Pond construction begins

[bekko]

ranskye, that little pH test does not tell you much of anything unless you have really acidic soil with no buffering capcaity. I will have to dig out the books to find how buffering capacity is determined as I have never measured that myself. Everyone here sends a soil sample off to the agricultural lab (usually associated with a state-run university) and gets a liming recommendation. The process is the same for aquaculture ponds and agricultural fields. You can also get them to make fertilization recommendations for field crops at the same time.

-steve hopkins

[ranskye]

awww now i gotta use my head..hungover.

buffering capacity is sposed to be directly related to water alkalinity. which is not the same as highly alkaline soil or water (its not a pH measure).
i think thats where a lot of people are confused.

its a measure of the calicum carbonate and calcium bicarbonates, umm im thinking its more than just calcium carbonates actually as in magnesium carbonates also, these also contribute to the buffering bank but i think the basic test involves the carbonate hardness from calcium only but i may have that wrong in that the test may test for both mag and calc.

it goes something like this.

carbonate hardness test kit is a measure in ppm, it comes in a simple test kit, it tests for carbonate and bicarbonate and you are sposed to be able to use this as your test to see if you need to add lime, you add the drops into the 5ml vial and once the sample changes from blue to yellow, you count your drops used to change the colour and multiply it by ten.
for example you may come up with 3 drops times by ten and then you know you have 30mg per litre present. they say that under 20mg/l and you would have rather poor buffering and subsequently poor crops.. but between 40 and 80 is good enough. if for some reason you ocme across really high presence above 200mg/l then your waters/soils not so suitable either. dunno what they do if that happens..


however i think it would be of concern if you had waters/soils foir example that had a lot of magnesium making up your total hardness.. ie in some land forms you mayt have high amonts of magnesium which would also act as buffer. i think that the carbonate hardness only shows the calcium carbonate presence and that the total hardness test shows both calcium and magnesium and some other salts also. so i guess you would do both tests to work out what salts where making the difference.

as for how it works.. its the presence or amount of bicarbonate ions (dont blame me if ive got this wrong cause im no chemist)
but how i undrestand it is that the bicarbonate grab onto carbonic acids that are there in the water and so what this does is stop the pH going way low.
think that carbon dioxide would lower pH as an acid and that these carbonates hold them, bind with them and stop them causing so much effect to the parameter of pH.

if theres a lot of carbon dioxide around in the morning and then its used by a bloom (producing oxygen) then the pH rises casue theres no carbon-acids present.
obviously its not real good to have too much acids or carbon dioxide around..
anyone ever breathed in pure co2? the stuff is retched.. its like anti life.. and its funny that we put it in our soda drink..pure o2 on the other hand is clean and tastes like life.

as for your kh tests, those german ones i have absolutley no idea if theres any difference..but this has served me ok. cichlid growers run them up real high to mimic the lakes..and talk of kH but i think it be the same.

so if you have a night with no earation and maybe a lot of cloud the arvo before stopping any photosynthesis then your fish and bloom respires a lot then theres heaps of carbon dioxide around, if theres not much cabonate ions around then what happens is that there will be a lot of free roaming carbon dioxide that will lower pH.

the addition of lime will inittially raise the pH but thats worth it for the buffering ability now present.

still even with well buffered waters and trying to create big blooms full of food you can get high pH. too high for stocking. at thios tiome you can wait till it settles back, if the fish goes in there when its real high its worse than when it goes in at a suitable pH say around 8.5 give or take one.. and then rises throughout the day. thats a stress stocking if you wack em in when its high.
better to stock when the pH is lower in the morning.

one thing to remember is that with big water exchanges you can flush away your lime and therefor buffering capacity.

that is how thew water buffers against pH swings

[koifishgirl]

I dont know for sure that this is what triggers the females to bellie up or not, I have noted that they alway get full of eggs durining the winter. I just figured that since this happen durning the cold weather that if you reduced the temp for a period of time that the females should start filling up with eggs again. Mother nature is a stange thing and if you mimick her I would think it might work. If I could figure out a way to get the water cold enough and say leave them for about six weeks in cold water I believe that she would spawn again with a slow increase in temp It just makes since to me. To my understanding and I dont know where I heard this but koi need at least 6 weeks of cold in order to do their thing. I mean think about it. Mother nature know what she is doing, and I have alway had good luck with fish if I followed her. For instance when my water starts turning green in my pond the koi will always spawn right before it get so dark you cant see to the bottom. So if I want to do a spawn I would time it with her, when the water starts turning green its time. You may thing this is strange but it seam to work. I have noted two years straight that they spawn when water get nice and green.

