Added photo album
Dave,
I know what you mean about purists and their opinions of butterfly koi, so to avoid yet another sermon on how they’re a bastardization of the breed I just don’t mention them, but this spring I fell in love with two absolutely stunning metallic gun-metal grey ones at one of the local emporiums and brought them home. They were small, but bright and very alert and active in quarantine, but that was nothing to how they are thriving in the pond environment. They’ve already almost doubled in size and make a gorgeous counterpoint to the black butterfly koi when they appear together. But that’s not why I’m tapping.
My pond vacuum is made by Matala, and what I like about it is that when the canister is full it shuts off automatically, drains in about twenty seconds and starts right up again. I’ve seen pond vacs that shut off when they’re full, but which need to be restarted by hand, not convenient at all when one is hip-deep in a cold pond and the canister is safely off to the side. When I first got it I kept the mesh bag attached to the place where the sludge is discharged so I could see how much guck I was removing from the pond, but in subsequent clean-ups I just let the filth flow right through and into the gardens beside the pond because I know its doing the job. It’s not all that noisy (I hate noisy tools) - has a 2 h.p. motor - and is fully functional in water up to three feet deep. Then it’s less powerful, but still works. What I do in the spring, though, is drain the pond down to about 2.5 to 3 feet for easier cleaning. I can’t go lower than that because I’m located close to a very large lake (Lac des Deux Montagnes, or, in English, Lake of Two Mountains) and when the pond level is lower than that I get a huge bubble under the liner as the ground water seeps upwards. It was a good acquisition.
My experience with pond supply houses is that they tend to say what I want to hear rather than what I need to know, so I contacted a place that rents supplies as well as sells them and got my customer satisfaction information from them. There were a few competing models on the market when I was making my enquiries and the rental place was able to tell me which units their customers were most pleased with.
I hope this helps.
Sincerely, Brenda
On 13-Jun-08, at 8:57 AM, David Williams wrote:
> Brenda, > > Funny thing you should mention the clarifier. I did take a sample of > my water to the pond store. They sold me Laguna Clear Fast - $35 to > treat 10,500 gallons - ouch! I put it 3 cups in yesterday afternoon > (I have 3700 gallons to treat). The water immediately turned milky > which seemed to upset the fish for a while, but they calmed down. > This morning, the water has improved, but is still quite cloudy. I’ll > probably need to dose it again if it doesn’t clear up in another day > or so. > > You mentioned a pond vacuum. Which one do you have? Right now, I > have no way to use a vacuum because the pond is 4 feet deep and I > can’t see the bottom at all. I can barely make out a goldfish that is > swimming down 2 feet. > > I added a fish to the pond yesterday. He/she is a small butterfly koi > about 5 inches. He has a white head, silvery body, and totally white > fins. I know that some of the koi purists turn up their noses at > butterfly koi, but I think this guy is absolutely gorgeous. If I can > get a decent photo of him, I’ll add it to my album and let the group > know that I’ve done that. > > Thanks for the advice. > > Dave W. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > ———————————— > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > >
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
