Spring has sprung and the sun is shining

As we enter April, the worst of the winter now looks to be behind us. Just as the pond was increasing in temperature nicely, last week we had a handful of days close to freezing. It seems the lids and heaters finally hit their limit, and the pond simply couldn't be kept at the temperature it had risen to in days previous (somewhere around 19 degrees) during sub zero nights. The pond came down to around 15C but the ranchu took it in their stride and seemed unaffected.

Since then, We have had a number of days with temperatures close to 20 degrees C and temperatures through the night around 10 degrees, which looks set to continue in the coming week.

The pond is sitting around 19C generally, brighter days seem to have more heat behind then now and the pond has warmed up to beyond 21C at times. The ranchu look well and are very active. I hope that mild evenings for the next couple of weeks will allow me to keep the ponds warmer, and may trigger some chasing.

Ive made even more changes to my spawning mops having tried various different materials i think im now settled on the style of the one above. The ranchu have seemed very cautious of anything that wasnt super soft, and havent interacted as confidently with previous mops as i would like. They seem very happy to interact with this one, which must be a good thing.