Koi spawning

[cornish wood burner]

My koi spawned yesterday which is the latest I've known. Anyone else had spawning this late.

[Big J]

I have a new pond, and the first fish pond since I was a kid. Not a koi pond as such (15ft diameter, heavily planted) but 16 koi (as well as 3 mirror carp, 3 roach, 2 rudd, 3 perch, a tench and about 3000 sticklebacks) in it nevertheless. No spawning yet though.

 

When do your's usually spawn? Coarse fish are usually March to July, in my experience.

[cornish wood burner]

I have a new pond, and the first fish pond since I was a kid. Not a koi pond as such (15ft diameter, heavily planted) but 16 koi (as well as 3 mirror carp, 3 roach, 2 rudd, 3 perch, a tench and about 3000 sticklebacks) in it nevertheless. No spawning yet though.

 

When do your's usually spawn? Coarse fish are usually March to July, in my experience.

 

Depends on temperature May / June and if I feed them, but we are a bit warmer here I guess.

Mine is also more wildlife/ plants than Koi. Apart from the Koi, I have a 25 year old golden orfe which had a narrow escape from a heron years ago. Two marks on its back but it's smaller companion wasn't so lucky. It seems to get on very well with the Koi.

I presume your pond needs to be quite deep to get over the winter freeze where you are.

[Big J]

Well sadly not as deep as I'd like. Hit bedrock early on in the dig, which thankfully sloped away towards one end. With building up the banking, I managed to get 32 inches at the deep side. Impossible to go deeper - solid rock. I don't think that it will be an issue though as our winters are unbearably mild here - only about 1.5 miles from the coast and rarely get colder than minus 5-7 here.

 

This is what it looks like at present:

 

 

 

The wild flower mix is really starting to take off around the edge. I fully back filled the pond with soil to allow the plants to spread, but clarity can be a bit poor at times (usually 12 inches, but generally improving).

 

At 25 years old, your Orfe must be quite a specimen! Had orfe as a kid, but they always seemed to like jumping out of the (small) pond. Seem to have gone out of fashion these days. Don't often see them.

[Big J]

I should say that the pond is only 3 months old, so not yet fully established.

[Kenty]

Mine have just finished spawning which is later than last year.

They were also later to come up from winter this year aswell, but my pond is over 6 feet in places & we are located at the bottom of the Rother valley so takes a bit longer to warm up.

 

Nice looking pond Big J, if you get water irises growing, keep on top of them as they can take over.

 

Here's a few pics of mine, I let it go a bit wild until the end of summer as we get masses of wildlife, including great crested & common newts.

 

We have the local ecology group come in every couple of years to check how the great created are doing.

 

 

This is my pond over winter.

[Big J]

That's a wonderful pond there Kenty. How long has it been established? Does it have filtration as well?

 

I've a grand plan (which involves the building of a house as well) to dig a mammoth pond in two years, which would serve the purpose of natural swimming pool, relatively lightly stocked koi pond and largely separated nature area. Total size would be in the region of 20x15m, but it depends rather on us emigrating as the land is too expensive here and the weather is too poor.

[Kenty]

We moved in around 4 year ago & thought it was a natural pond as the house used to be a milking shed but last summer I got talking to the chap who dug it out back in the 70's.

 

There is no filtration I just let nature do its thing with it apart from clearing the banks & it seems to do quite well.

 

I do like your future pond plans though.

[Big J]

We moved in around 4 year ago & thought it was a natural pond as the house used to be a milking shed but last summer I got talking to the chap who dug it out back in the 70's.

 

There is no filtration I just let nature do its thing with it apart from clearing the banks & it seems to do quite well.

 

I do like your future pond plans though.

 

I've always adored all things water/fish. Learnt to walk and promptly walked into a pond apparently. I go fishing, wild swim, have a large aquarium and a fairly large pond. Watching fish is meditative for me.

 

My future pond would be something akin to this, perhaps without the summer house over the water:

 

[cornish wood burner]

Great looking ponds guys. Mine is very tired in comparison