Water Gardening: Who keeps fish indoors in the winter?, 1 by Carolyn22

Carolyn22 wrote:
Evesta,

We too leave our fish outside all winter. We have always done this and never lost a fish from any type of winter kill. Snapple is right, it is the spring start up that can be difficult for the koi - their immune systems need to be built back up and the good bacteria does not start working until the pond is consistently above 50-55 degrees.

We too have had deicers fail. I do know that early on when we first started ponding there was a problem with the gfi unit. You may want to test your connections now while the weather is nice instead of having to have an electrician come out in the fridgid weather.

We run 2 deicers for a 5000 gallon pond. We had goldfish and koi previously and now we just have koi - the goldfish are just too prolific!

Another thing too is that we do not run our pumps during the winter. The water settles in layers with the bottom layer of your pond at about 34 degrees and this is where your koi will for the most part over winter. If you run a pump during the winter, this will upset the layers in the water and a pump can super chill the water to levels below that 34 degree mark. We turn off our pumps and bring them in when our water temperature starts to consistently hit the mid to high 30's - which for us is anywhere from the end of November to early December. I know some people use air stones, which I have not done. Colder water has a higer oxygen content than the warm water. Also, the metobolism of the fish is much lower in colder water. They do not need food and feeding your fish in temps below 50 degrees can kill your fish.

I have attached a picture of my pond that was taken early last December. Makes me cold just to look at it.

Carolyn