. The fishing twine above was because we had herons ‘already’ sucks…. got my best little baby 😦

 

 

 

 

 

Time to enjoy a beer or two 🙂

Oct 4 2012

Pond Build Pt 3

Yeah seems to be taking me ages to get to where I want, the actual fill in…

Here are some of the next few pictures. Hopefully the next post will then be with water 🙂

Too much water, so it was a shaky start to the blockwork. But up it goes.

This will house the filter and all the other bits and bobs.

Blocks done. Not a bad job, we’ve other bits and bobs to start now.

Next was to get the bottom drain in, carpet and then sand.

Job done all around, we then left the hose pipe on over night to fill the pond, nice and slow.

Water in, all starting to look good. Soon after some tests we can add fish 🙂

Awesome.

Oct 3 2012

Today

I was trying to post Pt 3 on the pond build, but I got lost in resurrecting some old files. I’ve actually lost some pictures, and I have no idea where they are. 😦 gutted…
So, today is about me.

I am feeling pretty crappy at the moment. I am not too happy with work stuff, which I won’t talk about. But, on a quick note, even though I am doing the utmost that I can, I still don’t think it is good enough. 😦

Anyway, there are other factors too, a week last Sat, I got up to find one of our guinea pigs had died. So then I had to make a decision for the other piggy… he needed a friend, so I decided to find a new home for him.

I am a little gutted, sad, but his new home is good. His new mum has loads of experience in breeding and care, so I have no doubts what so ever that he will be very very well looked after.  I just miss their squeeks… their chattering, begging me for some fresh veg.

This has had a pretty bad impact on my eating this week, no lies, why should I. I’ve not felt very well, and although I’ve eaten its not been what I needed too. This will settle I know, I just need to make sure that I am able to move forward.

Trying to sort out the rest of the problems here, have also been a little bit of a nightmare. It just never wants to stop with this rain… yuk… We’re trying to sort out things for the weekend to get on with the pond plumbing, it just doesn’t want to let up.

I have something nice to look forward too, just over two weeks and we’re off on holiday. Don’t think we’ll go anywhere, but the rest will be so nice. I really need it and so does Paul.

Fingers crossed for the weekend, we want it dry and productive, so I can post more pictures. lol….

🙂

Take care all, and speak soon…

Dawn

Oct 2 2012

Pond Build pt 2

This takes me so long because finding all the pictures that I want to include is just so difficult. 🙂
As you can see there was only 2ft of soil, and then the rest was solid clay. I really mean solid too. My husband who was driving the 3tonne dumper truck got stuck down the side of the house. In the end the digger driver had to dig up the side of the house down to the clay so that we could get around that problem.

 

We took it down to 6ft… Still wasn’t too sure if it was going to be deep enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luke was really good with the digger, he loaded Paul up and off he went…. several times… this is where he got stuck though. It wasn’t good.

 

 

 

 

 

Only had one problem, when loading the tractor trailer, we managed to go through our internet and phone wire. Not good. £120 later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul thought he would act the goat, he dug it all by hand, honest… 🙂

 

 

 

Finished. Finally. Doesn’t look like much, but it is big. We took 9 tractor trailer loads full out of this. at £90 a trip, it wasn’t cheap. In the end because the driver had gone through our wire, the whole day’s work came to £1000 which in total honesty wasn’t bad. We’d had prices from several other sources at much more than that.  This also included leaving the trailer overnight so we could load it up with all the trees, bushes, hedge and anything else that needed dumping. Needless to say, we also managed to fill that with the conifers etc.  A job well done by me and hubby, as no one else was around to help.

 

 

 

And 5am the next day and it is filling with water, all we need to do is wait and just chuck koi in, natural mud pond.

 

 

 
Think I am running out of picture space for this part. Loads more to come. Thanks for looking.

By kanundra • Posted in Koi
0