Question

[coloradogirl]

I have a question. How large can Koi fish get? I saw some show on Animal Planet one time, a channel here in the United States, where they had a story about a man who had a special bond with Koi carp and I saw them living in this really beautiful pond on this guy's property in Japan, and they showed clips of the guy feeding the fish, and the fish were HUGE!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Most koi have the potential to grow to 3ft+ long, although most don't grow that big over here because the winters are much longer and colder than what they are in japan and thus they do contribute to stunting the koi's growth a fair bit as it takes so much out of them.
This is also one of the reasons why many koi keepers are starting to invest in heating for their ponds now days to make the winter time more tolerable for the koi and inevitably allow them to grow larger and and healthier .

 

[black angel]

Will you be heating your pond Tokis? Im thinking about it as ive read about the Japanese bringing their koi indoors and keeping the water at 16c rather than leaving them outside.
I dont have koi but goldfish, so wondering if goldies are hardier than koi or vice versa

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Will you be heating your pond Tokis? Im thinking about it as ive read about the Japanese bringing their koi indoors and keeping the water at 16c rather than leaving them outside.
I dont have koi but goldfish, so wondering if goldies are hardier than koi or vice versa

Currently i'm not going to be heating the pond due to the expense, it will cost hundreds of pounds a month which i cannot afford currently (well, technically i could, but it'd leave me with no food, money to go out at the weekends, money to travel etc- so i'm not gonna do that), however i may do it in the future if i am successful enough in life to afford such a luxuary for my fish.
The larger the pond, the more considerably expensive it gets to heat it, so my 5000gal pond is gonna be very expensive. Even if i had an income that could support the heating bills, i wouldn't be able to do it this year due to the large amounts of money i have already spent on building the pond and stuff- i would want to save up money again for a fair while before i make anymore expensive decisions like heating ponds, but it is still something i would like to do in the future at some point .

I think your pond is about 600-800gals? These sites should help you figure out how much it will cost to heat your pond;

http/www.koicarp.org.uk/koi_dry_goods_heating.htm

http/www.koicymru.co.uk/heating.htm

A little article on preparing your pond for winter too;

http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/ponds/...ert_Winter.html



Heating ponds is good for goldfish as well as koi too, although i don't know if goldfish are hardier than koi or vice versa- they have both been know to tolerate some pretty harsh conditions.

 

[black angel]

Thanks for the links. It all looks a bit of a chore so will leave them to it and take out the two I dont think would last.
Didnt realise your pond was 5000 gallons.