I don't have any Koi but I have some goldfish that I got from the pet store and were feeder goldfish.
I kept the one that has really long fins like the comet.
I have others that are all white or have a combination of white and orange or black. I'm also a fan of the shubunkin and have several of those along with a couple that look like calico ryukins.
The last of my goldfish is a red cap oranda.
I'm pretty excited because some of the goldfish just laid some eggs last week and I transferred them to the aquarium I have and they have started to hatch.
I have never seen fry so small before. I had to put on my reading glasses so I could see them.
Then there are my tropical fish that I've been keeping in the pond during the warmer months.
I have Black Skirt and Buenos Aires Tetras, Rosy Barb's, Convict Cichlid's, Jaguar cichlid, and a couple mutt cichlids, and 2 very large Plecostomas.
I also have several Guppies, Mollies, and Platties in the pond.
I have looked every where on the web for information on what types of tropical fish people keep in their ponds I have come up empty or when I do find some references its extremely vague so I’ve been trying to keep track of the different weather conditions and the effect on the fish.
Last fall when we had a big temperature drop from October 27th to the 28th the fish took it pretty hard and starting having problems. All tropical’s came indoors for the winter.
This spring I was getting antsy to get the fish back outside and when the average daily temp reached where they were starting to have problems and took a risk and put them outside. I was surprised at how well they were doing so I went to my spreadsheet where I keep track of weather conditions every day.
Yes, I’m a weather geek.
The average daily temp on Oct 27th was 68.4 degrees. On the 28th it dropped to 52.6 degrees.
When I put the fish back in the pond this spring on April 5th the average for the day was 67.3 degrees.
This was bugging me because in the fall the fish were starting to show signs of slowing down when it dropped below 70 degrees for the daily average air temperature.
I checked my charts again and found that the sun is up longer in April than in October.
April 5th day length = 12 hours and 40 minutes
October 27th day length = 11 hours.
So it looks like even though the average temps were about the same the length of day has a lot to do with how the fish do.
And I did find that some tropical fish do not do well at all in the pond even when the daily air temp is above 70 degrees, like silver dollars.
Maybe know that its warmer I might give them another shot.
