"Chip" wrote in message ...
Reel McKoi wrote:

"Phyllis and Jim" wrote in message
...
Now this is a major change. How long have you been raising fish?

Jim
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I've had pond goldfish since 1995. I added koi around 1998. It's just
too much work for two seniors. We're both burnt out on it.

Whoa--- I have just retired and decided that I want to convert my pool
into a natural fish pond so I can save the work of pool maintainance.

I never had a pool so have no idea what maintaining one is like.

What am I missing here? Many books, articles,and people on this list say
that with proper design, pumps, and veggie filters a pond is virtually
maintainance free.

A lot we found depends on a person's income. Perhaps ponds can be
maintenance free if you have enough money to buy those self-cleaning
filters, install large plant filters (we do use a plant filter in the 2000g
pond as well as a Tetra filter. Both need regular manual flushing, a dirty
smelly job.) and if you can find affordable hired help to drain down the
pond at least once a year to remove unwanted fry and overgrown plants. And
you better have good insurance if they slip on the slimy liner and injure
themselves. The filters we use need constant flushing of the pads. The
"baskets" the pumps are in clog and need to be pulled up and hosed. It's
just tiresome and getting more than we want to deal with. Also, the number
of water snakes is increasing yearly and we can't tell the harmless ones
from the poisonous ones.

Something doesn't jive.

That's what I'm thinking too since the pond books and sites never mentioned
the work involved unless you can afford filters the average person can't.
We don't have high 5 or 6 figure incomes. They also never mention what
ponds draw, such as huge snapping turtles and water snakes. The books make
it sound like it's all pleasure. They don't mention the other side of the
coin and all coins have a flip side as you know. Yes, ponds are lovely,
they sound nice, fish are graceful to watch and lily blooms are
beautiful....... but the work is putting us off completely after all these
years.

As I live in
Phoenix, there is no winter, just spring and HOT summer. Will that make
it harder or easier to maintain?

That depends on what you have in your pond and what type of filtration you
can afford. Have you any idea how much some of those top quality filters
cost? And when the time comes to start removing all those fry what will you
do? Hire help? Drain it down yourself and net them yourself? Do do you
realize what a job that is? You first have to set up smaller kiddy pools or
tanks to put them in - with filters and aeration and a cycled filter. What
will you do with them all? The market is flooded with pond quality koi and
goldfish. Can you be cold hearted enough to kill them all? How? Who will
do the water tests for PH etc? You still have a lot of things that need to
be done to maintain fish in good health. There are partial water changes
that must be done. What about fish predators? How will you deal with them?
I'm sure you realize how dangerous large snapping turtles can be. We get
them here constantly. Sometimes they tear the nets and they then need
replacement.

Then if we want to sit on the front porch or down by the ponds, the
mosquitoes and black biting flies they draw harass us to the point we return
to the house. Or we can spray ourselves with DeepWoods-Off and have to
smell that chemical as we sit there. Pond books never mention such things.

--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
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