of the beautiful new baby koi on her blog…link on the left sidebar.
Jane is blogging again and she has pix…
by CJ | Sep 7, 2012 | Journal | 16 comments
16 Comments
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Or, because I can: http://www.janefancher.com/HarmoniesOfTheNet/
Tell Jane that one of the recipes in the “Spotted Owl Cookbook” would probably do just fine for a koi stealing eagle. I’m sure there’s still a few copies kicking around Forks or Sequim! 😉
Lol!
Definitely worth taking a look….you have some real beauties there.
Proge and I are envying the clarity of you water. Ours is clearing slowly but surely!
The water formula: 3 things. 1. in the spring, to get rid of winter sludge, last year’s leaves, etc., once the temperature has risen enough for bacteria, a couple of weeks of MicrobeLift Sludge Remover: it even works under rock and pebbles. 2) once green algae appears, in our region it’s usually cladella (string) algae. For that, Interpet Pond Balance. 3) once you start getting ‘green water’ or that nondescript murk, PondCare Algaefix—says it gets cladella, but it really doesn’t. However, it does get that floating algae that’s so fine even filters miss it, and that’s the cloudiness. Using nothing but those three, the result you see. It’s taken me 3 years to figure this out. And the most effective application of the Algaefix is one trick I learned. When you’ve got bad cloudiness, drain the pond down until you’ve got less than half your normal volume of the pond. Then apply the dose of Algaefix at full pondsized strength, and start filling at the normal pace of your backyard hose. It’s a little oxy-stress on the fish, but they’ll cope. The inflowing highly oxygenated water (let it fall in, if possible, from a little height, like a foot or so—increases oxygen even more) will make up for it: they’ll congregate around that inflow water. Then declorinate, and you’re good. We have given up on ALL filters except the basket filter that catches leaves, and the filter pad we pull out occasionally and hose down: the UVs we dispensed with as either worthless (if the waterflow is not timed to the light strength) or a fire hazard (3 catching fire is a bad record). If your pond store doesn’t have one of these products, hound them until they do, or get them from Amazon. The Pond Balance is ferociously expensive, but worth every penny. It also, if you buy the bulk, comes in a bucket with a very good lid. I have some left and have every expectation it will be good next year. The only other product we use is Vanish dechlorinater.
I got my little pond/tank set up! Not sure exactly how to classify it, since it’s a “raised pond”, but it is looking good. Got it planted, and have now learned that, when taking potted plants out of the tank (because they do NOT want to stay potted!), make sure that all the little fish are out of the pot. Had to rescue one fast and slide it back into the pond. Fighting a bit of string algae, that is getting on the water lettuce roots, but hope that the fish will eventually even that out.
What I am finding shocking is the evaporation rate! I’m losing about 10 gallons a week, so 10% of the total volume. At first I thought I might actually have a leak somewhere, but after talking to people with pools out here, it just evaporates that fast. And, apparently we have really hard water, since when I tested it straight out of the tap, it pegged the top of the chart for general hardness. So, with that and the evaporation rate, I am not sure how often I should be doing water changes, since I figure the mineral content is building up fast.
That evaporation rate also has me wondering about sending so much water to California in open aqueducts. Yes, enclosing them would be expensive, but think about how much less water would have to be diverted from other states if it’s not getting sucked into the air along the way!
You would be shocked at how much energy is lost in those big Pacific Intertie lines that one sees along the San Joaquin end of I5!
(OK, not my best pun, but it just happened.)
For your plants, if you have anything potentially winter-hardy, unpot them, clean the roots, then set them directly on your pond liner, with the roots weighted with rock and pebble. Roots will grow along the liner without penetrating it, and will take their food (and minerals) from the water…
You need an autotopoff. http://www.amazon.com/Hudson-Nonsiphon-Water-Control-Valve/dp/B0051Q9X9C/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1347204830&sr=8-14&keywords=hudson+valve+tank+water+valve or the one from Little Giant. My 5000 gallon pond with very active waterfall evaporates about 250 gallons a day…but that humidity has a beneficial effect on surrounding plants and general pleasantness of the air in the garden. Despite the humidity, it’s pleasant, and about 10 degrees cooler than the air outside the fence.
We did water changes at the rate of about one to two a month, depending on the algae problem. If you are having any sort of water quality problem, a 25% to 50% water change is a good place to start the fix. If you are going to add a remediation chemical, add it when the water is at its lowest, and refill rapidly with water that comes from a slight height.
Something I’ll be experimenting with is incorporation of red cherry shrimp (winter hardy on the WA west side at least) in the outside ponds. They are fantasic hair algae control in my inside tanks (along with Amano shrimp), and breed readily so I have extras to try outside. I really don’t have much hair algae in the goldfish/koi tubs but it won’t hurt. I’m really not into chemicals if an ecosystem approach works. AND, I’m quite careful about bioload and balance fauna with sufficient oxygenating aquatic plants. I’m finding so many of the ‘tropical aquatic plants are perfectly hardy (at least on the west side). Sagitta subulata overwintered last year….so I’m going to try to establish a mat in a tub since it spreads FAST. I almost always have too much in my inside tanks and it helps to have a place to stash it outside! I’m also experimenting with crushed oyster shell substrate in the tubs because our tap water is SO soft, but most of the waterlilies are in pots/tubs so I can lift them easily.
I’m for the eco-approach where possible. But I haven’t got enough room, so it’s UV or the chemicals, and the UV is dangerous.
