koi/goldfish

Is there a difference between koi and goldfish? I have checked with Google and Ask Jeeves, and while they discuss koi, I still can't find out if goldfish are the same thing.

Koi are fancy carp. Not goldfish. They need a lot more oxigenation in the water, and eat your plants worse than goldfish. Did that help?

Well, they don't have barbels like carp so are they actually carp or just related to carp like goldfish are related to carp?
Also, if I put goldfish in my pond, will they make it through the winter? The deepest part of the pond will be about 3 feet deep. I live in the mtns. of NC, zone 6-7, depending how hard the winter is.

got me, all I've ever read is that they are fancy carp:) I wouldnt' know a barbel from whatever!! LOL
Sounds to me like they would make it, your pond is deep enough, but better to hear from someone that lives further north.

Woodspirit I keep my goldfish in the pond year round. I do have to use a floating ice-chaser that keeps a hole in the ice for the gases to escape. They cost around $50. I've had the same fish going on 4 years now.

There are many sites listing koi. I found "freshaquarium.about.com" to be useful as it has a place for questions as does" Koikarnaval". If your fish doesn't have barbels(little whiskers like catfish have) it's not a koi. There some fish called shubunkins that are many-colored but they are not koi and don't have patterns but are much more broadaded. There is probably a koi club near you if you are in the U.S. I am a member of the Mid-Atlantic Koi Club and have the club to be extremely useful and enjoyable.Hope this helps.

I am new to this site but not new to ponds.
I have had goldfish in my pond for 12 years. The crutial thing that is needed to overwinter your fish is a small area of open water on the surface that allows the toxic gases from decomposing material to escape and not get traped under the ice.
I have done this over the years by:
a) leaving the pump to bubble just under the surface.
b)running an airstone from an aquaruim at an edge.
c)using a pond de-icer.
Some folks I know have been sucessful simply leaving their reeds and rushes intact and not cutting them back until spring and using them as chimney's for the gases to escape.
I am in Ontario, Zone 5.

We have a watergarden with koi and goldfish. We too, live in the mountains of NC - zone 7. We keep the fish in the pond year round. It has 5600 gallons of water is approximately 4 feet deep. Stop feed them when the water temp reaches 50 degrees and don't feed again until it reaches 50 degrees in the spring. We keep milk cartons tied to bricks floating in it in the winter as the pond does ice over. I also keep the hardy water lilies in the pond over the winter. They do just fine. All other plants have to come into the basement and stay in galvanized tubs with a grow light. There are millions of koi sites out there. Go to google or mamma and key in water garden or koi. Good Luck!!!!!!!

Poppysue! I live very close to you! We brought our fish in a Wintered them in an aquarium...but I like your idea! Did you do anything special to the water, other than the de-icer?
Do they have to eat at all?

Hi plant_girl! I don't do anything special - I just check the pond every so often to make sure the hole is still in the ice and the ice-chaser is still working. I've had one quit on me in January and the pond froze over before I knew it. We just kept breaking the ice until I got a new one. The fish go into a dormancy and don't eat. They just kind of hang out at the bottom. They're very inactive during the winter.

Koi Carp are a result of breeding by the Japanese, they crossed a German scaleless carp with a Chinese gold fish the end result was a colourd carp with little or no scales, that grew quite fast, much faster than both native parent fish, they were kept in ponds as a food sorce, so the quick growth meant a good winter supply of fish, but after time, like so many other species of annimals and birds that were captive bred, coulors started to form, and the Koi was born.

Gold fish will only grow to the size of the water, and only then to about a foot long, Koi will grow regardless of the size of water, and will soon out grow a small pond, then health problems start.

The keeping of Koi is generaly different that goldfish, koi generate much more waste than goldfish, and it that waste that causes so many problems, thats why over the years so many ways to keep koi have been develpoed, specialy constructed ponds etc, but by large Koi are very much harder to keep than gold fish.

I hope this has answerd in part your question.