Hello again!

[fishin4cars]

Welcome back! Oh I really enjoyed the videos! That's not a pond, That's a wildlife sanctary! Very nice! I love the butterfly koi! I have always liked butterfly koi and your video's show why, they looked so graceful and flowing in the pond. Again, thanks for sharing! Your yard is spectacular!

 

[CliffandJoann]

Thanks CJ, every time I see your name I think it's us!

Thanks fishin, butterflies are our favorites too...they
are friendly, active and like you said, so graceful,
and not to mention they are top swimmers and swim
half out of the water.

 

[fishin4cars]

Is the one in your Avatar the same one in your pond when it was younger? I see one that looks very similar to your avatar and keep thinking it is. Mine don't swim half out of the water except the Chagoi, he will when it's feeding time but not the rest of the time.

 

[CliffandJoann]

Yes, you have a good eye fishin...her name is Terminator and she's 13 years old and is the Mother
of a lot of the koi in the pond.
As a matter of fact it's uncanny, but she has a daughter that is an
exact duplicate of her only she's half her size.
If you look at around 30 seconds in, you'll see her daughter swimming towards the dock to
get some food from the little tourist.
I hope to get some videos tomorrow, and I'll try and get close-ups of the koi.

The big orange koi is Sunny and a favorite of the little tourist, all he wanted to do was
to give all the food to Sunny.

http://www.youtube.c...u/7/lGhs2uIroYM

 

[fishin4cars]

Looks like sunny was having almost as much fun with the little visitor as the little visitor was having with sunny! LOL I saw the smaller one, Got a better view I think about 2 minutes in. Your biggest are around 24"-26"? I can tell Sunny and the large yellow are quite a bit bigger than our largest, (The Chagoi- Lucky) Lucky is about 22" and Big red our oldest and largest standard koi is about 19" Big red I have had for about 6 years. Funny thing about my two biggest koi, they were both adopted, and both were SUPPOSE to be goldfish! LOL Big red I rescued out of a pond that the liner ripped in and the people that had him lost all there fish but two, I ended up with them and red is the lone surviver, Lucky was brought in to the local pet store. The man that brought them in, His mom had passed away and she had seven fish in a pond small pond and he had no wants or knowledge how to care for them. 5 8"-10" common Goldfish, a Fat fan tail about the size af a baseball and Lucky. The owner of the store told the man she could take all the colored goldfish but the ugly big brown one she wouldn't be able to sell. I looked in the bucket and freaked, a good 18" chagoi Butterfly koi! I ask the guy what he wanted for the fish and we agreed on $20 He's the gentle giant of the pond. He's by far the friendliest one we have but I don't think he's quite as friendly as yours. Question, How do you keep predators out? I have driveway alarms, CD's hanging, fishing string above,Trail camera set up and a wire net and I still have some problems, just sent the dogs out to chase our neighborhood raccoon off a minute ago. (And he's the least of my problems!!!!)

 

[addy1]

Really nice! you have beautiful koi

 

[CliffandJoann]

Yikes fishin, you sure got a bargin on your koi.
How old are your koi? ...and how many do you have?

All ours were purchased in
1997 and 1998...so they're 13 & 14 years old.
we also have two goldfish, one goldfish is 14 year old.

I'm counting on my fingers here, I think we purchased
about 8 or 9 koi, the rest are our spawns.
...and yes they're between 24-26" long.

Also most were between 3.50 and 7.00.
Terminator, the big golden butterfly was 15.00. (we splurged on her)
I flipped when I saw her wings and tail, and had to have her.

I'm not sure of this statement, but it has been our experience that the
butterflies are extremely active...it probably is because all that
tail swishing makes them highly visable.

In any case the following year in 1998 -- we added another section to
the pond. The head groundskeeper calls it the Dog Leg...it's a section that's
6 ft wide x 13 ft long, so they do have a decent amount of swimming room,
and as our videos prove they sure love to swim.

