It's getting there!

Gee, it's a month later and the new pond still is not finished. At first it was competing with Turkey hunting season, then mushroom season... but now, Harry has been working all day on this for me. It's near finished but now comes a 3 day Memorial weekend and another halt in work. Can't really figure out why this is taking so long. Perhaps because there is no real plans. Everything is figure out as you go, so that means fifty trips to the store for materials. It has rained all day today, forcing Harry back into the garage, which is ok, cause now he'll spend a day putting together the filter pad cubes. An indoor job that we've been putting off for a rain day. Monday we put in 3 small sacrificial koi to check the water quality, as much of the water in the pond is the original water put in after the new liner was installed. I have not done a full water change on it. Anyway, Tuesday morning as I went out to work, I found 2 of the koi in the dirt along side of the pond! Both were still breathing! I quickly picked them up and washed them off a little and put them back into the pond. The only thing I can think of is in a black pond, maybe with the first daylight they wanted to swim towards the light. Fortunately for them, I was up going to work and they must of just tried their get away or they would be dried up toast on the ground. Today, they are still alive and haven't tried that trick again. But, I did buy a net, which I will be putting over the pond after I add the rest of the fish. With the water level a mere 3 inches below the edge it's a subject that has come up before in conversation. I'm hopeful they will stay put in the pond and we don't have any trapeze artist in the group.

The temps have still been pretty cool. Water temps were an all time high of 68 degrees last weekend. Fish have shown no sign of spawning. There were done, this time last year. Toads have been procreating, though. Hundreds of them! I netted out at least 30 pair a couple weeks ago, simply because I didn't want that many eggs in the pond. I have a lot of hostas and plants, though, so I like the toads. I welcome their kinship, just not in my pond.

We've been so busy trying to finish the pond that I haven't even taken the time to enjoy the other flowers in my gardens. The weeds have. They are enjoying themselves everywhere I look. Just finally got my tomatoes and peppers in. I still have flowers I bought sitting on the deck waiting to be planted. Still have tropicals in the basement with the fish that need brought out and planted. And, it's almost June!!! Going to be a short Summer. Feeling overwhelmed just writing this. I need a week off work, just to get caught up with my normal gardening. Got a long weekend coming, but are we going to stay home and get caught up? Nooo way! We're headed to southern Iowa to go fishing and camping all weekend. It's a family tradition. So, again, everything is on hold. Fish will wait till after the weekend to go into the pond as I want to be around to keep an eye on them when we do. In the mean time, we'll keep picking at it. We are close, so very, very close.

Rain, rain, go away

Man the weather has just sucked this month. We're trying to get this pond thing done, but it wants to rain every other day if not every day. And when it's not raining, its freezing out. I feel so sorry for the fish in the basement. I want so badly to get them outside. The water temps in the big pond were only 54 degrees last night. I have to have another 10-15 degrees yet before I can get the fish outside. As I look at my records, I've had the basement fish outside on May 1st for the last 2 years. Not going to happen this year. I really wanted the tank empty by the time we went to the Koi Acres open house, just in case we bought a fish there that would need qt'd. But, the new pond will certainly not be done by then and at the rate we're going the other outside pond will still be too cold! So we wait for mother nature. Hopefully the April showers that bring May flowers will also leave with the month of April.

Despite their crowded conditions in the basement, the fish seem to be doing a lot better. The single fish I brought in earlier from the outside pond because it was starting to pine cone, seems to be all better. Thank goodness. All the fin and mouth rot is gone also. So, think we're on the mend. (Knock on Wood)The fish outside are already eating daily and seem to love the new Madafu. Between turkey hunting and pond construction Harry is keeping super busy.

Sat/Sun work on new pond

Oh, I'm so sore! Spent all Saturday and Sunday constructing the walls of the new pond. It looks huge for now. This is a picture from inside my kitchen window. It's made from 2x6 treated lumber that weighs a ton. Throw in the fact that most of it is below grade or near ground level and you are constantly bending and crawling around on the ground. This old body doesn't move like it used to. Up and down, up and down. And tiny rocks from the nearby walking path everywhere. On the upside, it was beautiful out. Temps in the 70s to near 80 degrees on Sunday. I actually fed my outdoor fish for the first time this season. They quickly gobbled up the Mandfu and Tomigoi I fed them. Easy does it, though. Their tummy's have been basically empty for 4 months. My largest Bekko was showing some severe signs of pineconning. So first thing Friday night we netted him out and set up a hospital tank in the basement for him. I'm slowly trying to warm him up in a little salted water. The temps in my outside pond still only read 48 degrees. I'm hoping with this weeks temps getting up to 60 every day, that maybe the pond will pickup a few degrees. The Bekko is the largest female I have, and I'd sure hate to loose her. QT is hard on them too, so am hoping the heat and salt will help her feel better. Debating on antibiotics, but need to get her temps up before that can even do her any good. The pineconning doesn't seem as bad today, but she's still very red, which is not good. You should see my basement. I've got one tub full of 20 shubunkins I'm holding for my 4-H fish club members, one 100 gallon tub for the Bekko, and the big pond for wintering over some of my koi. So,it's a regular maze down there. There is barely room to move between all the tanks. Without proper filtration, I'm doing manual water change outs every night to help maintain water quality. It's quite the operation. Just trying to keep everyone alive and well. Sure will be nice when everybody goes outside. Am so looking forward to the new pond. I'm excited. It's not coming along as planned though. After putting up the walls, I've realized there is so much fall between the house and garage, that my gravity fed filtration now has to be elevated. Not good. I'm going to have to have steps to get on top of it. Well, you'll see as it progresses. I thought it would be like maybe 2 foot high, but it's more like 3 foot. Not good at all! I'll keep you posted.

