My goldfish pond

[CountryEscape]

My Comets and Shubunkin have been chasing like all get out the last 3 weeks, off and on. My big Shubunkin is a male, the solid white goldfish is female, and 2 others are females and 2 are males. These are the fish I got from Pond Kid, so I think it's even, 3 and 3. I also have my red lips Comet that is a female in the goldfish pond. Have not noticed for sure on the fantails, if any are male or female for sure, darn it.
In my koi pond, I know the yellow koi is female, saw her being chased, so that means I may have koi and goldfish babies in there this year, so my plan to get all the goldfish out of there before spawning didn't work out so well, darn it. :-(

 

[CometKeith]

JW, I'm not sure if we will be seeing any storks with babies. Too many hungry mouths and not enough places to hide. So far only 2 babies in almost 4 years. Fortunately the two I did get are doing well. Interestingly I saw a fantastic pond at the University of Chicago when we were visiting there last week with friends. They must have had 100 fry swimming around among the other fish. Most were brown and there were a few slightly larger ones that were bright orange. I found a few links about it. The first one is a lecture about it. The name is Botany Pond and the lecture is interesting but not big on visuals. http://news.uchicago.edu/multimedia/biodiversity-botany-pond The second is a picture of it in the fall from a few years ago. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jim_watkins/4083886104/
CE, last year I had mostly males chasing females and it was always 5 or 6 against 1. It seemed rather unfair. Now this year with a few additions and unfortunately a few subtractions it is a lot more even. My oldest fish is a sarasa that is a male that never gets tired of chasing skirts. I don't know where he gets his energy from! It's funny when you tell people you have goldfish they don't get how interesting their natural behavior is. I think they are thinking of them just sitting in a bowl doing nothing. Last night I checked on my pond and out of the blue one of the fish jumped in the air!

 

[herzausstahl]

Keith,
Without a stream i would think you would just need the timer and not have to worry about the valve since you wouldn't have enough tubing above the pond level to displace more than a few gallons. Your pump wouldn't need to be primed since it will be in the pond so you should be able to do it without noticing a change. Addy, I did always wonder how you found a pump to power the stream, must be really cool to see in action!

 

[callingcolleen1]

I aways found that bigger pumps are better. Once you hook up a good pre-filter, the pumps will slow down bit. Pumps don't use much electricity cause their magnetic drive.
Got to work all darn day tomorrow, woke up in the middle of night cause Bear had to go outside, now here I am typing away, going back to bed now

 

[sissy]

Imust have a couple of thousand taddies by now and just last week took 4 buckets full to the pond and know they were all taddies because no fish in the stock tank but darn do these things ever stop breeding

 

[sissy]

taddies

 

[callingcolleen1]

Awe!!! how come I don't have taddies? :+[

 

[taherrmann4]

Keith,
Without a stream i would think you would just need the timer and not have to worry about the valve since you wouldn't have enough tubing above the pond level to displace more than a few gallons. Your pump wouldn't need to be primed since it will be in the pond so you should be able to do it without noticing a change. Addy, I did always wonder how you found a pump to power the stream, must be really cool to see in action!

I have to agree with Herz on this.

Comet I like those rocks that you posted the pic of.

 

[CometKeith]

Herz and tmann thanks for the suggestions about the timer. My hose is going be 6 ft or less so i should be okay. I think I am going to go a little larger on the new pump thanks to Colleens recommendation. I don't think I'll switch the new pump over to the biofilter though. I need to learn to stop messing with things that are working well. That's how problems start... tmann. It was totally by accident that I found them but they worked out well. sissy that's neat about the tadpoles. I have to buy them for 1.99 each because you can't find any around. I watched the Botany pond lecture by the University professor that I posted last night. It was really long and no pictures but gave a lot of good info about dragonflies among other things like plants and turtles. I can't imagine doing that for a living, but he did spark my interest even more about dragonflies. I almost hit one today with my car and hit the breaks so I wouldn't crush him!

 

[addy1]

Keith,
Without a stream i would think you would just need the timer and not have to worry about the valve since you wouldn't have enough tubing above the pond level to displace more than a few gallons. Your pump wouldn't need to be primed since it will be in the pond so you should be able to do it without noticing a change. Addy, I did always wonder how you found a pump to power the stream, must be really cool to see in action!

clear water pump from harbor freight, a whole 39 dollars. It can handle a head pressure of 115 feet. But when it turns off all 60 plus feet of piping dumps, so I put in a check valve. Also have netting around the intake since it is rated just for clear water.

 

[herzausstahl]

totally understand your set up for yours addy, how much does that use in electricity? always looking for a good replacement if I need one, but for me I think I figured the head for my set up was only 10' or less, guessing yours is close to what, 40'+? really cool that you were able to figure out your set up all on your own, with few problems. the pumps he was looking at are similar to mine, go in the pond and are solids handling up to 6mm i think so if he had it running on a timer, wouldn't need anything, even for the pump you have I wouldn't think he'd need a valve because he'd have just a few feet of tubing emptying out back into the pond, I wonder if there is anyway to calculate how many gallons are in your 60' line?

 

[addy1]

It is a 1/2 hp pump, does not show amps, watts etc. We have not noticed it on the bill, but don't run it 24/7 either. rated at 650 gph, head of 115 feet.

The pipes are 50 feet climbing the hill, around 8 feet up on to the deck (straight up), oh and add 15 feet coming up and out of the pond, I guess you could fill pipe and measure the water. It dumps big time when you disconnect the lines. I put in a ball valve to shut the line when I need to remove the in pond line to clean it. Otherwise get a bath! Over winter we just drain it, open poof, empty lol

The pump won't prime without the check valve, need to keep water in the line.

 

[herzausstahl]

so is that 650 gph at the 115ft lift? what size pipe? perhaps a member on the site with better math skills than myself could figure out the volume.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Deep dark streamy confessions, dreaming about a little stream for my front yard pond, could snake it around this old stump......
Must get more rocks.

 

[addy1]

so is that 650 gph at the 115ft lift? what size pipe? perhaps a member on the site with better math skills than myself could figure out the volume.

two inch pvc, guess we could put a gallon of water into a piece of pipe see how big of a piece holds the gallon.