My Koi Pond

[OliveFish05]

I finally decided to share pictures of our koi pond! My family and I dug out and built it ourselves. The hours spent on making the rock work look nice was insane! We got our plants from a couple local places. All the fish were ordered from two online sellers. I’m not sure how many fish there are in there as we lost some in the beginning, but if I were actively looking at them I would be able to tell you all their names. There are several goldfish and about a dozen or more butterfly koi. One has a scoliosis, and my mom felt bad for him at the fish store. He is the only standard fin koi in there. There are 7 or 8 water lilies, mosaic plant, different palms, rushes, and grasses, and a taro, among others I can’t recall (my mom did most of the plant shopping). The pond is 3 feet deep at its deepest, has three pots in the walls for the fish to hide, and is inside an enclosed fence. We are getting a heater for it this fall. The sun was very intense when I took the pictures, but the pond is typically half shaded the majority of the day.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Beautiful! Looks massive as well. I would love a pong buy my garden is too small with too many tree's.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Wowsers! Absolutely stunning, the water is crystal clear too! Well done you guys, you've done a marvellous job of it ❤

 

[OliveFish05]

Beautiful! Looks massive as well. I would love a pong buy my garden is too small with too many tree's.

Thank you, It is over 1,000 gallons almost big enough to swim in. This was the only spot on our property where we could put one, and we had to loose part of our fire pit area

 

[OliveFish05]

Wowsers! Absolutely stunning, the water is crystal clear too! Well done you guys, you've done a marvellous job of it ❤

Thank you! It took a long while for it to clear up!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

What is that plant BTW?

 

[OliveFish05]

What is that plant BTW?

The one that is really spread out and resting on the surface? If so, it is mosaic plant, it is a type of Ludwigia. It grows in my aquarium too, if it gets enough light!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Thank you, it's beautiful!

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Awesome! Love the layout. The water is also super clear.

How many koi you got in there?

 

[Animallover😍]

Lovely!

 

[OliveFish05]

Awesome! Love the layout. The water is also super clear.

How many koi you got in there?

Thanks! It took us over two weeks to get dug out, another two weeks to lay the pond liner and rock.

Probably two dozen koi and a dozen goldfish. It should take years for the koi to get to be too many that are too big for the pond. At that point though they’re worth enough to be able to sell them easily. Plus some don’t make it their first winter. We are getting a heater though, so we shouldn’t loose any unnecessarily.

 

[Guest14017]

Judging by the clarity and openness, the main threat to the fish would be predators. It isn't a matter of IF they will reach your pond, it is a matter of WHEN. And once they do - expect a clean out VERY quickly. The fancy goldfish and slower swimming long finned Koi will be the first to go..

Some people have their systems for YEARS before a predator finds it - and end up losing a ton of their precious collection that quickly. You should find netting or something to protect them.

 

[OliveFish05]

Judging by the clarity and openness, the main threat to the fish would be predators. It isn't a matter of IF they will reach your pond, it is a matter of WHEN. And once they do - expect a clean out VERY quickly. The fancy goldfish and slower swimming long finned Koi will be the first to go..

Some people have their systems for YEARS before a predator finds it - and end up losing a ton of their precious collection that quickly. You should find netting or something to protect them.

We heard a lot about people’s ponds being cleaned out by predators, so we made it as secure as we could.
1. It is within a fenced picnic area
2. It is right beside the house, directly to the side of our porch, where we eat most of our meals in nice weather (what I mean is nothing comes close because we are out there a large part of the day)
3. It is at the center of our livestock guardian dogs space. The only thing they‘ve ever failed to drive off was a raccoon we suspect was rabid (it attacked them and wouldn’t leave until we called the dogs away and yelled at it)
4. We have motion activated lights directly on the picnic area
5. We have 3 hides in the pond itself
6. We have floating plants to provide cover

The only threat then is from birds. If any mysteriously (or not so mysteriously) disappear, we will get bird netting. We have a big crane or heron thing there that supposedly scares other birds away, but I would guess that doesn’t apply to the predator type birds

 

[Avel1896]

Oh my...
Cruel you @OliveFish05 you dared to deprive us of this BEAUTIFUL pond ??

 

[Guest14017]

When I was new at outdoor fish keeping - I didn't know much about predators. My fish were fine for a long time - but one morning 5 of the 6 fish I had in the small pool were gone. The remaining one had clearly fought for his life and was BEAT UP but alive. He was larger and stronger than all the rest and was able to thrash himself loose and then probably hide. After putting a net on and replacing some of the fish, I often found fluffy feathers on the net. We often hear hooting at night and the fluffy feathers also matched those of a HOOTER. An OWL was hunting the fish at night. Satisfied with his large free meal, he returned over and over and even tried to get the fat fancies through the net but couldn't. I haven't had any such losses since the netting. We don't worry about ground predators here due to dogs and the lack of most fish eating animals in this area. It is the aerial assault that is generally the most dangerous.