herzausstahl you are so very right there my friend, he never did, which is the point where one quits totally
It ghauls me that aquatic shops do not by law have to sell books with the purchase of fish I feel that that way there would be less deaths and more understanding of our hobby , under the UK's new animal rights bill we all have a duty of care to the creatures we own fish included
At the very start of our hobby on my birthday 27 years ago Val bought me a book on fish health whih I read from cover to cover undertanding of our hobby for me came from there for 22 years due to disbility we kept our koi indoors in a huge indoor aquarium our koi were very well cared for it was the logistics in the end that became too much so we decided to move outdoors rather than give up a hobby we loved I admit freely that the health of our koi had started to suffer and I was disheartend
Bang on then like a bolt out of the blue
we found ourselves enrolled into the koi magazines koi hall of fame by a former club member now fish sciences lecturer and one of the koi magazines koi experts, one Ian Wellby who because the influence two experts and ourselves, had chosen a career in fish see insert bellow.
(I also post a now out of date photo of our Library for you an one of the Aquarium and the immaculate condition of the koi that Ian mentions )
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It was the love and attention to detail that earned us this place and it came at exactly the right time it was like a shot in the arm for us
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We redoubled our efforts by buying a former koi dealership QT pond retrofitting it into a pond it cost £600 uk , we then sold the tank for £600 uk, then out of the blue won £1,000 on the St Lukes hospice lottery (fate I know not) but that allowed us to do the build (though the cosmetic stuff is yet to be finished due to our neighbour who did the build becoming desperately ill).
But I digrees it takes little to read books on the subject and gain a working knowledge we took it one further .
At the time of the move outdoors I was mentored by the then head of the BKKS Healh Standards committee and friend wo runs the UK's only koi and goldfish rescue service the result no losses (we happened to be dropped right into the then coldest winter on record here -10c
In our 27 year hobby ever only lost a total of 8 koi (we know the reasons of death for all of them but one) ,though i wish it was less.
Two of them jumped from the pond one getting caught between he net we had placed over the pond after the first one jumped .
One had its immune system crash (this what your petshop man warns).
One died of a heart attack (they go stiff as a board directly on death thats how you can tell).
Two wasted away we think through a compacted gut ( at least thats what the autopsy showed).
One a beautiful Kuhaku died of septicemia after jumping out of a vat at a show,
Sadly with one unexplained (at the start of the hobby)hence the first health book.
A library has grown from that first book with books on koi , koi health fish health , fist behavour , fish diseases fish pathology , pathogens, viral and bacterial and with the books I got on this Birthday we have reached a total of 80 books, these were mostly funded by the sale of koi , christmas gifts from friends and family , fish auctions , club auctions.
Your petshop friend is indeed correct in what he says the mutts are strong but its the more expensive koi that are the weakest , this is due to them coming from a limited gene pool though attempts have been made to bulster this, with I believe the original Magio/eating carp or possibly the Indonesian river carp.
However the colouration of these hybrid koi is not at all satisfactory at this moment in time
Most koi keepers I know do not allow ice to form and carry on as normal through te winter with filter maintenance and water changes.
Some like ourselves having insulation around the pond pipes and filter housing ( I even have an oil heated radiator in the filterhousing to up the air temperature if necessary thus taking the chill of the water), others choose to heat their ponds
The pond itself has double thickness policarbonate roofing covering it, with Quadruple thickness roofing making up the cover for our huge 32" vortex syle filters with two air pumps one supplying the bubbler the other the filters an oase 3500 inline pump and an aquapond 36watt double bulbed UV-C so as you can see they are well protected
Our oldest two koi both are doitsu and have been with us for the whole 27 years our youngest two just over a year old.
As a matter of interest I have in the last few months secured a copy of Diseases of Carp and other cyprinid Fish it is joint authored by non other than Ian Wellby whom I chat with from tome to time by email
Dave