One nice thing about what this treatment does is that you’re using a natural uptake system (cladella and floating algae) to remove the excess of phosphate in our drinking water, then killing it and ‘exporting’ it via the filters before it can return what it ‘ate’ to the system. The algae treatments are pretty specific, ie, don’t work well on ‘the good stuff’, which is the short green algae which is actually edible by the fish, while cladella isn’t, and I don’t think the floating stuff is either—it actually battles the fish for oxygen and gives off co2, which is not a good thing. And when we remove the sludge, it’s being rendered into gas, probably nitrogen, and ‘decayed’ really fast. That improves the pond chemistry, too.
I’m used to working with ‘chemicals’ with the marine tank, where just about everything is carbon, magnesium, and calcium, so you have calcium carbonate, etc, which makes up most shell—we just have to supply it specifically and at the right ph, so it will dissolve rapidly. (ph 8.3-9.3 will do it).
In the pond, the algaecide for floating microalgae (cloudy water) is Poly [Oxyethlene (dimethyliminio) ethylene (dimethyliminio) ethylene dichloride, which is two chlorides instead of a glycol away from what they use as a (pardon me) pre-medical colon cleanse; I know, I know, arsenic is a jump away from a glycol, too. 😉 By that I mean, don’t let the polyethelene worry you too much. 😉 The Algaefix algicide won’t harm lilies and other plants. I suspect it uses the rapid growth of the algae against the algae. But I’m with you: I find that stuff scary to use, and I wish there were something else that works!
The Pond Balance is curious stuff—they are NOT saying what it is, and don’t put it on the package or anywhere. I’m suspecting it’s a particularly strong phosphate binder along with a buffer to help the ph, which affects a LOT that goes on in water chemistry. And the Sludge Remover is, well, sewer bacteria, but nicely pedigreed sewer bacteria. It’s black/brown and really, really nasty. But it’s fast. Your pond is black for a day and the sludge is gone. The fish actively swim into it, so it seems to be ok with them.
Anyway, you can tell my saltwater bias: it’s toward adjusting the ph until the chemistry behaves, and getting the phosphate and excess nutrients out by hook, chemistry, or bacillus.
The one thing I *hate* to use is the Algaefix, which is that Poly [Oxyethlene (dimethyliminio) ethylene (dimethyliminio) ethylene dichloride stuff, a bit more ‘chemical’ than I like and tending to UNbalance the pond, imho. The fish really don’t like that stuff. They’re fine with the PondBalance and the Sludge Remover, swim right into it, which I think says everything about what’s nasty.
We have horsetail (equisetum) and pickerel, lilies, and of course the edible green algae that coats rocks, lots of worms, probably tubifex, which we feed; water striders; dragonflies and damselflies(but not their larvae: they have to breed elsewhere). Few gnats: the water striders and dragonflies seem to protect us. I fear shrimp would just be on the menu in my pond: these are pretty big fish—though they don’t like dried krill, so maybe not. None of these are hurt by the Algaefix, but I don’t like to water the garden with the pond water until that stuff’s had a chance to decay out.
For us, in the sunny side, the real battle is making sure we don’t get a greenwater bloom that can harm the fish…those things are deadly dangerous, re oxygenation, if the temperature also gets up.
I do want to know how those shrimp are…they sound really interesting.
PS: finally ferreted out what’s in PondBalance besides, I suspect, some buffers and phosphate binder, etc: salt. Disrupts the string algae; but the low level of it won’t hurt regular plants. You need to do some water changes periodically anyway, so as long as you don’t go overboard with it, you’re good.
Neocaridina denticulata sinensis – red cherry shrimp
They breed readily and if you have sufficient plant cover, will probably increase in a goldfish/koi pond. I guess I’ll find out (grin). I have them actively breeding in a 29g tank here at work with dwarf chain loaches (Y. sidthimunki) in the tank and loaches are active predators. They aren’t big shrimp….smaller than the Amano shrimp. Lots of folks are breeding them locally as well, and you can often find them for very reasonable prices. They might be more attractive to adult koi/goldfish than daphnia (which are much much smaller) but I figure it’s worth a try.
Oh….and the red cherry shrimp are extremely sensitive to anything with copper in it so stuff like that will kill them quickly. Folks have found that even certain foods can kill off their shrimp populations. That reminds me to look carefully at the koi/goldfish foods I’m using!
Copper will get almost any invertebrate. It’ll get vertebrates, too, if it concentrates due to evap. I really hate using it and generally will use anything else.
I’ll second the Algaefix and Sludgeremover, I’ve been using those on the 3,000 gal pond at work. We did almost exactly the same thing, treating with the Sludgeremover when the temp started going up, then a big water change as soon as the green water appeared (as it almost always will, given the life cycle of greengoo) followed by Algaefix. I found if you throw the algaefix in before the water temp goes up its a waste of time and money, the algae blooms still happen. Once we got the bloom under control, the water has been crystal clear all summer in a pond with a huge fish load. I just can’t convince the boss a couple hundred feeder goldfish (grown to breeding size, 6 inches or so) plus 6 or 8 big Koi is a LOT OF FISH. I had to repot the pond lilies with lava gravel on the top of the pond soil because the wretched beasts were digging in them to breed. The lava discourages them from digging the lilies up nicely.
Good Lord, we have 1 large koi, 6 medium and four babies, and consider our 5000 gallon pond with a four foot waterfall is maxed. Yours is, yes, somewhat stressed. Kudos for keeping it clear!