My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

Thanks Addy. JW, Cool about the pump you found! Yes we were at University of Illinois yesterday visiting our daughter and I checked the pond when we came home and the last piece of ice finally melted!! I am thinking of putting in my bio-filter today. It looks like a couple of the baby fish are not doing too well. I took one out this morning but there are still over 30 fish with all the babies from last year. All the adults are looking good. Every spring I do regular water changes of 10-15% to get the pond water clear and lower ammonia until the bio-filter is doing it's job, but I wonder if I should take it easy this year because maybe I am getting rid of the good stuff when I do that? Right now I am just skimming it and taking out leaves and other loose organic matter. CE thanks. I'm glad it started up. It is a Laguna 900 I bought last summer. I was not happy thinking it was ruined. Maybe the problem was I had too long of a hose because I just used one of the existing ones that was curled up when I connected my water pump to the waterfall.

 

[addy1]

I found one winter casualty, a brass hose connection that I forgot to take the hose off, so it was full of water, froze, cracked. OW all is good. Easy fix, just buy a new one

 

[j.w]

I think sometimes the tiny little baby fish from last year,some of them just don't get quite enough of a good start to make it through the cold winters. Maybe we need to buy some kind of super strength food for them to give them a boost to make them nice and fat till Spring? Don't know if there is such a food.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes there is such a food JW!! I give it to my fish, it is called high quality grain free puppy chow! Ha ha ha
Fish here make it thru the winter on that food and are doing very well. Funny, everything the experts say to do, I don't do, and we are all good!
I also just have the flexable black tubing running from my underwater filter & pumps and it does not ever crack and some of my tubing is over 20 years old now....

Yesterday by the ponds...

 

[j.w]

Do you have to grind it up some for your goldfish Colleen and the little tiny babies and what brand do you like?
We don't have to worry much here on tubing freezing as long as its buried a little ways down along side the rocks around the pond. Been there for over 10yrs so far.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes it can be ground uo into smaller chunks for smaller fish too. I buy this brand and it is made right here in Alberta and very fresh. I think it is important to get local food if possible because it is fresher. I also get the grain free diet and the "puppy" cause it is higher in the much needed fat. This one has free run chickens, whole farm fresh eggs, wild caught northern fish, and fruits and vegetables. This one has a small pellet made for small dogs, but it works good for small fish with a big mouth too!

I also give the large breed puppy to the really big fish cause they can eat it good and love it! I get the other formulas too made by the same line of food.

A high quality bag of puppy chow way cheaper too than old stale high priced fish food too. Wouldn't be surprising if somebody studies this food and discovers it to be better for fish than actual fish food!

 

[CometKeith]

I guess either I don't feed as much or don't have as many fish as you guys, but I am lucky to go through one medium size container of food per year. Last year I used two because I had a fish explosion, but I think I only spent $30 for the year! It actually makes me feel good when I am in a pet store and someone is spending $200 on food for their cat for a few weeks, and I'm plunking down $15 for 2 or 3 months worth of food for my pet fish.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes, my koi eat a lot of food during the summer, and I also have around 60 or 70 goldfish to feed as well. The goldfish eat much less than the big mouth koi, so I feed the big mouths the big puppy chow as they sure eat a lot! I swear my two big Koi are bigger then many small dogs, and are 18 to 20 inches long, not sure what they weigh but they look very big when you see them up close. The puppy chow does works good for me and I have been doing this for quite a few years now, and I see no ill effects from feeding the fish dog food. It is much cheaper than fish food too!

 

[addy1]

I didn't even go though very much food at all last year, I keep them a little hungry, keeps the fry down, they love to snack on eggs. We still have plenty of water room for more fish, but this way it is a slow increase of population instead of an explosion.

 

[CometKeith]

Addy, I think that is smart and I am going to try the same thing. If my fish population quadruples again I will have over 100 new fish in just two years. I'm hoping the frogs I got last year eat the eggs too. I might need to get a few tadpoles to help out. Colleen, as long as puppy chow does not have fish by products mixed in, because then you would be teaching your fish to be cannibals!

 

[addy1]

We are at around 200 or so, more or less, sort of counted, still lots of water room, but I am very happy if they eat eggs. I think the frogs, tads and other pond critters help.

 

[CountryEscape]

Well, I counted 10 frogs last weekend by walking quietly around both ponds. So, I've got the frogs counted for. My water was 55 on Sat., up in the 60's by Tues., but just checked now after last night getting down to the high 30's and it's right at 45. Yep, my fish were begging for food all weekend, did give them a few pieces, but they won't be fed while I'm gone, as temps are going to swing again. Supposed to be back up to 70's in a few days again. At least sun is out again, which makes everything wonderful!
Colleen, I'm going to check out some of the natural dog foods and see about trying that with my fish this year!!! How can it possibly hurt when it's all natural food? Well, maybe I'll check the fish food label, and see what the ingredients are and go from there. I suspect there are lots of fish products in fish food, like shrimp and the such. Probably is in dog food, too. Maybe a natural cat food would work as well. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm always looking for ways to save money. And, we all know that the same liner for your roof works on ponds, and if they put the label "pond liner" on it, the cost would more than double, so why not try dog food?

 

[callingcolleen1]

And the same foam seal made for sealing water falls is also sold but in a different color, at most hardware stores, (big gap crack filler) for a fraction of the price!

I don't know about cat food, I hear the protein numbers are different, don't know if that matters really, cause fish eat many dead animals naturally in the river and stuff. Fish are also very carnivorius in nature to begin with. The dog food that I serve the fish, has fish in it too, cause fish eat other fish naturally. Who ever came up with fish food was looking to make a big profit if you ask me, cause some KOI food is so very expensive, and Koi are really big bottom feeders naturally and would eat just about anything in nature!

All I can tell you is I do everything supposedly wrong, according to the experts, but my fish are disease free, big healthy colorful fish that survive very well all winter in ice cold RUNNING water. I never clean my pond like most do, my big pond cleaning took a short while, netting a couple scoops off the bottom, cleaned the filters, and topped the water up. The pond looks very clean now with the extra pumps going and the fish are all fine.

I don't get many babies that live to adult size as they get eaten by all the big monster dragonfly nympths that live in the big sedges. I have lots of dragonflys .....

 

[CountryEscape]

Thought I would ask, Colleen, does the dog food float? I haven't tried it yet, but intend to do so when I get back from AZ. Thanks for the suggestion! I can't wait to try it out.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Puppy chow food that I have floats for a short while then sinks, fish eat it all no matter, they seem to "sniff it out" like a puppy!