A koi pond is a great way to add beauty and wonder to any home. A koi pond can be as captivating to watch as it is mesmerizing to watch your fish grow and live within your pond. Apart from eliminating stress and tension for your mind, a koi pond is a perfect way of adding beauty to your backyard or any outdoor space. In fact, a koi pond gives a house an air of class and style that no other custom aquarium can bring.
Regular koi pond maintenance is crucial for keeping your pond beautiful and your fish healthy. If you take proper care of your koi pond right from the beginning, you can avoid many complications later on. These helpful koi pond maintenance tips will allow you to keep your pond healthy for your fish and plants as well as keeping its beautiful appearance
Larger Koi Ponds Make You and Your Fish Happy
Koi fish require a large volume of water to swim about and live properly. More importantly, a larger volume of water means more stable water parameters. With more water, the concentration of pollutants is diluted and distributed more evenly to help defer their ill effects. The ideal koi pond will be larger than 1,000 gallons. It should also contain a filtration system that re-circulates the entire volume at least twice an hour (or approximately 2,000 gallons per hour)
Keeping your Koi Fish Happy
Koi fish are relatively hardy and can live a long time, unlike a goldfish brought home from the carnival in a plastic bag. In fact, the longest living koi fish ever recorded lived to a grand old age of 226 years old! With proper care, the average life expectancy of a Koi fish can reach between twenty-five and thirty-five years.
Koi are also rather intelligent for fish. After caring for your koi fish for a while, you may come to find that they will recognize you personally! Because koi are such social creatures, they also tend to interact well together. In fact, koi fish actually prefer company and will swim together in formation.
Koi fish do not need a lot of special maintenance, but they do need regular care, just as the koi pond itself does. Koi fish require three main things to stay in good health: A good diet and regular feeding schedule, plenty of oxygen, and a good plant and filtration system.
Keeping Your Koi Fish Well Fed
A good diet will dramatically affect the size and color of you koi fish. Koi fish are omnivores, and usually will eat just about anything that doesn’t eat them first! This means that Koi will naturally eat algae, plants, animal matter, flies, and bugs that happen across your Koi Pond. In addition to helping control algae, koi also help control mosquitoes by feeding on their larvae, reducing the need for pesticides.
The main diet of koi fish is a specialized koi pellet or flake food. In addition to this, it is a good idea to supplement their pellet and flake food. Small amounts of ground wheat germ, plankton, and shrimp will help bring out the optimum growth and color of your koi fish. Fruits and vegetables such as kale, watermelon, squash, or peas are a good source of nutrients and carbohydrates.
As a fish, koi do not have true stomachs like most mammals do. As a result, koi fish are unable to store excess food. Because of this, you must be careful not to overfeed your fish. Overfeeding results in an abundance of nutrients in the water. This leads to poor water quality and is a breeding ground for algae.
Keeping Control of Algae
Koi fish, being omnivores, will naturally eat some of the algae in a pond. However, too much algae from overfeeding, or an algae bloom can overwhelm the pond. This will make the water turn an ugly color of green. Algae can also eventually starve the water in your koi pond of precious oxygen and cause stress to your fish. Therefore, to help reduce the amount of algae in your koi pond, you can use products like koi clay, barley straw, or an algaecide.
Enough Air in Your Koi Pond for Your Fish to Breathe
Koi fish, like any other aquatic animal, will always need good-quality, well-oxygenated water. In fact, as a cold-water fish, koi are usually accustomed to a higher dissolved oxygen content in their water. Because of this, Koi pond water needs to be well oxygenated. This is especially true during the summertime when warm water cannot hold oxygen as readily.
Therefore, it is a good idea to keep the water in koi ponds well oxygenated. You can increase the amount of water agitation to help increase the amount of oxygen in the pond water. Adding water fountains, waterfalls, or aeration machines will all help to add to that agitation. Replenishing and maintaining a good oxygen level in your koi pond will help your fish to live long, healthy, happy lives.
Keeping a Regular Koi Pond Maintenance Schedule
Just like any other custom aquarium, a koi pond requires regular cleaning and maintenance on a regular basis. This ensures a healthy environment for your fish and a beautiful looking pond. There are two main types of koi pond maintenance: seasonal maintenance, and regular maintenance. A qualified aquarium maintenance professional, such as the expert aquarium and koi pond maintenance experts here at Aquatech Aquarium Service, can help you with both regular and seasonal maintenance.
Seasonal koi pond maintenance usually involves checking the pond, filter, pipes and tubing for cracks or holes, and thoroughly cleaning everything. You can do your seasonal koi pond maintenance twice annually, depending on your geographic location.
You can perform more regular koi pond maintenance on a bi-weekly basis. However regular maintenance can be done less frequently depending on your fish pond setup. This usually involves cleaning the filters and small water changes to add algae removers or biological enhancers.
Enjoy Spending Time with Your Beautiful Koi Pond and Fish
Like any animal, the most important thing you can do for the fish in you koi pond is to spend time enjoying them. Watching them swim about in their schools is just as relaxing as it is entertaining. It’s also fun to interact with your koi fish. In fact, many proud koi pond owners have trained their fish to eat out of their hands! With a little care and attention to your fish, and some koi pond maintenance, your koi pond will stay fresh and healthy for years to come.