Koi Info

This article is to introduce the beginner not familiar with the subject of pond building to many of the considerations that you will need prior to speaking with pond professionals. With this basic knowledge, the would-be pond owner will be better able to discuss detail matters with the chosen pond products supplier.

Many Koi specialists offer free consulting services, and will advise you on pond products, materials and equipment prices that will best meet your requirements based on the size and funds you wish to commit to the project.

You should look at several Koi pond designs before committing to one. I would advise that any persons preparing their own pool should still try to purchase all their pond products and everything else that’s needed, from the same dealer. This way they will appreciate your business and you will build up a good rapport. This could be vital to you at a later date when it comes to buying your Koi and helping out with problems you may have.

It is important to buy your Koi at a dealer for many reasons, first you will find that as your Japanese Koi fish gets larger you will be seeking advice and your dealer becomes more then just a source of Koi information. If you see her or him regularly for your all your pond products, then she or he will come to know you and the pond equipment you use, how many fish you have and even what sort they are.

Budget and Pond Supplies

When planning your budget for your backyard pond, do allow for the buying of your Japanese Koi fish themselves and for such things as plastic containers to inspect Koi in, driving nets, and certainly a spare tank for isolating a sick Koi. You will need various test kits so you can be sure of the water quality. Temporary Koi containers are for sick fish or as holding tanks while you are doing your pond cleaning, it can be made out of the least expensive pond liners, or you could even use a child’s inflatable pool.

The size to which a Koi may grow may be affected in one of two ways. If it is underfed, it’s growth rate will slow down dramatically; dwarf Koi have been produced in this manner but it is a bad practice and in any case such dwarf Koi do not breed dwarfs. The second factor to control growth is by hormones which in some species, including Koi, restrict growth based on the volume of water available to them.

4 Basic Factors

The factors that will control the size and cost of the pond building will be largely as follows:

• The available space. This must include adequate provision for the back-up systems of filtration for any pond surrounds that may be required (rockeries, patios, and similar features).
• The available cash. An obvious restriction to most of us, in which case concentrate on the essentials-the pond and the filter system, decorations can come later as funds permit.
• The number of Koi (pond stocking) that one wishes to keep. Here consideration must be made for the ultimate size of the Japanese Koi fish, not just their size as 1-4 year olds.
• The type of pond required. There are a number of options in terms of the actual water container and these vary considerably in their costs. Like most things, the longer lasting and more permanent materials will be easier to service. But they will be more expensive.

These four basic factors of pond building are inter-related because if space is restricted, this will place a limit on the number of mature Koi you can keep regardless of how many you want. If you wish to have more Koi than you can initially afford then allowance should be made for future expansion by not completing the surrounds or making the support walls to butyl liners too permanent or decorative for they will have to be pulled down when you are ready to expand. Obtain costs for the differing sizes of pond supplies and for the equipment that is minimally considered necessary to start with.

Beginner Koi Glossary

A little square piece of porous material, usually glued together and, driven by an air pump, used to provide supplemental air in a water garden, pond, or aquarium. They send bubbles into the water. These are seen more in koi ponds than water gardens with goldfish.

A chemical used to kill algae in a pond. Any word with 'cide' in it means kill.

NH3 is the primary waste product produced by fish. Ammonia is excreted from the gills as a very dilute form of urine. Ammonia is extremely toxic to fish.

usually sold by the bale - about the size of a brick and used as a natural method to control the growth of blanketweed or string algae by releasing hydrogen peroxide as it decomposes.

see filtration

spiky plastic balls made of polyethylene, used for growing beneficial bacterial in filters because they offer so much surface area for the bacteria to grow on.

see string algae - an algae that look like angel hair spaghetti. They collect in a pond; we do not like the way they look and drive ourselves crazy trying to rid the pond of them.

a chemical, recently introduced into city water supplies to disinfect it. Chloramine is a poison and is extremely toxic to fish. (And we drink that water?) Pond water containing any animal life (frogs, turtles, fish), must be treated to remove chloramine. Dechlorinator alone will not treat for chloramine.

a chemical used to kill bacteria in municipal water supplies. Chlorine is a poison. Pond or water garden water containing plants or fish must be treated to remove chlorine.

commonly called dechlor - commercial preparations used to remove chlorine and usually chloramine from the water. Used to make the pond water safe for plants and fish.

a polyester based material placed inside a pond filter chamber for the adhesion of nitrifying bacteria.

If you plan to have Koi in your Pond then Filtration is a must! Some filters only remove suspended particulate matter from the pond. Others are biofilters that work by allowing a colony of bacteria to grow and remove both particulate matter and organic matter from the pond.

newly hatched fish.

deeper than a goldfish pond, with sophisticated filtration systems and normally no plants. Care for it like a huge outdoor aquarium.

Gallons per hour. This measures the gallons a pump pumps per hour.

when a pond pump is wired directly into an electrical box and we can use a switch to turn it off or on. If we do not hard wire a pump, we can simply unplug it to turn it off/on.

used to keep the water in the pond, or in our case, below sea level, to keep the ground water out of the pond. Liners are usually rubber called EPDM. When you smell it, it smells like inner tubes. There are PVC liners, cheaper, but do not last as long by far.EPDM Liners also have a 20 Yr warranty.

The Koi Pond Guide sells EPDM Liners

NO3 - a form of nitrogen that is the end product of the nitrification process. Nitrate can cause the lessening of the ability of fish to resist disease.

the process by which ammonia is changed to nitrite, and nitrite to nitrate.

NO2 - a form of nitrogen that is produced from ammonia during the nitrification process. Nitrite is extremely poisonous to fish.

Potassium permanganate - a medication used for treating protozoan parasites and bacterial infections of the skin and gills. Toxic in water with a high pH. Do not use with either salt or formalin.

submersible (in the water) or inline (out of the water). We used to call them sump pumps and used them to pump the excess water out of the basement or off the flat roof. You bought them at a plumbing store. Now they are fancified, made in all configurations, had the prices inflated beyond belief and are used in our ponds.

the reproductive process of female egg laying and male fertilization in fish.

any piece of statuary or pot that is used to pipe water through.

see blanketweed

sterilization process for algae by which the reproductive process is disrupted by the use of ultraviolet light. It will not work for blanketweed or string algae.

usually only about 18" deep in warmer climates, housing goldfish and Plants but normally not koi. Can have filtration, but not necessarily.

a type of ion exchange medium used for removing ammonia from pond or water garden water.

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