My goldfish pond

[sissy]

not sure I have been thinking about it .Could be for the pond or maybe make my sisters coffee and end tables for their covered porch's .They have been asking me to make them for them I just got done making thenm trash bins for the porch's

 

[CometKeith]

Sissy. Good luck with the granite. At my work we get all sorts of kitchen and bathroom cabinets, counters, appliances etc. Usually everything gets tossed, but once in a while we get something good. I'm rehabbing a condo right now and the owner is getting rid of her white appliances. I got a white Bosch dishwasher in excellent condition and gave it to a family member that is doing a rehab and needed a dishwasher. I had another job recently where they were changing cabinets because they didn't like the color. I gave those away too.

 

[sissy]

Here everything from a tear out goes to habitat for humanity and for that they get a write off from the government .I donated my other appliances when I bought new but since I don't have a mortgage no write off

 

[CometKeith]

Sissy I have been donating extra materials too when it makes sense to do it. We just donated an a very nice window to Habitat for Humanity. We do a lot of demo on projects. Sometimes it is a lot more cost effective to break everything up then to carefully take it out.

 

[sissy]

The neighbor just donated her kitchen cabinets last week and her appliances and they came and took the cabinets out themselves and loaded everything on the truck and gave her the paper for the donation .They even cleaned and swept up the floors in the kitchen after they were done .

 

[CometKeith]

Sissy. Our accountant says any donation over $500 has to be really well documented in terms of when it was originally purchased and the price so we pretty much keep or donations in that range. but I have heard of people donating the whole inside of a house when they need to gut it. We gut quite a few houses so I may look into it. One client told me they knew someone that received a $20,000 tax deduction by making this sort of donation. The other issue is if the "gut" isn't done properly it will take a lot more work in the remodeling phase. We had an old porch we removed when we remodeled our building. It was green and pretty ugly. One of my guys threw most of the wood in the dumpster. The next day I saw a guy with a new range rover dragging out the wood and putting it in his SUV. I asked him what he was going to do with it and he said he was going to put it on the ceiling of his cabin.

 

[addy1]

We were working on a rental in Florida, my honeys parents house. We picked up some good cabinets from another house in the complex that was being gutted, saved us a bunch of money!

They were heading for a dumpster.

 

[sissy]

Yep the antique wood look is in .I made barn doors from garbage wood .

 

[j.w]

I told my hubby just the other day that a guy has a pile of old wood near wear he usually burns stuff and if he wants any of it he better go grab it while the burn ban is on. Looked like wood from an old building he tore down. Bet it's good stuff!

 

[CometKeith]

I finally got a few pictures of the second Koi I bought. This is the last Koi i'll get. It has a yellow head and is silver with black markings going down it's back. Both Koi seem to get along with the goldfish really well and I think the first Koi is happy to have another Koi to play with. Also I did some maintenance on the pond over the weekend and saw a bunch of babies in the shallow end none of which were more than a 1/2 long.

 

[j.w]

Ah they are so pretty looking w/their long flowing tails. Look how small they are now. Just think in a couple years or so they will be mammoths!

 

[CometKeith]

JW that would be fun. I have always preferred goldfish because I didn't feel my last pond was big enough for Koi and didn't want that much work, but with the new pond at around 2500 gallons I am hoping it should be fine. I still like my plants, frogs etc. so I am hoping the Butterfly Koi don't wreck havoc on the pond. Everything I have heard about people mixing Koi with goldfish successfully is they stick with Butterfly Koi. Also I don't expect to be feeding them high protein food multiple times per day so maybe they won't get too big.... at least not over 2 ft! So far from our 2nd and 3rd floors they are more visible than most of the goldfish due to their color and large fins and tails. Here is another picture of them.

 

[Tula]

Interesting about better success mixing butterfly koi with gold fish, as opposed to standard koi.

I have to get ready for the annual koi round up, which is SO MUCH FUN - not. I'm thinking of using a small mesh laundry cube, placed in the pond, to put the babies in....that way I don't have to set up a separate container for them.

In the past I used to put them in a tub with an air stone, but my neighbors just came over and got them. This year, I may have to post on CL, as all his koi died.

 

[CometKeith]

Tula, Good luck with the baby roundup! I have gone on the local pond tour and met a few people that had Butterfly Koi and goldfish. The feedback I got is they were less disruptive to the plants than normal Koi. Here are a few pictures I took today. The silver one I got that had a gold head is losing most the gold and is now mostly black on his head. I'm surprised that would change so quickly because I have only had him a few weeks. Both Koi seem to be getting along well with the goldfish.

 

[Tula]

I love your platinum butterfly - just beautiful ! I have a koi named Madame Butterfly, as she spreads her fins like a butterfly. As it turns out, Madame is a Monsieur , but I digress When I purchased her / him, she was orange and black and not long after I got her, she literally turned white and black overnight !

I don't understand enough about koi, but think there is something called " beni" which is an underlying color, which will come out.

All my koi are standard fins, and they are hard on my plants.....so, maybe if I'd started with butterfly ( long fins ) I'd have had less trouble. I also wonder if the breed less with gold fish....I had a population explosion...which resulted in my rehoming all the goldfish.

Yesterday, while out walking, I stopped at a house I've heard has a koi pond, as I wanted to introduce myself and see if they need any koi babies. They were home, but didn't answer the door and I didn't feeling like walking to their back yard, looking like a pond stalker - ha ha!