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Maps available at:
Tropics of Tucson 801 E Ft Lowell
Tropics of Tucson 7145 E 22nd
Ponds, Plants & More 2060 W Ruthrauff
For more indormation call Brent Vankoevering (520) 318-0526
Tickets: $10.00 per person for one night; $18.00 per person both nights
Maps available at:
Tropics of Tucson 801 E Ft Lowell
Tropics of Tucson 7145 E 22nd
Ponds, Plants & More 2060 W Ruthrauff
Self guided tour, refreshments available, $10.00 per person, children under 12 free.
For more information call: Bill Hart (520) 648-5019<
Bob Panter (520) 747-7278
Purchase maps at:
Tropics of Tucson 801 E Ft Lowell
Tropics of Tucson 7145 E 22nd
Desert Pet Center 4810 E 22nd
For more information call:
Bob Panter (520) 747-7278
Rob Mc Lean (520) 323-2478
Don Reece (520) 886-7751
Tucson Daily Star Sunday, 31 May 1998
The English poet Rupert Brooke wrote an offbeat little poem called ``Heaven'' in 1913. It describes the perfect afterlife - from the point of view of a fish. This is how it ends: ``And in that Heaven of all their wish, there shall be no more land, say fish.'' While their waters may not beinfinite, some koi in the Tucson area live in such splendor that they may well believe they've died and gone to Brooke's piscine paradise. Take Sparky. A handsome 27-inch koi patterned in white,black and red (he's classified as a Kin Gin Rin), Sparky has lived with Paul and Debby Tibbetts in Avra Valley for a dozen years. He spends his days cruising around a custom-designed 14,000-gallon pond built last year to meet his every need. Shaded by a ramada and some pepper trees, the water is freshened by a waterfall and dotted with hyacinths. Sometimes Sparky rises to the surface to take a tidbit from Debby's hand. Occasionally she puts him in a plastic bag and hauls him off to a koi show. But most days he drifts with other koi and dreams his fishy dreams.
Unless a rogue heron gets lucky, nobody's going to eat these wet pets. They don't have to fight their way upstream to their birthplace to spawn. Basically, Sparky and his gang exist to be admired.
Debby Tibbetts, who is presently completing rigorous training to be a judge in international koi competitions, grew up with the colorful fish in her parents' home in Canada. For 16 years she has lived with them on the acre she and Paul own in Avra Valley. She has made a lot of koi ponds.
``You don't just go out in your back yard and dig a hole and line it with plastic,'' she says. ``Join a club or go on a pond tour to see what other people have done. We have filters for a reason. We run pumps day and night for a reason, and it's not aesthetics. If you turn off your waterfall at night because you're not looking at it, your fish will be dead in the morning.''
Fish respirate ammonia, and the feces and rotting food have to be filtered out or converted by bacteria in the filter to harmless substances.''
The pond that the Tibbetts couple built last year, an attractive irregular shape about 15 feet wide by 20 feet long and 6 feet deep, is the focal point of the back of their house. ``We did most of the plumbing ourselves and all the rock work,'' she says. ``We designed everything, including the filtration and the plumbing. Under the decking, there is a filtration system for one pump. Two bottom drains go through a different filtration system and back through the waterfall. ``Still, the cost of the contractor alone was $7,000.''
Koi ponds are never cheap.
In the May/June issue of Koi USA, an article by Burt Ballou provides a step-by-step guide: ``A First Koi Pond for Only $1,222.25, Including Tax!'' (That figure, by the way, does notinclude such aesthetic elements as rock work and plantings.)
Ballou includes photos, illustrations and lists of materials and costs for everything you'd need to build a 2,700-gallon pond about 6 feet wide by 20 feet long, with the requisite waterfall, filters, jets, skimmer and whatnot.
Debby Tibbetts talks about a friend who went to Kmart and bought a kiddie pool for $29.99 and a large Rubber Maid tub. ``She stuck rock in there with a submersible pump for $15 and some feeder goldfish for a buck,'' she says, ``and she had that for years. It's very simple, but it still worked. For goldfish.''
So goldfish ponds are low-rent. What makes koi so much more desirable?
``Goldfish are just . . . orange,'' she says, shrugging.
With koi, as with everything else, desire is in the eye of the beholder.
To obtain a copy of Burt Ballou's article, ``A First Koi Pond . . .,'' call Koi USA at (800) 646-1685.
For koi and pond information online, start with the AKCA/Koi USA website, Web Site
There are really only two differences between koi and goldfish. Koi have barbels, whiskerlike projections around their mouths that function rather like bumper guards. And they can cost hundreds of times more than their common cousins.
Koi fry (babies) sell for 50 cents to $30,000. Each. What makes a fish worth $30,000?
An important caveat for beginners: Color and pattern on koi can be transient things. Cautionary tales abound of breeders who spent many thousands of dollars on a particular fish because of its perfect markings, only to have those markings disappear within weeks, leaving the breeder with a very expensive goldfish.