JULY 2002:

July means only one thing for me this year; the dreaded Blanket weed. Our pond is now 1 year old and I could be heard gloating that I had not had any problems with the dreaded weed. However weed that was the length of my hair suddenly grew up to 12 inches overnight! I started pulling this out with a plastic lawn rake but had to give up with this method as the fish thought it was a great game to get in the way. The first real hint of trouble was after a water change the vortex, furthest from the pond seemed to fill more slowly than usual. Then, 2 days later I came home to find the pump sucking both of the end filters dry. I had recently read about Nigel Caddock’s Bottom-drain nightmare in Nishikoi International. Nigel’s problem was caused by running a heavy duty air line within the four inch pipe work and with a plant weed explosion and other factors had caused a blockage, thankfully, I have separate airline runs to each of the bottom drains on my pond.

I was able to solve the problem of the weed blockage by vacuuming the bottom of the pond, I removed three bucketfuls from the strainer basket of the pump. I paid particular attention to the areas around the bottom-drains. I consider myself extremely lucky not to have to employ a diver like Nigel!!!!

Chris, Deborah, Janine and myself went to Essex koi show on July 20th, we had a great day, although it was a little cooler than we would have liked, but all in all, it was a very enjoyable day. We decided to check out the suppliers of various blanket weed “cures”. Incidentally I was talking to a member of the south-east section whose wife had lined her hanging baskets with blanket weed, this was all very well for a while until a rather unpleasant smell appeared!!! She had husband lifting up all the drain covers to find out where the terrible stench was coming from not realising it was her hanging baskets!!!!!

At the show I purchased a couple of products called Eco-Pure and Eco-Boost from Kusuri. The dosage was as follows. Introduce products 50% of the Eco-pure and Eco-boost around the edge of the pond (This is a lot of product as it was a 3 kilo container!). Add the remaining 1.5 kilos after 4 days. I have to say that I am very please as the reduction has been remarkable, I am back to a No 3 around the edge!

While at the Essex show I spoke to an exhibitor from the Leicester area, he had some really fantastic fish which were all about the 80cm mark (as you do, we all had compared the other entries). These were mainly Sanke but he also had a lovely Kohaku and an amazing Showa. Most of these fish were from Selective Koi Sales and the breeder was Hiroshima Sakai. The gentleman was worried that an even bigger Sanke would win the Grand Champion prize, but looking at the competition, you could tell this was an older fish and it would have been an injustice if this won on size. I didn’t find out the results as shortly after, we left the show to go to visit Gary Abram at Dream koi, so I am currently scanning Koi Carp Magazine to confirm the results. I do hope the judges had the good sense to agree with us? We shall see... Until next month…