Sunday 4th May 2008.
Over the last few days I have been doing a little maintenance on a couple of the mud pond sides. Over the years some of the soil/clay has dropped from the top of the banks down to the bottom. This has only happened on some mud ponds. Those who have followed the farm build on the web site or have attended one of my club presentations will know that the ground that the tunnels were built on was raised by 24"/60cm, this was to get the pond bottoms above the natural water table.
In building the ground up, the soil was a mix of top soil and clay, in places where there is a concentration of top soil there has been a little subsidence from the top to the bottom. This has pulled the liner down, so I have been dropping the liner along the sides of the pond where this has been a problem and repacking the soil from the bottom to the top. Not much fun, but another job which has to be done.
It's not all fun being a koi farmer!
Although I have been breeding koi for a number of years now, I still get surprised at how quickly they can grow when you get all things right. The chagoi fry, although only a few days old are now twice the size they were when first spotted free swimming. There are huge numbers of them, but at this stage there must be a plentiful supply of live food.
This photo was taken yesterday, today they look even bigger!