Does anyone know if Brugs are poisonous for koi? I have a brug I want to plant by my new little pond, but can sub a potted Japanese Maple instead if you think it would be a better idea.
Karen
Brugmansias & Koi?
Hi Karen
I've had Brugs near my pond and my goldfish, shubunkins, etc. haven't suffered any ill effects. I would watch for leaves that have dropped into the pond and remove them however. Could always set it back just so that it's leaves aren't overhanging it.
Pam
Thanks Pam,
I had to look up shubukins, pretty fish! I'm a big newbie, got fry from the koi pond in my office building. Had a 4' x 3' x 2.5' deep plastic horse trough buried in a planter this last weekend. The fish are very happy to be out of the 24" pot they were in! Maybe I'll just play it safe and do the Japanese Maple, then I won't worry. Thanks for your help!
Karen
Kachina, did you ever know Carolyn Eichler? She's a singer who lived in Modesto for quite a while and then moved to Tennessee to pursue her and her boyfriend (now husband)'s musical careers. I know, it's not like Modesto is a tiny town, but thought I'd ask all the same.
Karen how many koi do you have in your pond?
Hi Bogweed, no, I'm sory, I don't know her. I've lived here about 10 years, but you're right, Modesto has gotten big, even during my stay!
Lilypon, 3....they are about 3" long now. I'm thinking I can do a few more, yes? I would like some with different colors, these are orange. I would like to add a waterlily next spring. Just have water
lettuce now, but they make nice shade for my little orange babies to hide in!
K
Most Koi are naturally hardy and require only a few conditions to keep them in good health. One of the most common problems arises from adding too many fish to a pool. The result is that fish waste pollutes the water, which becomes the perfect habitat for green algae to form. Green algae grow suspended in the water, turning it murky green and making it difficult to see the fish. Excessive algae can kill fish. If the algae suddenly die or are killed with chemicals, the decaying plants will use more oxygen, and as a consequence, the fish will suffocate.
At a maximum, add only one fish for every 30 gallons of water; fewer are even better. If your pool or pond has no filtration or aeration, reduce the number still further. Also the larger the surface area of the pool or pond, the more oxygen there will be in the water.
Another formula to look at is 1" of fish to 1 square inch of surface water. If you add filtration and a fountain to add oxygen, you can get away with adding more fish........but remember Koi get really big.
Right now you can put a waterlily in your pond but when your Koi get bigger they will eat them...as well as the roots of your water lettuce, hyacinth etc. If you have a large pond with many waterlilies the damage done by the Koi isn't as noticeable.
This message was edited Aug 25, 2005 9:51 AM
Thank you so much! I will take my tape measure out there and decide what more I can do! The pond is smaller at the bottom and wider at the top, so that's good since I haven't installed the pump or waterfall yet. I also go out and drop water in from height to add oxygen every day or so, so they should be ok until I get the rest built. It's all piped and ready, just need to get the pump and build the waterfall. Actually I've been toying with the idea of making a large cement leaf for the water to drop from. Is there anything I need to do besides paint the cement to make it safe for the fish?
I don't know if waterlilies will over-winter here without dying, that will be my science experiment for next year, LOL.
K
They will overwinter in your zone (and pond) without any problems. :)
If you plant water lilies I'd look at just one (given the size of your pond) and make sure it's spread is small to medium. N. 'James Brydon' is the one I'd suggest. Remember water lilies don't like water on their leaves (underneath is fine ;) ...... they don't even like prolonged rain never mind a fountain. So either set the spray to cover a very small area or if you go with a waterfall don't have too large a volume of water dropping.......slight stream would be best.
Make sure the pond paint you buy is safe for fish and plants.
Thanks Lily, you're awesome! I was thinking one water lily would be plenty, and thanks to you now I know to put the dripping water at one end and the water lily at the other! I'm so glad it will over-winter here successfully! N. 'James Brydon' is gorgeous! I will look for that around here next spring! Thanks so much for your expertise!
Karen
Your welcome. :) When Dad and I started growing them 10 years ago there wasn't much out there so we learned by trial and error. My ponds don't have running water (I have too many lilies in them) so I have hornwort etc. to provide oxygen ( I also don't have many fish ;).
I don't have Koi but I do have a large comet and a shubunkin.....I feed them Hykura (sp) Gold fish food and I noticed in another thread here peeps said that their Koi that ate it seemed to stay away from their lilies.
Koi will NEVER leave plants alone. Much worse than the nibbling is the routing about they do in the pots. As the koi get larger it goes from an inconvenience of having your aquatic potting soil strewn about to having the pots completely knocked over and moved to points elsewhere in the pond.
That's just the sort of fish it is ... they make "cages" that you can place around/over your lilies and/or lotus pots that will keep the fish from rummaging in the pot. If the new shoots make it to the surface, you're probably in fine shape (right up to the point that one of larger koi gets all fired up and jumps out of the water doing an impersonation of Shamu ... mine seem to get most of that out of their system by early May or so)
BWB would be an expert with the Koi.......I've avoided them because the water lilies are my first love and I have read that those that have both, have learned the hard way they don't get along, and tend to have one pond for the Koi and another for the lilies.
Great info here! Thanks so much everyone! I think my biggest problem is how to keep my 110 lb Lab from thinking the new pond is his personal pool! This ought to be interesting. :~)
Buck.....is the Shamu dance just spawning madness?
