Seems like the ultimate environment to gain length and girth with Koi are large mud ponds like the one's Professional breeders in Japan use.
I have a few questions about this scenario-
You start with a Kohaku tosai and grow it in a mud pond for 5 seasons, now instead of the mud pond you grew the same fish in a professionally constructed 15,000 gallon cement pond.
Of course there are a million variables here that make it difficult. Let's assume the mud pond is managed by a top Japanese professional and the cement pond is managed by one of the top American professionals.
Questions:
-Would the mud pond or cement pond produce better results-(i'm guessing mud pond)
-Could the cement pond fish ever catch up to the mud pond fish-in length and width? Assuming same environment after years in the mud or cement pond (i'm guessing no)
-Is this statement true-If you want the largest possible fish for its type/variety, its probably spent time in a mud pond.
-Growing in smaller sized cement ponds, what size in relationship to the same mud pond fish could you get? Say for example 70% length, but only 60% girth?
-Do you know what fish in mud ponds eat? What percentage is natural occurring food in pond and what food is given to the fish?
-Do you know what type of maintenance is done to a mud pond during the growing season?
Hi Yenling29
I dont have the answers to your questions. But if I wanted to grow koi as big and fast as possible, I would use a (heated) cement pond. In my mudpond there are to many things I can not controll
You can do very well in a cement pond. Koi produce a stop grow hormone. You can defeat this by using a flow through system. A continuous flow of fresh water coming in. Purdind's Koi Farm in Louisiana do a lot of grow out in cement ponds and produce very nice and yes very large Koi. Check out Purdin Koi Farm on youtube.
My spring feed flow through pond is 60x30x7 and it has 11 Koi in it. Its important to have your pond at least 6" deep so the fish can dive and avoid Blue Heron stalking. I have stocked my pond for 10 years and never lost a fish.
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