Keeping Koi Carp.

[difflock]

Cos we introduced 10 to the pond about a week ago, and haint seen them since.

Said pond is about 6 months old and constructed from the underlying clay, about 1.75m deep and 12m across at the surface, with a surprising amount of natural vegitation established already.

So are the expensive wee fishuckers, too busy exploring and feeding of the probably algae rich bottom/dying/dead vegitation to come for food.

Or wot!

PS

Pond entirely fed from rainwater from roofs.

marcus

[TreePuncher]

Hi,

 

To be honest, the ponds not really suited for koi if you want them to thrive as koi would, as carp they are most likely rooting around the bottom, grazing on natural food and busy destroying any plants you have, in a pond with very cloudy water koi become nervous and will therefore be seen less in a pond, has the pond got a strong water flow? This is needed to keep koi from gettin fat, with all the high protein food they are usually given.

 

They can be helped by safety in numbers, even by other fish such as goldfish, but if you want to keep koi specifically... Keep them on their own.

 

Koi are typically kept in plain boring square ponds with crystal clear water, often over filtered, rain water wouldn't be used as it can be dirty and acidic and contain anything from herbicides from local crop spraying etc. by forcing koi to live in clear water they will become more tame to the point you can easily hand feed. Also note that koi take time to become tame anyway, I used to import and run a Japanese koi shop, and my baby koi about 3" we're very tame but only because they saw so many people. So spending time is defiantly a factor, so maybe try large floating food such as bread to try get them I spend more time on the surface, but not too much as it's not too good for them,

Another thing that comes to mind is If fish had a scare such as a local heron they can go into hiding for a while...

 

Hope this helps, if you would like to know more, let me know, will help if I can

[Suffolk-Matt]

Thats a big pond, how big were they? Guessing tosai (up to a year), in which case its going to be hard to spot them even in clear water with a pond (lake?) that size.

[skyhuck]

Are there many Herons round your way???

[pie eater pete]

Are there many Herons round your way???

 

As above! Get some netting on it! My mates Dad got up early one morning just in time to see his prize Koi getting taken by a heron-the one Koi was £200!!!!

[difflock]

Only about 4"/100mm long max.

Yes we are under a Heron flightpath!

The clay the pond was constructed with is the (from my experience) the "bog standard" Co Londonderry/Co Antrim "blue" clay, being, I presume from glacial activity "x" years ago.

And, from standing in the bottom when dug, should be about a person deep, at least, so say 1.5 to 1.75m.(spited I did not actually measure at the time)

Guessing it should be reasonably mineral rich.

Pond fed with rain water since construction.

And, as said, a surprising amount of natural vegitation already present.

I can only presume the wee buggers are still happy on the bottom.

PS

Not seen the Heron about, and up at 06:00 each morning.

marcus

EDIT

Nowhere for the Heron to stand as the sides are about a 45 deg slope right round.

[Suffolk-Matt]

How long has it been setup? Might be worth getting a test kit and monitoring the water parameters before adding anymore stock

[padman]

You will see them soon thats for sure. Sulking on the bottom probably, rain fed will not be good as its to acid - check the PH and see.

[easy-lift guy]

Filtration, proper Ph will be critical for any raising of fish especially Koi. Just curious how these fish will survive colder weather/ snow and ice in particular?. I have read that the temp. For raising Koi is between 15-25C.

easy-lift guy

[peatff]

When we had a pond we had a couple of Ghost Koi and they lived 20 years. They were massive when they died, about 6lb each growing to the limit of the pond. We used to give our grandson a stick with a bit of string on and just tie some bread to it and he would pretend to fish while they were eating the bread. A Heron had a few of our goldfish which had reached a decent size, 06.00 is not early enough they will be there at the crack of daylight. Our pond was about 1 metre deep and below about 150cm (called the thermocline) the temperature doesn't change much so the fish just go deeper in winter and just put a ball in to keep a clear bit when it freezes or if you are too late stand a warm pan on to thaw a hole, never break the ice as the shock can damage the fish.