Thread: DTF's New Pond

Looking great Dave! But how could you cut back on feeding in the peak summer feeding period?? Expect every parasite under the sun to rip through the pond now

Originally Posted by samp09

Looking great Dave! But how could you cut back on feeding in the peak summer feeding period?? Expect every parasite under the sun to rip through the pond now

I'm beginning to think that all this 1kg a day feeding is complete bullshit sold to us by people with a vested interest in selling food...

might work for tosai and nisai, but not for bigger fish.
mine are happier, healthier, and still growing very well on a tiny fraction of the food i used to put in....

Originally Posted by Martin59

You’ve got some lovely Koi there Dave.
What are you feeding them at the moment.

Thanks

not very much compared to what i used to...
about 100 grammes of my summer pellet mix and 40g of meal worms a day.
the pellet mix is just 50% saki balance, 25% saki colour, and 25% hikari wheatgerm.

in winter i just alter the mix to include a much higher percentage of wheatgerm as i hold at 16C over winter.

So thought I'd update my pond thread since my drum motor failed,
which caused the water drum to block up and send the pump into a stop start cycle which caused it to fail.

I got a new motor up and running just on the small bio which caused a small ammonia spike which is back to zero already
but i have cut feeding down to just a few grams a day.

I've taken out the shower, old bio chamber and most of the pipework.
the K1 micro i had in the bio has gone into fine mesh polyester 'football bags' and placed over the air curtain to provide some water movement.
so i can keep most of the bacteria alive and keep some filtration on the pond while it's being worked on.

so I can finally get round to fitting the new bigger bio chamber, and re-piping the filter house.
So the drum is shut off and drained and i dropped the water level in the pond to work on the return pipework and move the valve.

I've had to take a lot of stuff out to make room to squeeze the bio chamber in.
but managed to get most of it prepped for lifting it in tomorrow, with my lads help as it weighs a fair bit.

before the stripout started....





looking bare...getting there




Temporary in pond filtration bags

Loads of room you wouldn't have even got it in my shed

It's going to be even smarter 'n tidier - if that's possible!

Originally Posted by davethefish1

Ok officially bored now waiting for this K1+ to stop floating...

I would add the K1 micro in mesh bags from the pond on top to push the new down under the surface

Originally Posted by davethefish1

the K1 micro is already in the filter to spread the bacteria and speed up the maturation,
but it just sinks down and the K1+ floats over the top.

just going to have to wait.....

Shouldn't take too long Dave, I found mine would be sinking and sitting properly after a couple of days at 20+, I reckon within a week it'll all be sinking. I did go out as often as I remembered and just pushed it under water to submerge it too, not sure if it helped or not but when I was adding more I was adding about 2-3l every 3ish days but this is in narrow topped barrels so sure you can get away with a lot more.

Originally Posted by samp09

Shouldn't take too long Dave, I found mine would be sinking and sitting properly after a couple of days at 20+, I reckon within a week it'll all be sinking. I did go out as often as I remembered and just pushed it under water to submerge it too, not sure if it helped or not but when I was adding more I was adding about 2-3l every 3ish days but this is in narrow topped barrels so sure you can get away with a lot more.

yeah i forgot about waiting for it to roll,
when i got the k1 micro for the old pond it was in a static filter, and fully mature when i put it in the original bio chamber i built for this pond
so it rolled immediately.

If i'd have thought i'd have put the K1+ in mesh bags like the K1 micro... in the pond to mature for a few weeks first.
woulda, coulda, shoulda.