Clear Creek Fisheries

 

 

 

 

 

We added a few new koi to the pond this afternoon. We went to Clear Creek Fisheries and picked out three fish from their large indoor tanks. It's been a beautiful sunny day for a change and it's was fun to see the farm and the acres of ponds.

Clear Creek is an old family run business and sells mostly game fish for stocking large ponds, but they had a nice choice of koi today. The owners also have horses, ponies, goats, sheep and a herd of fallow deer. The small, sweet deer keep their spots as adults and have beautiful velvety antlers.

Our new koi are now home and seem very content in their new pond, happily swimming and eating with the group.

 

Just for Fun

 

 

 

It seems I'm usually making and crafting for my Etsy shop, and sometimes gifts for others, but I don't very often make or sew for myself. But I made two plush koi fish just for me.

As I enjoy watching our koi and goldfish in our backyard pond, I can't help but admire the colorful spots and patterns. So I tried to duplicate the look by needle felting sweater wool to make soft plush koi pillows. I started with the orange koi with black spots and then made the "calico" koi, white with bright orange and black spots.
They now reside on the back of the family room sofa.

Happy Fish

 

 

All of our koi and goldfish are very happy in the new backyard pond. They have lots of room to swim and have all gotten much bigger in the extra space.
Some of the goldfish, the first inhabitants of the new pond, spawned when we first put them in the pond. Quite a few of the baby goldfish have survived and are about three inches long now!

After all of my husband's hard work on this project to dig, fill and landscape the pond, it's been so relaxing to sit and enjoy the beautiful fish enjoying their new home.

Pond Progress - Quick Weekend Update

My husband has been working on the new filter system for our smaller koi pond, and it's now up and running. We're very pleased with the results as this is a smaller version of the filter system he'll be building for the new koi pond.

He cut down a 55 gallon plastic storage drum, fitted it with pipes to go to and from the pond and filled the drum about 2/3 full of lava rock. The lava rock will be the filter medium.

 

He set the pump in a plastic bucket and weighted it with rocks so that it would stay in place on the bottom of the pond. Then he attached the fitting he created to the pipe that takes the water from the pond into the filter.

 

He added some basic furnace filters on top of the lava rocks for additional filtration and plugged in the pump. Water started flowing right away.

 

The filtered water then flows back into the pond.

This is what the water looked like when the filter system was first started. As you can see, it's a little green with algae and kind of murky.

 

But in just a little more than 24 hours, the water is clear and we can see the koi much more clearly.  We're thrilled with the filtering results and are anxious to get starting on the filter system for the new, big pond.

 

 

Click here to see a short video of the koi.

 

 

Feeding Time!

Watch a short video clip of the koi in our new koi pond.

Be sure to turn on your speakers!

Saturday Morning Field Trip

All winter, my husband has been working on his plans to install a koi pond in our backyard patio area. He has measured and calculated gallons of water. He's done a lot of online research, made lists of possible plants to include and sketches of the the pond to be.

Now we already have two small garden ponds full of water lillies and goldfish, but we want a larger, deeper pond just for koi. So for a little inspiration, this morning we took a drive to visit a water garden center - Aquatic Design and Supplies in Monrovia, Indiana.

Some of the beautiful koi in the large display pond.

This is a small, shallow pond with a pretty moss covered waterfall. It's smaller size would make it perfect for most backyards.

It was fun to watch the colorful koi as they followed us as we walked around the edge of the pond.

Such a beautiful variety of colors and patterns. I like the orange guy with the whiskers!

This is the large display pond at the garden center.
You can see the big waterfall at the far side.
 

Another view across the large pond. Such a pretty natural setting with the mature trees in the background and the smaller plantings closer to the pond edge.

This was great inspiration for our upcoming koi pond project in our own backyard!

I'll be sure to share our progress with you here.