The Great Outdoor's

After what has been the harshest winter for many years, some koi keepers around the East Yorkshire area were certainly pushed to their limits with instances involving frozen  pipework, pond leaks, pond walls collapsing and even occurrences of frozen koi!

With that in mind it gives me great pleasure to be able to write about the East Yorkshire Koi Societies first outdoor pond visit of the year at Lee's pond.

After week's of drought like weather this Spring across Britain our first get together happened to be the Sunday morning of the only down pour we have had in May. Whilst waiting for the phone call to tell me that the visit had been called off due to the rain, the sun burst into life and the visit was on.

I arrived to find a good showing of club members already there, quite a few new faces of new members to the Society, which was nice to see as well as the usual suspects. After a few introductions it was time to explore. Lee's garden was surrounded by some very nice Japanese themed plants, shrubs, Acer's and Bamboo's.It is a real sun trap and conditions were obviously favourable for the plants as many were very large specimens then it was time to look at the pond itself.

Informal in shape the pond fit's into the space available perfectly. It's raised and covered by a wooden pergola to provide shade and protection from the elements for the fish. The pond is almost five feet deep and contains 3500 gallons giving plenty of room for the fish . The first thing to draw the eye was the pond viewing window which was set in the pond wall, this allowed us to see the true size of some of the pond's inhabitants, mainly koi of varying sizes and varieties,( including Sanke, Kohaku, Goromo and Ochiba Shigure) but also a number of very large common carp around 20inches in size.

Next was the fully enclosed filter area containing all the gadgets needed to keep the Koi happy whilst allowing Lee the ability to carry out any maintenance necessary whatever the weather . The  main pond filtration is via an aerated bottom drain attached to a Nexus Eazy 200 filter with the system being powered by a Sequence pump before returning back to the pond through an in line TMC 55 watt UV. This provided ample filtration taking into account future growth of the koi. Lee also had a custom made in wall skimmer which at the time of our visit was not running because .....you guessed it winter damage, (which was on his to do list ) returning back to the pond via a pond heating system.

The visit was enjoyed by all the East Yorkshire Koi Society member's and our thanks go out to Lee and his family for the kind invitation and hospitality shown to us....... A truly great way to start the koi season.