Hi all,
We recently bought a house in January, and the house came with a new kind of pet I have never had before, koi fish.
A few things about the pond:
- It is a mud pond, roughly 15 feet by 25 feet by 3.5-4 feet deep
- I have tested the water a few times, as the temperature is warming up, a couple of days ago I got a PH around 9. Since it's a mud pond, I can't do water changes, so I ran a hose for a couple of hours.
- That last test showed some Phosphates (between 0 and 0.25), which I am guessing might be from fish waste, we were left with maybe 30 kois!?!
- It's a mud pond, so we can't filter, but what could I add to help water health?
- I run a fountain 24/7, and a waterfall 12 hours each day.
- We don't have skimmers, aerator and so on, the previous owners said we didn't need them.
- I have been feeding them once a day high quality cold water food.
- They seem healthy and happy, a few of them are really big, and I can see them grow, one of them is around 24 inches.
Any advice for my pond and fish health would be amazing.
Also, any advice for when leaving for a vacation? We are leaving next week to go to our cabin. This time of the year, are they okay with simply the fountain on 24/7, and can they go a week without being fed?
Check KH and ph in he morning and evening to find out if you’re having swings. Enjoy them and scour every forum and thread here for information. Mud ponds are a bit different than liner ponds and I believe they require a little less maintenance but water changes are still important. Do you plan on ever netting the fish?
Koi are common carp. Although the levels of husbandry displayed on this forum are of crazed fish lovers, of which i proudly am myself, in many cases our level of care and concern for our pets is not warranted in your situation. I grew up on a farm in rural America and came to many a pond (we called them stock tanks, because that's where the livestock got their water) that had vibrant populations of fish (some with carp) with little to no management. That being said, going on vacation for a week, the koi will do just fine without food. Long term, 30 koi in 10k gallon with no filtration is most likely heartbreak waiting to happen. I would advise picking out your favorite handful of fish and finding a home for the rest. Best of luck and enjoy your vacation.
What options do we have to “filtering” since it’s a mud pond I believe it’s very limited?
It is a lot of fish, most of them are still quite small maybe 4-5”, I’ve inherited the “pets” from buying our new home so just getting into it. But yes I would imagine it’s a lot of waste no getting filtered.
Previous owners assured me they always had that many fish and no filters ever needed for the last 10 years...seems odd.
I'm not an expert with mud ponds, but I do have a liner pond roughly the same size as your mud pond. My advice would be to add some aeration to the pond. This can really improve the safety of the pond, particularly when water temps rise. You will need a strong air pump and many good diffusers. A relatively good air pump (and not too expensive) is the Pondmaster AP-100. I own two of these and they work great. One caution, is to protect the air pump from direct sunlight and prepare yourself to replace the diaphragms every couple of years (pretty easy job).
New to koi fish and mud pond
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