The "Walters" of our pond

[BettaMomma]

i KNOW this isn't a tropical topic, per say - but I think that people in here will enjoy it too!

There's a huge pond in the courtyard outside our apartment:

In this pond, there are several thousand (probably like 20 - 30 thousand) goldfish that survive winters in Wisconsin, which in and of itself is pretty amazing to me. (Since we just got rain, the goldfish weren't up near the top of the pond last night, but some of the big guys were out!)

We have a couple of "Walters" in our pond, and I'm so excited - we spotted them for the first time last night.
Here's the gynormous goldfish-ish carp guy: (It's probably hard to tell by the photo, but he's in the range of about 2 feet long:

This is the clearest images I can get of him. He is very elusive and our pond is longer than a football field so to even spot him is pretty rare.
Also, we snuck up on this guy who was digging around on the bank - he was also about 2 feet long.

Just wanted to share

 

[yvez9]

awesome pond!

it must be fun to go there

do you ever feed them?

 

[BettaMomma]

The pond is just outside my patio door - the bank is probably 30 feet from my apartment.
Yep, in the summer we go through several loaves of bread each week - the goldfish go NUTS for it, and the big guys swim around well under the surface and shove everyone out of the way and eat whatever sinks.

There are also little bluegills, bullheads and mini carp that we've seen.
And then the ducks, geese and seagulls.
It's very nice to live there in the summer

 

[OohFeeshy]

I live near a pond. There are fish, but I have no idea what type. There are loads of ducks though. And swans and geese. Its just a shame the Muscovy duck died

 

[Paul_MTS]

very nice!!

just a note though...if your going to feed the fish get a bag of fish food as lots of bread can give adverse affects unless it's a good wholemeal brown bread.

give some veg a go aswell, the koi and carp in there will go mad for oranges and apples.

 

[BettaMomma]

OOoh, that's too bad.
Once in our pond a few years ago, there was a poor little ducky pair in which one had died and was floating upside down - his little ducky legs were sticking straight up in the air and he was just floating...
His little mate was trying despearately to flip him over and was crying.

It was just a horrible sight to see.

I do love to sit near the pond and wait for the big guys to come by.
They're so majestic.
and they think we can't see them.. that's the best part.
lol

 

[BettaMomma]

very nice!!

just a note though...if your going to feed the fish get a bag of fish food as lots of bread can give adverse affects unless it's a good wholemeal brown bread.

give some veg a go aswell, the koi and carp in there will go mad for oranges and apples.

Yeah, we've tried getting fish food to put in there, but the ducks eat most of that along with the bread... We use the bread mainly for the ducks, but the fish get it too. I guess we could just switch to the brown bread and it'd be good all around for everyone!

And I never thought to try fruit - I'll definitely give that a try!

 

[BettaMomma]

Okay, time for more pictures!
It was almost 80 degrees here for the first time in a while yesterday, so I thought I'd go out and take pics from the end of the dock. And I took a LOAD of pics.
Armed with 2 loaves of bread.. lol (we got brown bread this time - they loved it too!)

Here's the view from the dock where I got sit indian style for hours on end and just watch the fish down below.

And here is some of the stuff I see off the dock:
Here's the life of a piece of bread in the water:

And here's just the goldfish hanging out waiting for more bread:

And some closeups of them:

And an albino one that we spotted:

and the race is on:

The bullhead won by a longshot - he just opened his mouth and sucked the whole piece of bread in
and some koi and goldfish eating bread: I am pretty sure they're koi???

How about these faces??

AND... last but not least....
And (we think) some plain old carp:

 

[Blue Lobster]

I would get a 200 gallon tank and have fish of the month in my apartment if I had a stocked pond like that. Some bread and a net, bingo.

 

[BettaMomma]

I know we could catch some of the goldfish but the koi and carp don't get close enough to us.

I have all total seen bluegills, bullheads, crayfish, koi, goldfish, carp and catfish in the pond so far. It's fascinating to me to sit there and watch them swim by just a few feet away from me.

And that pond freezes over every winter - pretty much freezes over all the way. That also fascinates me that ALL of these fish survive that harsh of a winter and come back for more the next spring!

 

[vantgE]

Plus I doubt many people have a 1000 gallon tank to house a koi in

It's all about how deep the pond is it likely won't get colder than 4 degrees celsius i believe at the bottom while the fish become dormant and barely move

 

[Dorkhedeos]

num chuck skills, computer hacking skills, bow hunting skills

 

[pica_nuttalli]

if you really want to have fun, buy the cheapest dog food you can find. large fish just go crazy for the stuff; my grandfather fed it to the catfish etc in his pond for years. (later he switched to actual catfish food, but that's only because he got tired of dogfood-flavored catfish )

 

[BettaMomma]

I'm pretty convinced that these fish will eat just about ANYTHING.
When we first moved to where we live now (before I knew better about fish health) we fed them popcorn, pretzels, potato chips...... lol
they ate anything.

I now know better, but I bet they were having a hayday when we were feeding them all that junkfood and crap.

 

[Paul_MTS]

no kidding when you said 3000 goldfish, it's a sea of red.

lovely pictures of the koi/ghost koi.