Phanso
Koi Lover
Jun 1, 2008, 5:21 AM
Post #1 of 2
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I am once again thoroughly enjoying ponding/ koi keeping.
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After loosing every last one of my koi last season  I have recovered from the devastation of that experience. It was frustrating, upsetting, saddening, and heart wrenching. In the process though I’ve learned a tremendous amount. I’m a DIY kind of person and I’m also frugal so building my own DIY filter and using household or non commercial ready made chemicalized type products (as you will realize later on) works great for me.
One thing I observed when I inherited this pond (when we bought this home) with the original 5 koi I never had any losses or problematic symptoms from the koi. Strangely enough the water was not filtered at all. It just had a pump that circulated the water. The water wasn’t clear but the koi and comets seemed to do just fine. I wasn’t really into the pond as much earlier up but I eventually caught koi fever and started cleaning up the pond and that’s when I built a DIY filter and added it to the plumbing of the pond.
I started having the flashing and problem symptoms after I added the skippy style filter that removed pounds and pounds of scum and muck out of the pond. As the water began to become clear the flashing and other symptoms started; so it seems like the debris in the water sort of functioned like a buffer for ph swings. Note I said ‘seems’ it could be any number of other factors that caused the pH and alkalinity problems. I said any number of factors because I also bought and added some koi that I thought may have introduced some sickness like flux or parasites to the pond. (The Alabama dealer I got them from has since gone out of business, they were trying to sell the Koi farm. Don’t know what happened with that.) But here is why I don’t know if they actually had parasites or flux. I didn’t see any lesions, blemishes, scars, wounds or markings on the dead fish at all, only thing I noticed was irritated swollen nostrils. The symptoms after flashing were fast breathing (fast gill movement), poor appetite, hovering at the bottom and shortly after they were gone.
One critical thing I learned is that you have to be proactive when you see symptoms of problems with your fish, and remain vigilant until the problem is thoroughly rectified. It’s also important to research, read, and study about koi health and ponding (water quality).
Now after my experience last year I’m still not 100% sure what caused the demise of over 15 koi; and some were very nice. I thought it was one of one of four different koi illnesses: KHV, parasites, Flux, or Ph problems.
After the complete loss I let my pond sit for the remainder of the summer and all winter thru early spring then I decided to repopulate and reintroduce koi to The pond. I have several comets that survived the ordeal last year so I decided to get inexpensive/ gimme koi to add (test Koi). When I got them I started to get nervous because after a few weeks I began to see some of the symptoms from last year (flashing). I decided this time that I would be more proactive and vigilant. So I did the research on various koi websites and forums and got some very good indications of possible problems and solutions. I started off by dealing with the most basic of the possible issues –Water Quality. So I got a test kit and lo and behold there was an issue with the pH, alkalinity, and hardness. Basically the koi may have been flashing because the water was acidic and irritating their skin and gills and causing stress which would make then susceptible to illnesses.
I’ve learned that part of ponding includes being a wanna-be chemist somewhat. I learned so much about water parameters and how to adjust them properly. Things like buffering, etc.
I used backing soda, pond clay, lime, pond salt, Epsom salt, and calcium in varying quantities over a few days as a regimen to adjust the hardness, alkalinity and thus the pH of the pond water. The flashing has just about stopped. Needless to say I’m very happy about this outcome so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The hardness is much better the pH is over 7 but not over 8.7 and it’s now alkaline instead of acidic. I’ve noticed several changes in pond activity other than the fish that lets me know that something right is happening. The water lilies are blooming rapidly all of sudden, so are the anacharis, algae is growing on several surfaces, the water lettuce is starting to propagate now after being in the pond for a few weeks before and doing nothing; so this lets me know that the minerals that were previously absent are now there and the condition of the water is much better. I also have the koi on a regimen of anti-parasite koi food in addition to their regular pellet food.
Well for now everything is peachy at The Pond. The water is crystal clear. I have 8 Koi ranging from 4-14 inches [1 -14”, 1-8”, 3 - 6”, 1 - 4” & 2 - 3”], 1 cross breed, 3 sarassa comets, 3 shubunkins, several standard comets (one is all black and two others are black and orange), then I have many tiny feeder fish or maybe minnows, I also have an albino catfish, I added two dark plecos and two blue channel catfish but I haven’t seen them since adding them to the pond so I can’t really account for them.
I also have two pots of white water lilies (would like to barter for a Koi or two), one pot of yellow iris, one pot of bulrushes, several submerged bunches of anacharis and some recently added water hyacinths and water lettuce. All of this in my 2500 gallon epdm liner pond surrounded by flag stones. I have a Faux boat dock with a Aligator spitter oh and I can’t forget the koi decoy. The pump is a champ it’s enclosed in a crate half filled with pea gravel all covered with plastic grid.
I’d really like to get two more 10”+ Koi maybe platinum Ogon, kohaku, or butterfly white Ogon basically any of the lighter color koi that are more visible. The ones I have now are the darker color ones, except for three of them.
Now one issue I’m trying to resolve is how often should I fee them. I was feeding everyday but on one of my visits to my local nursery/ koi dealer he recommended feeding once a week. Now this seemed like that frequency would help with the amount of waste the koi produced thus how much work the filter has to do but at the same time it didn’t seem like they would be as well fed as I would like them to be for proper growth and health. I’ve been doing the once a week but they don’t seem too happy with that plan so I plan to change to three times a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday.
I highly recommend this hobby to anyone with the space and budget (can be somewhat costly depending) It is very relaxing, rewarding and enjoyable to just sit and watch them swim. Feeding time is an especially interesting time. I think I will always have a koi pond as long as it’s feasible, no matter where I live.I thoroughly enjoy ponding
I like pondering about my pond.
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