Cedar Lodge Koi

This is a very interesting process

The machine is a very big rotational moulding machine, making for flexability in manufacture.

This was found on a far East Blog.

Very clever idea, but inately cruel!

It is a saddening thought that will buy these souveniers at the Olympics.

A nice warm day will give you a snack in an hour or two, boil in the bag goldfish.

A really unthinking way the treat animals.

This is not an Olympics endorsed product, just someone out to make a quick buck at any cost.

The smallest filter in Evolution Aqua’s ’stable’ of koi pond filters is only 23″ high and 23″ high.

An incredible little bit of kit.

When you first meet an Eazy Pod the first thing that strikes you is the size, so small but incredibly powerful.
It looks like a grey dustbin with a bit tacked on the side, initially how can £395.00 be justified?

After all there is no UV fitted and no water pump, what makes it so special.

Lift the lid, some are amazed and others disbelieve that these little white ‘pieces of pasta’ can clean water so well.

The K1 media stands still all of the time in the Eazy Pod, unlike the Nexus.
It combines mechanical and biological efficiency in one media.

It lets the water flow through the media, cleaning it on route.

This lovely little filter will safely handle a pond up to (according to Evolution Aqua the manufacturer) 10,000 litres or 2,200 UK gallons.

The Eazy Pod is more concerned with the amount of food that the koi recieve in a day. Maximum of 100g.

Now for the good bit

Cleaning the Eazy Pod is what takes it from being good into fantastic.

Place the centre cleaning pipe down the centre, allow it to fill and isolate with the slide valve.

Turn that little black lever on the top.

Air from the airpump is released through the media, the media rotates in the water and shakes off its waste.

Personally, I go for a coffee while the media is rotating to clean, I leave it for at least 10 minutes.

When you are ready to get rid of the waste you just open the ball valve on the bottom, front.

The waste is flushed away, possibly onto your garden because it has excellent qualities for growing plants.

Turn off the air, refill, remove the cleaning pipe and your done.

No wet hands, no blanketweed splatters, no buckets of pond water to rinse the media, no hassle.

If you want an easy to maintain, discreet, easy fit filter: this is a no brainer. The Eazy Pod does the job and some.

When the weather gets warmer, our koi carp come into their own.

We admire them swimming around our ponds and wonder at these living jewels.

However, as the temperature increases, they begin to collect around the filter return, under the water fall or around the fountain.

What has gone wrong?

That is easy, a lack of oxygen in the pond.

The very simple fact is that a lack of oxygen can cost you money and your koi will suffer.

It can cost money through;

1. The loss of koi, not only expensive but also heartbreaking
2. When the koi lack oxygen they do not consume their food correctly, so wasted food is wasted money,
3. A slow down in growth because they are in a stressed state (lacking in oxygen

If you have plants in the pond there is a double whammy in warm weather, not only are the koi on a higher uptake of oxygen; also in photosynthesis (the growth action of plants) plants take oxygen from water at night, so the oxygen demand is extremely high.

How do you get around this?

Really simple, buy an airpump, for a koi pond, not an aquarium air pump, but a pond airpump that gives at the very least 40 litres per second.

You can run an airpump in all but the coldest weather and they are really low wattage (if you buy a good one)

An airpump will;

• Keep your koi healthy.
• Help them to use their food properly.
• Help them to grow.

Lets get together and help sort out any little niggles or problems you may be having with you pond or the koi that live in it.

We all need a hand at some time and when something is really annoying us we lose perspective and don’t see clearly.
Here is a place where we (Cedar Lodge Koi) and you can come together and swap ideas.

If you have any problems then login and post a query, we at Cedar Lodge Koi and the other few thousand people who track through this blog and site each month may be able to come up with a solution.

In fact I will add telephone queries as well, if they are relevant and that should give us all a resource to call upon.

Lets start with a really topical one for the last week Green Water.

If I have a tenner for every phone call I have had about green water and murky water I would be one rich woman.

I have to apologise I have been dragging my heals posting on the blog, mainly because I have been so busy in the real world.

Since the last blog entry there have been over 500 new koi arrivals at Cedar Lodge Koi and some are real stunners. To have a peak follow this link >>

It is always exciting when a new shipment arrives, but the first one of a new season is extra special because some real stunners come in and I get to hold back a few to grow on.

I grow some of the koi on because I am still learning what a particular variety of koi can develop into and how they alter as they grow. You can choose a stunning young koi that does not develop into anything wonderful but other ugly ducklings can become awesome with age.

 Shiro Utsuri

Here is the Shiro as a one year old, three weeks after arriving from Japan.

This koi was chosen because it had matching fins and an excellent body shape.

Now a nissai (2 year old) Kaneko Shiro Utsuri

Noticable changes include
a. The black on the tail has dissappeared.
b. The black has become open, but there is plenty of time for it to consolidate again.
c. The black on the pectoral fins has shrunk back to leave a very decorative matching fin pattern.
d. The black has still not appeared upon the head although the indication is still there. The black coming through on the head will balance this koi beautifully.

This beautiful Shiro Utsuri has put on 12″ in 11 months it still has a mile to go but shaow promise. 

Koi food can prove to be expensive over a season, especially when good growth, enhanced colour and good health are required.

Here are a few suggested alternative foods that koi will eat and some the adore.

Brown bread- please avoid feeding white bread as the bleaching agents used on the flour and are not healthy for the koi.

Add a little honey to the brown bread and you have a treat that koi will run up your arm for. I use this to start koi hand feeding.

Garlic bread- when you have a barbeque, amaze your friends as your koi go mental for this treat. They LOVE garlic.

Cooked and cubed new potatoes.

Baked beans with the tomato sauce washed off.

Sweetcorn- watch out for the sweetcorn skins in the filter.

Prawns and other small seafood.

Cooked garden peas.

Oranges- cut in half and floated cut side down, they will suck the flesh off the skin. Do not peel as it will sink.

Watermelon- float a slice and they will spend hours pulling the flesh from the rind.

Dog biscuits- tie a ‘Bonio’ dog biscuit so that it is just in the water and they will suck at it.

I will post more as I think of them.

Pete and I have finally succumbed to the call of the ‘Good Life’.

Pete spent the Christmas period, building a chicken run, as is usual with Pete he did not do it by halves, they have a large shed with six nest boxes and a run that is over 20′ long and 9′ wide.

A family friend was giving away five hens and a cockeral so they became new free range residents.

One hen laid an egg a day after arriving, and then nothing for a week, then one more and then two more.

I love the eggs we get from our own birds, they have much bigger brightly coloured yolks and taste wonderful.

More chickens will be added very soon.

What is new pond syndrome. A fact is that every, yes every, new pond goes through new pond syndrome.

It does not matter how big the pond is, how much money you spent on it, what fancy gadgets it has on it. It will go through new pond syndrome.

It is all about the filter being immature, a filter is alive, alive with bacteria that biolgically processes water as well as removing bigger waste that you can see.

The nitrite cycle needs to be established in the filter.

The Nitrite Cycle is Ammonia - bacteria converts to - Nitrite - bacteria converts to - Nitrate

Ammonia is toxic to fish above zero

Nitrite is toxic to fish

Nitrate is relatively safe below levels of 100

It is filter immaturity that is killing the fish because the ammonia produced by the fish in their faeces, urine and normal respiration and it is also produced by uneaten food. The ammonia in the system rises slowly and the filter endeavours to grow the bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrite but it takes time, this process can take weeks (depending upon the temperature).

While the filter is trying to generate the bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrite, it is also trying to generate the bacteria to convert nitrite to nitrate, this takes even longer.

The next part to follow >>