Troy,
You're welcome to come down and see my pond and fish anytime. I've invited you several times. I come to this forum to learn and share koi keeping experiences. I have posted honestly and openly about my pond. I've not been trying to tell others what they should do, as I have come here to learn not teach. As I do learn then some of the stuff I will mention about what I am doing will surely change. If it doesn't then I haven't been learning and just wasting everyone's time. I read and take to heart all the advice given. In truth there has probably been no better student of the hobby than me over the past months. I've read Kodama's books and also Peter Waddington's in additional to all I've learned on the boards and from the December trip. Way back on October 3rd. I was asking questions about sumi and Dick expressed concern about the foam I mentioned. I have never typically tested for DOC, but I do understand the concept of foam fractionation and the removal of proteinanceous waste. I have never really felt like the W. Lim filters (on my pond) were working very well and yeah I wasn't backwashing them correctly or often enough. After the Vanishing Sumi thread I did dramatically increase the amount of water I was changing. It was really after Mike P and then Dick mentioned the chilling effect of a waterfall that I decided to cover mine. I can't/won't risk damaging my plumbing and filters by shutting it down now.
If you want to respond and debate anything I post then fine, I look forward to it. Feel free to search all my previous posts and resurrect anything I have posted previously and we can discuss that as well. I like good discussions from as many perspectives as possilbe. Let's be friends and try and learn as we go. I think we can all still learn plenty about this great hobby. Humor and sarcasm can be great fun, but often get misunderstood when you are on the receiving end. So no harm, no foul and no hard feelings. Life is too short.
Mitch
Vanishing Sumi
From Vanishing Sumi Oct. 3rd
"Marie,
The temp is currently 72F but the sumi loss began at higher temps, perhaps around 82F. I don't know the exact O2 content, but the pond is turned over about every 3-hours and has a large waterfall. The largest koi are around 24" and there are 3-4 this size. I have several (maybe 25) in 18-21" size. I probably have 100 koi total not counting this year's fry.(200) Several of the other koi are in the 6-10" range. I'm going to seine out most of the babies in a week or so and move the best ones inside to a large swimming pool. Not all of my Shiro Utsuri or Showa have had their sumi to fade.
I have quite a few koi in a fairly large pond, but it doesn't appear to be way overcrowed at the moment. I do plan on thinning because I would love to grow out some jumbo koi ASAP."
Mitch
Quote: 
02-03-2007
. Of course, a couple are less than 30" ...this month.
Man I'm thinking about going ice skating on my pond. Check my post again. I provided the link to when that quote was originally posted back on Oct 3rd. I built my pond to be a public display of large koi and not to sell out of. It sort of got used as temporary housing to eliminate over crowding in some sales holding systems. Despite the fairly heavy load it still remains the least crowded holding I have. While I do believe I could keep that many koi fairly healthy, I would be less likely to achieve the growth rates I would like to see. So somewhat sadly I will be faced with paring down at least half of my fish in that pond this Spring. My goals haven't wavered from the get go, but may be taking a little longer than I hoped. I think Troy and I are good now. I certainly consider Troy a friend, and don't let internet chats/spats get to me because I understand how things get taken wrong. Life is much to short to sweat the little stuff.
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