[Erns]

Quote: Originally Posted by hwong Apologies, for lack of a more appropriate title…. General consensus is that for a koi to develop a good muscular body, it must have the space to swim unimpeded; hence the preference for a long pond .. A leading breeder recommends 45 feet! He and a few others in the industry also adviced against fitting an air-dome/ air-ring on top of the bottom drains that are usually at the centre locations of the pond. This they say defeats the purpose of having a long pond. They say that the airdomes will encourage the kois in huddling around the aridomes and the kois will swim around the airdome and not swim freely the length of the pond as they should. They adviced that the pond should be free from any obstruction and the airlines should be fitted to the sides. We do not need to worry about solids as the sloped floor and the constant water intake will draw the solids into the bottom drain. What is your take on this?

I think if we have to think big and more about the global advancement of the hobby we might want to consider keeping statements like this to ourselves. No offence hwong!
How many of the ave. koi keepers out there (who actually keep a lot of the breeders going by buying commercial grade koi) can actually afford to have a 45 feet long pond or something that might be a tourist attraction in the line of some of the tanks at Sea World.

I see a lot of threads on this forum (and I really enjoy them!!) about pushing the boundries and growing and keeping jumbo koi. For us purists that is the ulitmate challenge. But this chalenge is not for everybody as they might not have the space nor the resources for such a big operation. It's hard and expensive to buy the right stock and grow them to +80cm and then maintain them.

I good local breeder and dealer told me this year, after seeing my system, that if this is what it takes to keep koi he might as well go out of bussiness. At first I was offended but then I saw deeper into what he was saying. When looking at some of the systems being discussed on this forum (I'm yet to see them as there was very little response to my thread called 'show us your pond) mine is actully a very simple and small operation at 35ton.

Should we as experienced(well sort of ) keepers not be focusing and doing a few more threads on how to keep koi succesfully in ponds of 30ton or less and giving tips on how to make the most of our hobby rather than discussing these astronomical figures?? Will this not promote the hobby a bit more effectively or am I way off target here??

I know we have written about this before and this is the forum where the top dogs hang out and if you can't keep up you might not want to be here, but i'm am thinking to much like a teacher here? Don't worry I've got skin thikker than a rhino!