On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 06:56:06 GMT, "George"
wrote:

and my koi appear to have grown substantially over the winter months, which I
find quite astounding. I guess they managed to find something to eat, since I
have only fed the fish during rare times when the water temperature was over 55
degrees (I know, this is likely why I now have the string algae, especially
since the filter was off for a month during the deep cold this January and is
likely not efficiently filtering the water as cold as the water is right now).

I'm glad your pond is in good shape and find it amazing that fish in
colder climates grow over winter too. Mine have grown a little, but
I've been feeding (small amount once a day) most of the winter, except
those few days the water temperature was below 40*F. I should have
lots of algae darkening my waters, but I guess the parrot feather and
a weekly (more or less) vacuuming of the bottom of the filter barrels
paid off.

I understand the bio-filter isn't much help in the winter, but I've
been tinkering with mine every year and my last change was to add
baffles in the first barrel to circle the water like a vortex with a
top exit, to cause settling of the heavier particles in the water.
It gets a lot of junk, but some sediment makes it into the next two
barrels as well. Every year of ponding seems different and without
controls to see what would happen otherwise, I can't really say this
works a lot better, but I like it.

Regards,

Hal