Hello All

[NOVA Merd]

Hello everybody.

I've been keeping tropical fish in aquariums for about five years now but it's within the last year or so I have gotten a wonderful chance to work with koi and ponds. I go to Monroe technology school for veterinary science and I got to do an experiment and I chose to do mine on associating light with food using Koi fish.

We started with about 50 Koi at about 3-4inches in 4, 75 gallon aquariums. I was sertaintly aware it was too small for the amount of biomass but we ran alot of traditional hang over filters and did water changes. I allways had the intention of moving the fish to our ponds. We have three three hundred gallon ruber mades and three 100 gallon ruber mades. Along with four pond pumps which I'm sure are very old because the brand names wore off and we just reciently bought bio filters under my recomendation.

Our ponds have been running for two weeks or so now in preparation of moving the fish. We wanted to wait to get it cycled and to wait for the temp to go up.

We are also sell fish at the school at our anual spring plant sale which is may first and second. Our arrival or Koi, Serassa, shubunkin, comets, tadpoles, and snales and various aquapitic plants should be arriving tommorow or thursday and I'm very excited.

I am also very interested in aquaponics and aquaculture and I have gained so much knowledge this year and I want to be in the aquaculuture industry when I graduate. I'm working on a aquaponic system right now for my next project. And i'm planning to raise koi fry next year to sell the following year. I look forward to getting into this forum. Thanks!

 

[Mmathis]

Welcome! So, how did your experiment turn out?

 

[addy1]

glad you joined

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the forum

 

[NOVA Merd]

My experiment turned out very well! I ended up being able to train the fish in about three weeks that a flashing light signaled food. I could do it at any time of day and they would display feeding behavior. I loved it. The project was for a science fare but I didn't represent my experiment well on the billboard so i didn't move on but it was fun. The koi were so smart. I actually lost the test group to a accident a few weeks back.

During a transfer to a temporary indoor rubermade pond 19 of my koi died. It was heartbreaking to say the least.
The biggest lesson I learned from that is NEVER move fish in large groups or else you can lose the fish you've been growing for four months and all the hard work and time spent is waisted. I was more bummed alot of my favorite fish died though. I might have even shed a tear. But they now rest peacefully in a garden.

And lets also say that when I transfer fish now I am so paranoid about every variable (ie, water temp, water chemistry, stress) and transfering them. I learned a hard, sad (expensive) lesson that day.

 

[j.w]

NOVA Merd
Good experiment but sorry about the loss of your lovely koi. You learned from it tho and don't take it too hard, we all have mishaps in life.

 

[Becky]

Hello and welcome to the forums! Great to have you here

 

[NOVA Merd]

Yeah I guess so. It seems the biggest lessons I learned are froma loss of life. I hate for it to be that way but sometimes it just happens.

For example. Today I was using feeder fish to test out water quality before the expensive shipment of Koi come in and I forgot to keep in mind the feeders are WAY smaller than the koi and the big pond pumps have big cut outs for intake and two of them go stuck in one of the smaller pumps and completly stoped it...so one fish clearly couldnt move much on it's right side. I also think it had trouble getting O2 with it's gills because it kept gulping air. The other one was so messed up, the caudal area of the fish by the tail was mutalated and deformed. I made the decision to "put down" the fish. By the time I got a needle (intention was stabing it in the brain, quick death) it had passed away. The other one was getting around and I didn't think it was my decision to kill it but shortly after it as well died. We now have 22 fish in our grave yard. Lesson learned. I HATE HATE HATE. dealing with death especially when it comes to suffering. I allways feel so responsible and let down by the fish because i'm there care taker. Even in this case although they were just feeders.

 

[don't ask]

welcome

NOVA Merd