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goby2004

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Joined
Feb 9, 2004
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137
Location
WOODINVILLE
This is our summer hobby... unfortunatly sometimes it means the tank not getting any attention... lol

These are our 'outdoor' pride and joys... some of our Koi are over 2.5' long. They spawned this year and that took alot of our time as i am raising 20 baby koi now. Here are some of the beasts... (wow they make our tanks look small...)

a 24" male (tancho)
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our prized 23" Singapore male (yes he came from singapore...) (showa)
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our 27" mom of the babies (sanke)
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another 25" female (kujaku)
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and a 24" male (platinum ogon)
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All housed in our backyard in a 8000 gallon pond... (unfinished in the picture but you get the idea from the pic...)
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Thanks for looking!
Danyelle
 
Thats pretty cool. What do you do with the fish in the winter?
 
they just kinda cruise around in the winter. its to cold to feed as their bodies shut down so we cant feed them. all we do is net out the leaves and clean the filters every other week.
 
wow - how beautiful. very inspirational too. I love how it's right under the window sill. I built myself a pondless water feature a couple summers ago in our back yard, next house I get, I'm wanting to go with a pond.

any pictures of it fully done? I'd love to see!
 
please how did u mix the concrete or did u use a 2part epoxy
if u heat the water then they will grow 12months a year thats what people do here
 
yes they do kinda hibernate... there digesting part of the body shuts down, so if you do feed them they kinda rot from the inside out... bad idea. we do have a heater and use it in the summer to keep it up, although in the winter it is on all the time and costs a lot.

on the concrete, i think dad just used concrete from the bags, mixed it in with water in the turning thingy, (like a mini one from a mixer truck) and poured it. the walls are just blocks filled with concrete, and for the slanted parts he just poured it between the blocks and wood, then tore it off. same with on the house side. yes, it does go directly to the foundation of the house...

it isnt completely done. still awaiting on the deck and lining rockwork. in the second pic you can see it goes right up to the house.

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today.
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we shut down the upper part as the water in the pipes could freeze up... its still full of leaves although we do have to clean the lower part.
 
that is a nice pond, we have 700 gallon with 300 gal sump what not, nothing fancy though, probably have similar sized koi, probably around my forearm length
 
i just love them. Many times they are shy, but if you go out there everyday they learn to recognize you. They often refuse to eat out of others hands if they havnt done it before.
 
Very awesome - Thanks for the addtnl pics. you mentioned something about a deck- where is that going? is it going partially over the pond?
 
ya, it will wrap around the closer side, wrap around to the left, and up that side. it wont be huge, just kinda a walkway. Over the white part it will be bigger though, and that will be the actual 'viewing area' of the deck. The far side and along the stream it will be ended with the rock like from the upper pond.
 
havnt updated in a while, thought i would post some more pictures of them i dug up. havnt taken any lately though... they just kinda sittin at the bottom.... boring!

in September, we saw an add on craigslist. the owners rented there house out, and the filter on the pump finally died. the renters didnt want anything to do with them, So, the 17 koi living in it were basically suffocating in pea soup. this was during those 80 degree days. when we got there, the water was 78!!! we brought garbage bags, coolers, anything to transport them in. it took two trips. we ended up keeping 9 of them, and sold the rest after staying in the quarantine setup for a few weeks. they ranged from 10-16", including the butterfly! yay!

here are some that show the other fish we have too-

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that is awesome, Just for my info how much do those Prize Koi cost? what is the price range on them?
I have always thought of the hobby but never ead about it to learn...


Matt
 
well, the guy we got them from did have a $10,000 koi, was a showa. omg, it was BEAUTIFUL! mostly black, with white and red here and there. The singapore sanke was flown over, not sure how much he would cost though... the grey and red one the lady bought in 1999 for $900 (she gave me the reciept), and she said he had doubled in size... the sanke would be more i would think. What is so cool is that in Kirkland, there is the biggest and fanciest koi saler in the country, maybe in the continent. its www.koi.com. (lol who would have known!) you should check those... WOW! The smaller ones, depending on where you get them, can range from $45-500, also depending on if they are domestic or Japanese imports. moorehaven in bothell is a great place to check out. They have some jumbos there, about 3"+!!! HUGE! most stores dont have any know, but coming spring EVERYONE will.... :D
 
Very, very pretty koi and pond. I helped construction on my mom's koi pond at her house years ago. We should have just used a backhoe due to the bad soil condition which was clay. Man that was agonizing digging. lol. Hers is around 1200 gal's and 3 ft. deep. I wish she had decided on an undergravel as my sister did one at her koi pond at her house and she has no issues at all and never green water. My mom has to have a monstor UV and everything. My husband and I will be building one this summer as I was hooked once I had all my family members into it. Now just to figure out the big 4- size and placement and depth and filtration.

What is the best site for such questions that you found? Also for your electricity- what sort of price jump did you notice adding a pond?

Thanks,
Alison
 
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