Do You Want Koi Fish as Pets?

In the first photo you see what the Koi pond in our backyard looks like. The water hose is running and it has cleared thing up. Also notice the big plants in middle of the pond. These help to protect the fish and give them something to nibble on occasionally. You can see the long waterfall that helps water oxygen, and notice the white spots that quickly disappear after we turn on the water hose. The close up picture of the Koi only show about half of the fish in that pond.

We’ve had quite a few Koi fish for 18 years now and they have remained very healthy. The pond we built for them is at least 4 feet deep, around 10 by 14 feet in length, and constantly flowed into by a large waterfall. Each Koi we purchased was only about an inch or two in length. And now many of them are nearly 24 inches long and weigh over 10 pounds. Why was this so good for these fish? Well, here is what I have observed:

Pond depth: Thanks to the depth of the pond all of our Koi could escape attacks by raccoons or some other predator. Yes, there have been attacks by raccoons, but so far we have only lost one fish after many years.

Water oxygen: The size of the pond and strength of the waterfall we built is very good at ensuring sufficient water oxygen for the fish. And it also keeps the pond from freezing in winter.

Food: We feed our Koi once per day but there are other sources for their food. Koi are bottom feeders, but also eat plants, worms, and other small creatures that they can catch. Since our pond is outside in a large backyard all year in the temperate WA weather, these other forms of diet for them come up a lot. We do not feed them when temperatures get below 40 degrees. At that point they are not at all active.

We have had a couple of challenges to raising these fish, however. The main problem is water purification for a pond so large. We do not have a standard water filter for it, but I have found a way to get around that. I put filter material in at the top of the waterfall and clean those out weekly. We also drain some of the pond water and refill it with fresh water. Thankfully we do not get our water from the city. Out here in a rural area we have a water well so we do not have to worry about any kind of harmful chemicals like chlorine or the PH level. And all of this water is extremely filtered in our home before it goes out. We usually turn on the hose an let it run all day and all night. This fixes another issue we have with our Koi pond – the white spots often seen when the water hose has not been running for several hours. One of reported causes of this are organic wastes. But whatever the cause is, very soon after we start running the water hose in the pond, those white wastes go away.

How long do you think you Koi fish will live? Most reports have them up to 50 years, but some even much longer than that, even over 100 years!

Questions or comments? Email to [email protected]