Hi every one!
This is my first post from Zambia. I saw your posts, it seems u are all serious about Koi.
Thats good provided u dont sneer , and demean us beginners.I am a single lady, have a house in jbg, but live in Zambia. I made my pond, alone with my gardeners.Did not know how to do it, but tried on trial and error bases. (it leaks he he he). It is now a year old. I dont know if it was leaking before or it was normal, but i was toping it ones or twice a month, now after i cleaned it, I have to top every 3 days???.Here in Zambia we dont have for sale any of the things you are talking about.(gadgets), so I had to improvise. Combined with the fact that that I know little about ponds.....I am not sure what i did, if it is good enough, what to expect. Half of the things u talk about, I dont understand, and I feel my pond is a total disaster.(thats after I saw ur posts)
).I did some reading on the net before i made it, but having a bacground of an engineer, and a big head, thought could do it.It has an island on the middle, water fall and 2 home made water features (I drilled some holes on big round rocks and put pipes inside), and a small river on one side.
I dont know how many litres it is, but is average 1m deep.I bought a big pool pump in RSA and having a big head and limited knowlage, I made a undergravel filter. (I used to have an aquarium, so I thought undergravel filter will be useful).
So I made a provision on one side of the pond for it, a small apendix (pool), deeper than the rest , with the intake of the pump near the edge of this small pool. I piled big rocks on top, plastic netting, then about 40 cm of crushed stones, plastic net again and on top a very corse river sand well sieved and washed. for a good measure I planted some arums in the sand.The stone, and sand layers are parallel to each other and and sloping towards the bottom.
My pond is always crystal clear, though there is some mad on the bottom.
I came to rsa and bought a truck load of plants for my garden and some water lilies, for the pond. Now fish I could not bring, for I was driving.
Where to get fish.There were No shops here for fish (They just opened one)(They bring the fish from RSA, U should see prices).So I decided to go and "fish" in my son in law's pond, while he was in England. All the fish, was comets, but there were 2 very big gold fishes, I managed to catch and take home.One was white, and the other one red and white. As soon as I brought them home, they starting chasing each other and dancing. I thought they are mating, so I quickly went and put in one corner some grass, and they deposited lots of eggs on it. I put stones around, since I sow that the gold fish was eating the eggs, and started feeding with egg yolk, ones a day I put about like a match stick head.
Not so long after that I got a phone call from my daughter: Mom, my husband is crying that someone stole his two koi, which he flew from RSA.
Ma ma ma, did I even know that was a koi? I apologizes, and negotiated with him to allow me one more round of repopulating, and took the fish back to his pond. he he he.That was 6 month ago. Now I have a pond full of "ugly" (I know thats what u will say) koi, that I love to bits. they are over 30 cm long, and very healthy. Today I sow them dancing in the valisneria, and it looked as if they were breeding again. Can that be possible? (6 month old?). Will check for eggs tomorrow and let u know.Now that I looked at ur kois, I can tell u mine look nothing, like yours. they are all kind of colors,some just one color, some multicolored, but very shiny, and beautiful (to me). I cook for them ones a week, (spinach and other veggies, with chicken liver and mealy meal),frreze it, and feed them every day.
now I failed to post a picture of my pond. Will try again tomorrow.
Here is a link:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/garden-and-home-society-zambia/simple-garden-feature-i-made-at-home-neli/156928071031489
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