My pond runs all winter, zone 2/3

[Lisak1]

Colleen the Koi Rule Breaker.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Ha Ha Ha! you are right Lisak1, I do break many "taboo" golden Koi rules that is for sure! You have to understand I only got my first computer in 2012 and then I found this Garden Pond Forum! Yes I do things much different cause I was lost in my back yard for years, away from everyone on the computer. When I first started with my ponds here in Medicine Hat way back in 1991, there was not too much out there for information.
Way back then the only pond stuff available in town was at our local Greenhouse Garden center. Sera Water Gardens and I just saw they can still be found online! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sera_(company)
Sera is a German Company and back then that was all that was available, and somewhere in this house I still have their Sera Water Garden pamphlet from way way back then. I read that thing and looked at it all the time. They used to talk about Pond Peat and how it is a natural fungicide, and they are right, if any of your fish get injured that product is just the best. Liquid Pond Peat is now available threw Laguana, which came around to our town later back in the late 1990's Every one should have liquid pond peat handy and it also is great for the whole pond. It will dye the water dark golden for a period of time, but when it clears, look out! You will have the most clear water ever and all the fish and plants will be so very happy! If you are breeding fish, this is just the best product as well, cause lots of fish eggs die off from fungus, (eggs that have turned solid white before hatching) and using this product can save alot of baby eggs! it is way WAY better for your whole pond than any chemical product out there cause it is all NATURAL!

 

[j.w]

I've heard you talk about the peat before and do you just like to throw some in every now and then as a prevention against problems also? Also is there a best time to use it season?

 

[callingcolleen1]

I have a VISION!! In the future water garden companies will start selling "Pond Chillers" for those people way down south!! I used to think that they were lucky to have such warm weather all year round, till I started reading about all the parasites and diseases that their koi and goldfish seem to always have to fight off. This is most likely due to the year round warm weather. Many many years ago, as a young teenager I too used to have goldfish in a fish tank in the house. When ever you got them from the pet store they seemed sick and diseased a lot of the time. I remember when I saw my first fish lice and was absolutely horrified! They attach themselves to the fish and I only saw this one time on a koi that the guy at the pet store had. He said that the fish come from down south where they get these types of things! I was so freak out that for years I would look very close at my fish, terrified that they would get these ugly fish lice!

So why did I never get fish lice and parasites ever since putting my fish outside back in 1991? The only thing I can think of is that the ice cold running water killed all the bad bugs that bug fish off, just like here up north. Everybody loves to ice fish here cause when you pull a big Pike out of the ice in the middle of the winter, they taste just like trout! Trout taste so good cause they only love cold lakes and steams and so people go looking for trout in the summer.

Prized Koi Keepers will someday wake up and see that my koi are always healthy and free of diseases and they will want to keep their valuable koi as clean as possible one day when they finally overcome their fear of ice cold water. I understand why many get mad about ice cold water, lots and lots of people lose their koi every winter cause they all follow each other like robots, they all turn off their pumps and worry more about the temperature of the water than the lack of oxygen under the thick ice! Then lots run air pumps and they tend to condensate and then the inside of the air tubes freeze off and there goes the oxygen!! But if you leave under water pumps and underwater big filters going all year, they should not freeze cause they are all under the water. We do get temperatures very close to minus 50 below here without the wind chill! It does not get much colder than that and my fish are outside in that and they are all very much alive and well. Running water keeps the ice thickness down in the top two ponds, and melts the ice very quick once we get back to nice warm Minus 20 temperatures...yes Minus 20 is nice and warm after getting the real bad minus 45 below where the air in your tires freeze and then the tire on your tuck looks square and the truck goes bump bump bump till it rounds back out! I can tell you that your eyelashes start to freeze together too at the temperature and that sucks! I only have one heater for all three connecting ponds, and it does not heat the water very much cause the water is still barely above freezing, it just keeps the ice at bay. (for the record my ponds are only three feet deep too!)

Hello!!! You will die first from LACK Of OXYGEN than from FREEZING to Death! and for the record, Koi and Goldfish are COLD WATER FISH, NOT Tropical, like so many koi keepers tend to treat them like tropical fish!

 

[callingcolleen1]

I've heard you talk about the peat before and do you just like to throw some in every now and then as a prevention against problems also? Also is there a best time to use it season?

The pond peat is good to use in the early spring and summer. It will block the light and starve out the string algae too till the pond hardy plants get growing good as well.

 

[callingcolleen1]

That's so neat you get to be on the tour and will look forward to seeing all the pix you post. Do they have certain ponds on certain days so you get to go visit some other ones also?

The pond tour in usually around the 20th of July, and always on a Sunday. I am not exactly sure which date it is on next year, but will find out in the spring when the local garden tour people start gearing up for it. It is only one day and their is usually about 12 to 15 gardens that are shown. I cannot wait and hubby loves to have so many people over to look at his weird plants too!

 

[j.w]

I could use some of that peat come this Spring as the string algae has started to like my pond especially around the Hornwort. Might give it a try. My Hornwort suffers from the algae.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Pond Peat sure is good stuff JW, and well worth buying. My U tube videos have never been so busy these days!! I must be getting popular!

I was missing summer today and so I thought I would go and find some summer for us to enjoy!
Notice how during the hottest months in the summer, my koi swim very very fast. This is because there is lots of oxygen in the water. If during the summer you notice that the fish are swimming very slow and sluggish, this means that there is not enough oxygen in your water...

 

[rebelangel_3733]

I have this much ice in just one week of cold weather...but my lil bubbler does a fine job of keeping an open space You keep on doing what u do best colleen as it works! I have 1 goldfish and 1 shubunkin that are over 10 yrs old I received 4 yrs ago and 4 that are 8 and 2 that are 4 and so far they must be telling the "kids" what to do during the cold snaps.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I am glad to hear that your goldfish are all doing good after that long hard winter we had last year. I had once a big white goldfish that lived to over twenty years old so they can really live a long time too and Goldfish were always my first Love cause they are just so cute and come in the most wonderful shapes and sizes.
My bottom pond gets the most amount of ice and so I do not keep any koi in there cause they need much more oxygen and that bottom pond the level of water can drop when water is displaced in the upper ponds and turned into ice. The goldfish do all very well down in the bottom pond cause they are much smaller and fit better down there, plus there is a water gate that prevents the big koi from getting down into the bottom pond and eating them!

 

[callingcolleen1]

JW, in the spring you should try to pull the algae off the horn wort then it will grow better.

I have a link here on cold water fish from Wikipedia, and koi and goldfish are simply cold water fish. There is no such thing as in between fish, it is either cold water or tropical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldwater_fish

 

[j.w]

I'll try to get it off but what is the best way to do that cuz I don't want to rip the plants apart doing it.

 

[addy1]

I'll try to get it off but what is the best way to do that cuz I don't want to rip the plants apart doing it.

I sprinkled mine with sodium percarbonate to get rid of the string, for some reason it really liked the hornwort. My 1000 gallon pond had a ton of hornwort no string algae. Same water, same filter, same pump.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Having a pond brings lots of people to my yard every years. This was one of my special moments with all my baker friends, and it was hubby's first social "outing" {at home} since his cancer ordeal. We sure all did laugh hard. That was two summers ago and I have changed a few things, that was my first "Bug Free Zone"!

 

[callingcolleen1]

That was my big yellow flag in the back ground and the old fence before I redid it....