Considering converting current bass pond to a koi pond. How to remove existing fish?

[TexasTravis]

I am considering changing my bass pond to a koi pond. It is almost sad because there is a thriving fish population with some healthy 2-4 pound bass. Several caught just today. The issue is I have not fished it myself in the past 4 years. I think I would get more benefit out of feeding koi. There are also some ducks.

The pond is about a quarter acre foot print with deep spots at around 8' putting the total volume around 350,000 gallons. It is filled from surface drainage so the water level drops during the summer about 4' but never gets much lower, I suspect it is somewhat spring fed. I am currently finishing up a new pier build and plan on having a well drilled soon to keep it full throughout the year.

Any thoughts on removing the existing fish? I thought I would rent a pump and get it as low as it will allow and net all the big bass/catfish and get rid of them. I could keep the bait fish but not sure if I should especially if there are baby bass in there.

I also just had a thought. Maybe I could just keep the fish in there and put baby koi in a large mesh box to prevent bass from eating them. Once the fish are large enough, release them into the pond. Would this work? Could I still fish for bass without hurting the koi?

[Nguyen365]

Freaking gorgeous lake...

I will send my tosai to your pond for azukari. How big will the koi you put in there? I see predation as an issue.

I would rehome all living things in your pond. That would be a very hard task. Small fishes that will get pass the nets now will grow and eat your future koi offsprings.

I would completely drain the pond, let it sit dry for a couple of days, rehome whatever needs to be removed.. other option is treat the pond with a piscicide (chemical that kills fish). Rotenone is the piscicide most often used to kill fish.

We would live to see a youtube series.

[Hope J]

FWIW, I have two largemouth bass in my Koi Pond and everyone gets along great but they grew up together and are roughly the same size. They seem to enjoy hanging out and are friendly. My Bass are way tamer than my Koi but most Koi get really tame from what I hear. You might be able to keep them together but the Koi definitely need to be bigger than the Bass. You can try and purchase some larger, cheaper Koi and throw them in after quarantine to see how they do. My Bass eat Koi pellets because I can't feed the Koi Bass food, I don't know how much Bass food costs but Koi food can get very pricey if you buy the expensive stuff.

[TexasTravis]

I appreciate the kind words. Azukari is actually kinda my plan. The biggest and best fish will be removed and put in my concrete pond. The ugly ducklings left in the post. In otherwords, I hope to always be growing koi in the pond. If some breed, then good deal maybe some pretty fish will come of it.

Not terribly worried about predators. No racoon or beavers here but I do get the occasional blue heron that shows up and white egrit. I'm sure I could figure something out though for them.

I think I will heed your advice and rent a pump to see if I can get this thing dry. I will be sad pulling all my bass out but it will be for the better!

[FRK]

How do you plan on getting the Azukari out?

[TexasTravis]

Probably the same way I get these bass out. Pump the pond down and net.

[FRK]

Will suggest you go with guaranteed sex,,, one or the other. If you allow flock spawning you will have thousands in a few years and with those numbers your azukari wont get the growth you would like them to.

[TexasTravis]

Update: Pier is built. Also, over the winter the water got to 1-2' deep from my pump and no rain and was that way for awhile. I thought all the bass had died or eaten by the blue heron. I was wrong.... about 2 weeks ago I saw a large 2 pound bass and my buddy came by and caught (2) 2.5 pounders! Officially decided to drain the pond before putting in tosai to be slaughtered by the bass. I have a larger pump now that can also handle more head so it was actually quite easy to drain over about a week. About 2' of muck at the bottom but oh well, not sure what to do about that. Found about a dozen large catfish, 4 more large bass, and a bunch of bluegill. Bass were thrown in next door pond and catfish were put in my holding tank to seed the filter for the tosai.

I am going over to my mother's koi pond this weekend and netting all the baby koi to see if there are some decent ones to grow. I also ordered about $1,500 worth or tosai from Kodama last week. I think it was about 15-20 of them, not sure. I set up a 1,000 gallon holding tank next to the pond for now until the pond is ready.

Oh, and also considering at least 1 air pump for the pond with diffuser. I think it will help with water quality.

I agree that I need to stick with all one gender. Is that possible with tosai? Or, after a year of growth do I need to net them and check? I am not the best at sexing koi at all.

Ordered 80 pounds of blackwater koi food. Best bang for the buck stuff I have found so far.

[Hope J]

Update: Pier is built. Also, over the winter the water got to 1-2' deep from my pump and no rain and was that way for awhile. I thought all the bass had died or eaten by the blue heron. I was wrong.... about 2 weeks ago I saw a large 2 pound bass and my buddy came by and caught (2) 2.5 pounders! Officially decided to drain the pond before putting in tosai to be slaughtered by the bass. I have a larger pump now that can also handle more head so it was actually quite easy to drain over about a week. About 2' of muck at the bottom but oh well, not sure what to do about that. Found about a dozen large catfish, 4 more large bass, and a bunch of bluegill. Bass were thrown in next door pond and catfish were put in my holding tank to seed the filter for the tosai.

I am going over to my mother's koi pond this weekend and netting all the baby koi to see if there are some decent ones to grow. I also ordered about $1,500 worth or tosai from Kodama last week. I think it was about 15-20 of them, not sure. I set up a 1,000 gallon holding tank next to the pond for now until the pond is ready.

Oh, and also considering at least 1 air pump for the pond with diffuser. I think it will help with water quality.

I agree that I need to stick with all one gender. Is that possible with tosai? Or, after a year of growth do I need to net them and check? I am not the best at sexing koi at all.

Ordered 80 pounds of blackwater koi food. Best bang for the buck stuff I have found so far.

This is probably going to sound weird, but I'm so jealous of your Bass!! I just have my two, but they are just the funniest most playful things ever and I love them so much!

[MountainGuardian]

I didn't know that I had bass in my biggest pond as I was told that they had died off one winter when the pond "turned" whatever that means exactly. The large pond here beside the house had many many thousands of catfish in it so all our kids and I were each catching catfish by the dozens each day and putting them in five gallon buckets of water and transporting them the other ponds here on the farm. The second spring here you could see thousands and thousands of baby catfish in the shallows of all the ponds.

The third year all the ponds were just teaming with catfish. The fourth year my son John was fishing in our biggest pond a 1/2 acre pond and he caught a large mouth bass about 18 inches long. So we started fishing in there more and caught dozens more that summer. By year 5 we noticed there were no more catfish in the pond at all. The bass had eaten them all out. But it turns out that the bass had in fact never died out as they thought, we have dozens and dozens of giant females in the 26 to 28 inch range in there which means they are fairly old fish, far older than the purported extinction.

I have wanted to get into Koi for a few years now, but I am not about to buy giant sized Koi at the prices they want for them. Small Koi would just end up being an expensive morning snack for my larger bass and catfish.

I am going to go with another pond specifically built for Koi and as I get Koi in the 6 to 8 inch range I will put them in my catfish ponds and in the 14 to 15 inch range I will start putting them in my bass pond.

You mentioned putting in a net into your pond, how deep is your pond? Mine are 14 feet deep and at the sizes of them there is no way that would even possible for me. If your are only a few feet deep you might be able to pull that off. Do you get ice in the winter on your pond? If you do how would that affect a net? As my ice melts is melts at the edges first and then wind will push it to one side of the pond or another, a net would not fare well being frozen into the moving sheets of ice on my ponds.