These aren't the best pictures, but they are the first ones I have tried to take. I put a bit of food in there tonight and quite a few of them came up for a snack. It is so great to be able to look in the pond and see them :D They are in order: Caveman, Naval and Zephyr. The pictures really don't show their size at all :(

Those are some nice looking koi! I guess they weren't too shocked by their awakening and huge water change?

What are those beetles on the water's surface? Do they eat those?

Hi Robyn, I don't know what those water bugs are but there is a huge hatch of them in there. They aren't the normal ones I have with the round bodies and only 2 legs. Yes, the fish seem to be doing great so I guess they didn't mind the wake up call they got and the new water. I hope to have my filter going tomorrow...I WILL have my filter going tomorrow. LOL Also...I did see two more fish today that I didn't see yesterday so that was COOL. I am still waiting to see El Tigre, my other koi, he is the smallest but has the prettiest colours. Hope to see him soon, but he has always been shy and has never hung out with the other koi.

In the last picture, the beetles look like Water Scavenger Beetles (Order: Coleoptera Family: Hydrophylidae). There are over 1000 species of this kind of beetle. These beetles live on decaying vegetable material and since your pond has been dormant during the winter months, there is probably quite a bit of decayed matter on the bottom, making an ideal environment for them to multiply in large numbers. In that same picture, to the right looks like a Water Boatman (Order: Hemiptera Family: Corixidae). That would probably be the one that you referred to as having two legs. They actually have six legs, but two of them are modified into oar-shaped paddles that they use to swim, hence the name Water Boatmen.

Don

Hey KK is it too late to clean out the crud on the bottom? Getting all the junk out should reduce the algae in the future. Not sure if you already filled it back up or not. With it being 7 foot deep how to you clean the bottom without pumping a lot of it out first?

Fm3

Snorkel and bikini would be my guess!

That's great your koi made it KK!! :D

Derrick

It's 9 feet deep and there is NOTHING in this world that would get me down in that hole! NOTHING! I did run the net all over the bottom, but I didn't come up with much of anything. I left the bottom couple of feet in there and just filled it back up. I am planning on another water change here shortly, maybe in a few weeks. I want to see what the new filter does.....ah, I guess I need to go start building that now instead of sitting here drinking coffee :o

So I gather you have a DIY filter now and you are building a bigger one ? Even with reasonably clear water at 9 ft deep the only time you are going to see the Koi is at feeding time. Unless you invest in the underwater cam. ;)

Fm3