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ZNAOC Koi Club
Revision 2/1/03
by
Douglas Dahl
I have been active in the koi hobby since 1986 and have been a certified koi Judge since 1995. I have given this 4 hour lecture plus question and answer session once each year for many years. Several interested people have not been able to attend the single day event so I created this lecture text for those who were not able to attend but still want the information. This lecture is intended for the new koi hobbyist and will touch all aspects of koi ponds and koi care but not any one topic in depth. For in depth discussion of Koi Diseases & Medication, I highly recommend Dr. Eric Johnson’s book “Koi Health and Disease”. For in depth discussion on building ponds and filters, I recommend the AKCA Guides on these subjects from the AKCA Bookstore on the web or by mail thru the advertisement in each KOIUSA magazine. Each of the topics I will discuss has been covered in depth by articles in KOIUSA magazine over the years. An index of these topics is available by mail thru an advertisement in KOIUSA or on the KOIUSA website and past magazines can be ordered for $6.00 each from KOIUSA. Much of the information I will present is also contained in the AKCA books Practical Koi Keeping 1,2 & 3 that are compilations of articles on these subjects. These books are also available from the AKCA Bookstore. The opinions presented in this lecture are my own experience or information derived from articles written by experts in each area printed in KOIUSA or books on koi like Dr. Johnson’s book described above. There is no intention to represent the Associated Koi Clubs of America in this lecture. If you have reason to question any statement in this lecture, I will try to provide my source of information to your request for it. This lecture may be copied for other koi people but may not be sold. I did not prepare this lecture text for profit but for the expansion of koi knowledge to further the koi hobby. Clubs are welcome to use this document as a textbook and to take exception to the text where the instructor feels necessary.
I will proceed thru the topics in the order usually requested by vote of people attending my yearly tutorial lecture.
Ponds
Most people attend my tutorial lecture because they bought a home with an existing pond or are considering the construction of a pond in their yard. The second group is luckier because they still have time to avoid many common mistakes in pond and filter design. The first thing you need to decide before starting to design a pond is what do you really want from your pond? Do you want a landscape feature only? Do you want the sound of moving water from a waterfall to add sound to your visual treat? Do you want to be able to watch large fish swim gracefully to add relaxation to your view or do you really just want a water garden with plants and maybe some goldfish? Do you want to buy expensive koi to compete in shows for prizes as a hobby? The answers to these questions are critical before you take the next step so think about them. The consequences of the answers are mostly financial in the cost of building and running a pond. Small water garden ponds, say less than 1000 gallons, may or may not have a waterfall. If they just contain water plants and some fancy goldfish, they do not require 24hr/day pumping of water and do not require a filter. They may have a fountain squirting water to aerate the water for the goldfish or no pump at all. If this is the kind of water feature you really want, contact Van Ness Water Gardens in Upton, CA for their catalog or your nearest water garden dealer for instruction on how to build, properly stock and maintain a balanced water garden. The purpose of this lecture is koi ponds although some of the materials and processes also could apply to water gardens. I recommend koi ponds to be at least 1000 gallons (8.5ft by 4ft with 4 ft average depth) and they cost more to build than small water gardens. Koi ponds DO require a filter to clean the contaminants the koi put into the water and a pump to feed the filter running 24 hr/day to maintain the bacteria in the filters costing more electricity than water gardens. I will discuss more on cost when we get to the discussion on pumps. Koi will root around plants in a pond to eat the roots of plants and make a mess likely to end up clogging your pump. Plastic baskets are made for floating plants to avoid this problem. Also, oxygenating plants do add oxygen to the water during the day but take oxygen out of the water at night when the oxygen levels are the lowest and also reduce the pH in the pond by addition of CO2 at night.
How Large and how deep?
So, you want to build a pond for koi. The next decision is how large of a pond. The general rule of koi ponds is “build the largest koi pond the first time that fits into your landscape, budget and koi collection plans”. The larger the pond, the less sensitive it is to small mistakes in water or pond management. However, the larger the pond the more it will cost to build and in electricity to run the pump for reasonable water turn over rate thru the filters. Not to mention the fact, 90% of existing ponds become overstocked with koi for the size of the pond. When you think about it, koi in a wild or natural lake have thousands of gallons of water each. A conservative rule of thumb for koi pond stocking is one 12 inch koi for each 200 gallons of water and each 10 square feet of surface area. You can cheat on the 10 square foot rule by adding aeration of the water with a waterfall or air pump with air stones. You can cheat on the 200 gallons per 12 inch koi by having an oversized or larger filter system for the size of the pond as koi dealers must do to keep very high stocking rates. More on this in the filter discussion. Koi ponds should be a minimum of 3 feet deep sloping to greater depth at the bottom drain. 4 to 6 feet depth is better for several reasons. Koi feel less stressed from potential predators and their bodies grow better with greater pond depth. Greater depth yields more water volume. Greater depth provides a more stable water temperature. However, larger and deeper koi ponds make it more difficult to catch koi. Raccoons and Blue Herons love fish ponds 18 inches deep. We call these ponds buffets...
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