Just came back in with an edit cause I didn't answer your predator question.
We have a trap set all the time and catch and relocate racoons all the time.
We catch a lot of possums too, but release them into the yard cause we
think they are fish friendly. we actually have an outdoor pet possum.
as far as birds of prey...we're surrounded by huge oak trees and the birds don't
feel secure enough to land in our yard.

Terminator

 

[fishin4cars]

My Koi range from 6 years old to about 8 months old (1) LOL We have 23 koi all together, plus 7 Comets/Shubunkins again 1 baby from this year the rest are two-six years old. 7 of the koi are in a 300 gallon raised pond that is used as a QT tanks and hopsital tank. I'll be transfering 4 of them to the main pond this fall, one stays in there all the time and 2 are being taken back to my Koi dealer as they didn't develope like I hoped they would, We are also going to remove six more this fall from the main pond (All standard Koi) and return them as well. That will leave us with 21 in the main pond and 1 in the QT tank for the winter. We got hit hard last winter by a heron and a owl and lost 90% of our old stock. Only 6 are our original fish are left and all of them are between 15" and 19" and then Lucky, which like I said I got him this spring and he was already larger than all our koi we had, all the rest are under 12" or close to it. We do still have three butterfly koi we kept from last years spawning. All three are Gin Rin's We have bought some high $$ koi in the past. We bought a Shiro Utsuri last year my wife paid $130 for that was suppose to be show quality, and I bought three online that averaged over $50 each. All ended up being Bird food so I doubt we spend that much again on a koi until we have a fully secure pond for them to live in.
Our primary pond has a total of 2500 gallons, 400 is not used by the fish at all, it's for the plants, water movement, and the frogs. Next pond will be considerably larger, and a lot more thought out. The present pond wasn't really designed for Koi but more for Lily's and goldfish and the Koi addiction bit hard. LOL I need to get a updated video made but taking the covers off is a two person job and I hate it! So I haven't been videoing it this year as much. I figure I will put up with ugly to keep my little wet buddies safe and sound. Here is one of the Videos, I have a few on You tube that I have used for demonstrations for members to show how I keep food out of the skimmer and how to backflush a filter fall system. In the video right at the end you'll see a orange and black fish that looks like a Butterfly koi that will sit in the center of picture for a bit, That is actually a very large Comet. that's Halloween, It started off a black comet, has been changing since the day we got it and most think it is a butterfly koi, But he's not.

 

[CliffandJoann]

put this in the bottom drain thread by mistake...so I cut and
pasted it here...

Wow fishin' I'm impressed...your fish are gorgeous. really..

my head groundskeeper was looking
over my shoulder at your fish -- and now he wants a red one...LOL see what you started!
Too bad you don't live closer, I'd be over with a net!

The frogs are a hoot...we haven't had a frog in several years...we think it is cause our
fish are too big and friendly and scare off the frogs.
You said you have a seperate pond for frogs, good ideas.

.

 

[DrDave]

gorgeous photo!

 

[j.w]

Terminator is one big beautiful fish..............looks like he's flying right at me!

 

[CometKeith]

Hi Cliff and Joann. Welcome back! Really nice pond and garden!

 

[CliffandJoann]

Thanks DR. DAVE, JW, and CometKeith.
I found if you want to get good photos don't feed the fish.
If you feed them, they boil the water in excitement instead
of mugging for the camera...I feed mine afterwards.

This is the pic I was looking for, it's one of my favorites.

Our two favorite gals, Terminator and Silver...
They are the two Mothers of most of our offspring,
and it's uncanny they both have a a kid that looks exactly
like them.
I took a video today of the Dog Leg section of the pond
and will post it next...

Dog Leg Today...

http://www.youtube.c...u/0/OCh7UnVtiLY

 

[addy1]

simply beautiful fishin!

 

[DrDave]

I wish I had your camera skills!