If it has been proven to work I didn't do it Im just thinking and I may or may not have it right. One thing I can say for sure that If I had a way to keep the water cold for a least 6 weeks I would give it a try.

[ranskye]

you may just be right in that kfg.

i dont know, ive heard the cooling trip triggers a spawn but never noticed it myself, only if it gets cold before a rain..

however i do still spawn for a long period, i can get them to spawn twice in a year, it may just be that they do go through a rather short cool period with weather variation within the breeding season.never looked at that though.

i use the separation as a rule and never gave the other scenario a thought, i do know it can be used in lots of fish, fully controlled indoor environments to have them spawn 4 imes round the year..run them on a temperature schedule and a photo period as well, its not just temp dependant only. youd be best to change your light hours to short when you decrease temps and increase daylenght as you increase and they will THINK they have had another year..its just that you being mother nature forced it into a 3 month window only..

i wouldnt bother though cause the cost is more and then you have the cooler temps through winter for growth anyway but in your case you could give it a go using a simpler way, if i were you id pull some unspawned pairs apart and leave em waiting for when your ready, i dont see why they wont spawn when you put them together in new water.. should be no problem at all. mine will ussually always spawn on day one or two without the presence of green water. it may be that your water has nutrient in it which puts the spawn off till it cleans itslef up with the bloom absorbing nutrient.

if you like a male you can use him a few times anyway.

[ranskye]

when our fisheries tries to do indoor spawn manipulation without hormones they het a temp chart and a photoperiod chart and compress it down to a shorter window. but theyve got the cash, you could run into thousands trying that when youve now got the benifit of extensive ponds..ENJOY!

[koifishgirl]

I went out today to take a look at my ponds, I want to seed the banks and put hay down but rain stoped me. One thing is for sure they hold water. We had a nice little thunderstorm and I have about 2 inches of water in each pond. In the morning I am going out to put down seed and hay, I hope I can anyway. Not sure if I can get the measurements that I wanted because of rain but I will try, who cares if I get muddy The contractor still says the ponds are only 4 foot deep but they cant be. Im going to take some string and tie across the ponds and measure down to the bottom. Maybe it is the side slope that is throwing me off. But if you were to measure down the side slope it would have to be at least 10 to 12 foot, so I dont see how they could be four foot deep. When those ponds are full of water if I stand in the middle it will I am sure be over my head. I am 5'6 and a quarter tall. Needless to say I am very pleased with the ponds. Now I just gotta get something in them. Anyone got any idea what would be a good start for me on the koi to sell this year or should I wait untill next year. What size koi would be a good start?

[ranskye]

do that with the taught string, work out your volume lenth x width x depth.

break it up, into sections and get an overall volume, thats what you go off.
sounds like you have very slow sloping sides.. maybe get a measurement of a mid section and work out the volume and then take the triangle of the slopes and add it to the other for that volume.

then you can know the volume of litres you are worrking with.

[koifishgirl]

More pond pics, and measurements 30x68x4 all four ponds.

[koifishgirl]

You can tell more about the ponds looking at these pic. He also changed the grade on me. It is steaper than I thought it would be but if you look at the first pics of the ponds it look like I would be able to walk easy to the bottom. He. He. I quess he was not through with the pond. I quess thats what I get for being born blond.

[koifishgirl]

See what I mean, I had more pics to post
He has got my pipe work to far under and I am just going to leave it cap them and put more pipe work in. I only wanted them 6 inches under the ground and they are a least a foot. Takes up to much pond space and I need all I can get.

Well what do you think. In the morning I am going to put the hay down as today it was so windy that we could not get it to stay where we put it. I put out grass seed , I also will put the lime in the ponds in the morning. I got a little water in them from the rain and its staying in, the lime will just have to go in the water in that area. Im so happy to see water I could not pump it out if I wanted to.