Ruth wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 21:12 pm
ooooOOOOOooooooh! That’s lovely! Amazing fish! Are they koi?
Hi all. Just sat by the pond living the dream!
The dark coloured fish (mainly black and orange) is a koi I 'rescued' from a small barrel it'd be living in for years. He was about 10 inches when I got him, maybe 11" now, but sadly I don't think he'll ever get bigger. The rest of the fish are just 'normal' goldfish. I've a few sarasa comets (red and white patchy ones), one yellow one and the rest are either just orange or patchy white and orange.
I bought x6 2" goldfish last summer and they're now 4-5" in size. The rest of the goldfish are about 9-11" and some females look fit to burst with eggs. Super fat bellies, but no proper breeding this year yet. I saw a little chasing a few weeks ago from the smaller ones, but not found any eggs yet.
Today (as it's the last ever day of nice weather - if you belive the papers!) I spent most of my time outside and around the pond.
I spent a couple of hours rigging up a sort of guttering system from the back of the garage roof to the pond to top up with rainwater. It's dropped an inch or two recently and I don't want to keep adding tap water. It's a bit makeshift and leaky, but gets some water to the pond at least.
I've noticed so much wild life in the pond in the last 24hrs. Loads of bees bussing round the flowers, loads of other flies, hover flies and everything else in between, a nice red dragon fly, x3 medium frogs and x2 XL brown frogs and today, to my surprise (and very much delight) while watching a frog swim around I saw x 2 black/ brown small fish! Hooray! x2 'baby' goldfish.
They're probably just under 2 inches in length so I'm assuming they're some of the ones I tried raising in a tub last year and added to the pond at about an inch long. Although they've only doubled in length, they're so much more stocky and tall. They're very dark coloured with paler bellies. Really hard to see, but definitely there. Didn't think any had survived, but I'm pretty sure I got a glimpse of one a few months ago, but once they blend into the liner, they're virtually invisible so I questioned my own judgement.
I'm pretty sure the medium frog swimming around scared them out of hiding. A few minutes later he looked half dead with a swollen belly and barely moving upside down on the bottom of the pond. I picked him out with a net as the big goldfish were starting to pick at him. Left him near a bush and he's vanished. Wondering if he ate a baby fish then had indigestion. Hoping not! Exciting times in pond world.
piker wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2020 22:59 pm
Looking good Si,hope the croc keeps the heron away
Me too mate!
Just got some night shots of the pond on my new phone with the pond lights on. It's a right little oasis I'll upload when I work out how my new phone works.
Got a message from my mum today telling me the goldfish I got here last year were breeding in her pond today.
I had mixed feelings about this. Been waiting for mine to start for weeks, but apart from a little chasing around, no eggs. As soon as she messaged me I went to look at my pond. A bit of chasing. 2 hours later, the plants were wiggling, the chasing more energetic and tails flapping everywhere. One female even partially jumping out the water like a show at Seaworld! Hooray! Breeding at last! Thought I'd leave them to it today, but may try and recover some eggs and try and raise them up inside to watch development at some point this week. Good to see them breeding again at last.
I'm also 50/50 on whether to get 4/5 koi and raise them up in the pond. Buy em tiny and cheap and sell them on when they outgrown the pond (12-14"). Really want a black and white one for contrast (or a cowfish as it's called in my head). Just don't want to overload the system.
Turns out I thought fast. X5 new koi for the pond.
Big one is about 4.5”, small one 2” and the others about 3”. Very high contrast in the pond. Today the whole pond is super frothy with goldfish breeding everywhere!
Ric wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 16:02 pm
Nice addition to your pond.
If your goldfish keep feeling the love, you might pray for the heron to come back next year
Haha, maybe. Out of hundreds of eggs last year, a couple of hundred that I removed and tried to raise as fry, I've still only seen x2 actually survive/ make it to this year. They definitely didn't have much cover last year. A bit more this year, but not much. We shall see. Koi seem to be settling in and zipping around with the excited goldfish. They were being raised in a big plastic tub in someone's garage so it's probably a very exciting upgrade.
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