3 stitches already

The work continues. Today I came home and Harry had the rubber pulled out and had begun to shape the new pond by first taking out all the existing plant shelves. Last night we staked out the new dimensions and over the weekend we'll probably finish shaping out the pond edges to square it off. It will be 10 x 16 feet, I think and we're still debating on the depth. It will be at least 4 foot. My head wants to double that, but my good sense says, "no way can you handle that." Harry sustained his first injury, which he basically has shrugged off. 3 stitches he's not very proud of. He actually was using the saw to cut points on some stakes and the saw kicked back and caught him. He said he was just glad he still had a finger. Could have been worse, a lot worse! Looking forward to the weekend and getting a lot done.

2011 Pond Redo

What have I done? This picture reminded me of how good the pond could look. Well this is the year. We are finally going to redo the upper pond. This pond was built 16 years ago. It has no rock shelves and plant shelves that were too narrow and over time tilted down. Only 20 inches deep, it was designed to be more of a water garden. That was all before I got addicted to Koi. So, we're not getting any younger. We decided to raise the edges so I could sit on the short wall and hand feed the koi. This will increase the depth by 2 foot at least. We're trying to think through this so that it is easy to clean and maintain. We don't ever want to have to redo it. Someday, if we find we can't handle crawling down into the filter pit of the other lower koi pond and we have to fill it all in, then at least maybe we can still maintain this smaller pond. And so, the hard labor part begins... I thank God I have Harry. He is going to do all the back breaking work of course. We started last Sunday by moving all the necklace rock out. In a mere 3 hours we had most of it out, had relocated it in other various parts of the yard and were both suffering from lower back strain! After only 3 hours, we were both ready for the couch and we still felt like we had got a lot done. There was no turning back now. The pond was in shambles. Harry had to take a ax to the now large bush that was planted next to the pond, while I began to dig up and move other plants that were also planted next to it. Over the past 16 years there was actually almost 6 inches of dirt that had filled in the area around the pond. The rubber that originally ran under the necklace and was only covered with a few inches of gravel is now buried under 6 inches of rock and dirt. Looks like a mess now. There are no real building plans drawn up or anything. This will be a design and build as we go project. Stay tuned for more pics and pains!

Basement mystery solved

Look at this nasty little critter! I've been fighting with my basement fish having mouth and fin rot since I brought them into the inside pond in the fall. When I brought them in, I used Terminex and Prazi on them to prophylactically de=bug them. But, despite that, while many got better and most of the ulcers healed on the big fish, many of the smaller fish still have been fighting something. I've fed medicated food to try to help them. I have one small chag that has had a sore on his back for at least 3 months! Not getting any better, not getting too much worse. Danged if I could catch him though. Then just last week a second chag started to develop a sore. Over the weekend I was lucky enough to net him during feeding. I did a scape on him, and much to my surprise here was this guy, a fluke! I was blaming all my problems on bacteria, cause the fish never displayed any fluke signs like flashing or hiding in the corner or anything. While I could see problems with them, they always acted quite normal. And, mouth rot is not really a sign of flukes. Regardless, there he was under my scope, big as day and doing his familiar fluke dance. So, apparently my previously de-bugging didn't take care of them all. So, I re dosed with Prazi again and am hoping for the best. Knowing this, and knowing they were having problems before they ever came inside, I know I have flukes in the main ponds. So, now the trick is to get them out before they take over and kill my outside koi before their immune systems wake up from their winter nap. Which may be a trick. I will need to dose as quickly as the temps will allow. I swear, I have no idea where these things come from. It's a mystery.....

February Thaw

Here's a couple pictures I took this morning. Which in themselves is not too interesting. But, these pictures are of my "THAWED" pond. I can not ever remember seeing my pond open up in February! Now, I don't believe for one moment that it will stay that way. My notes say my pond was open last year on March 12th. And that was with the help of a running hose we used to preform a water change. So this is a full month earlier. Today's temps are in the 50's! The water itself was a little murky, but I could see most the fish. At least, I didn't see any on their sides. So, I'm sighing a little relief. Perhaps it will end up being a good year me. I mean them.