Lily....I'll look for that food. It must have more veggie matter in it or something to help cure their plant poaching. My fish are so small now it doesn't matter. If they want to eat the water lettluce, I dare them to keep ahead of it. LOL
K
Buck...can you recommend a small water plant that the koi aren't so interested in? Perhaps I should just stay with the water lettuce, it gives them shade and "Sonny" the Lab pulls enough of it out to play with on the lawn to keep it in check. LOL
k
Yeah, it's common mating season behavior, but they also do that nonsense for seemingly no reason at times. I've not seen any of my babies jump for grins and giggles for a couple/few months, tho. Of course, who knows what that little spawn of satan are up to while I'm not around the yard.
Also ... koi can be real jumpers when things are not to their liking, especially a pond too small, during times of great durress (ie: a pond being drained) or when they're in "temporary quarters." I had a BEAUTIFUL metallic orange koi (a domestic variation of the Orenji Matsuba) that jumped 2 weeks ago when the step-son and his dad had all of my babies in a cooler. I asked that the cooler lid be kept lightly closed, but not enough to cut off the little hoses from the air pump, but curiosity and forgetfullness got the better of him the next morning. By the time I arrived from the airport, my little pond-monkey Orenji was several feet away from the cooler and had given up the ghost. I'ver read that many fish will do that in the hopes of finding a larger, fresher body of water close by. (shrugs)
What's a shame is the fact that we had three coolers still under the willow tree (from a party we threw for a neighbor the night before we left town) and they chose to put all 15 survivors in the smallest cooler. Heck, there was a 4-way valve on the air pump! Matt said it was because they could only scratch up enough water from the pond liner folds to fill only one cooler .
Oh well ... RIP, Orenji!
Oh man, so sorry. I hate losing pet buddies, even fish. :~(
Yeah, it's a bummer, isn't it? My wife's emotional line gets drawn once a fish has a name ... :o)
Wow, plants that koi *aren't* interested in? That pretty much limits you to terrestrial plants! LOL
What sort of ledge does your pond have, Kachina? One of the things I started doing this year was to build a "barrier" to help protect the plants from the koi. I bought some 1" PVC pipe and a bunch of 3-way PVC fittings. Each of the 3-way pipe fittings serves as a corner piece, it takes 8 fittings and 8 pieces of PVC to make an open "box" that I surround with nylon screening (the pet/storm door strength, not the wimpy window stuff) and keep the screen in place using some grommets. For VERY little money I now have planter "baskets" that are at (or slightly above) water level. This works really well on pond edge shelves, but is of no use in deeper areas of the pond.
As you can see, I have quite a few plants going on here that are mostly all free from pillaging and plundering with the pond's koi residents. All of the Iris', Sweetflag, drarf Papyrus, Lizard's Tail, etc. are protected by this little contraption. I spray paint the PVC black with that new Krylon Fusions formula (most all spraypaints are virtually worthless on plastcs and especially PVC). It's actually easier to do the spray painting between assumbling the box frame but before attaching the screening with the grommets.
Hey, great idea. I bet it works like a charm. Sounds like Koi are the water version of Deer. LOL. I suppose if you wanted to you could make a bigger version and use it to keep the koi from eating their fry, then when the little guys are big enough they can be set free. You probably have rearing ponds for that purpose, but your PVC dealie will work great for little ponds like mine. My pond is so small it doesn't have a ledge, not deep enough. My next one will be bigger.
So I can use the new Krylon plastics paint and it doesn't hurt the Koi. Bueno. Perhaps I'll use it to colorize my cement "leaf" water dripper for the pond. Or would you recommend something different? (I'm going to make a cement mold of a large leaf for the water to cascade from into the pond for aeration).
K
Actually, the fry are exqactly why I have so much water hyacinth in the pond. Sure, I still wind up losing a LOT of them, but the truly craftiest of these buggers makes it through until they're big enough to lose their "meal appeal" ... or until the next unpexpected tragedy drains their home leaving them naked and exposed, breathing to death (wouldn't that be the opposite of drowning?)
About the Krylon .... yeah, once dried and fully cured, it should be safe. Of course, I keep mine from the feeshies little lips with the nylon screen, so I can't say that mine have survived the ichthyological equivalent of eating lead paint chips.
Personally, I would colorize the material you are putting in the leaf/mold. Are you doing that "hypertufa" stuff?
I was thinking concrete/sand would be more durable than the hypertufa stuff. I figured the paint would probably soak into the concrete anyway, eliminating the chip problem. I'd like to make it look as much like a real leaf as possible. Haven't decided what kind of leaf to use yet, still "pondering". Yuck, yuck.
I could add concrete dyes, then just accent paint for realism, I suppose. Or I can simplify and just get a pottery vessel and let it pour into the pond. Easy-schmeasy. Perhaps that's a better idea. Use the leaves as decorations elsewhere in the planters, and use the vessel for the pond. I can place the leaves so they collect irrigation water giving my toad his own personal toady spa. I like that, it's simple. I really don't have the time to create something, then have it make my fish sick! A vessel of some sort it is. That will also allow me to get the aeration set up more quickly, good idea.
Kachinagirl,
A lotus leaf would look beautiful!
Oh my! A lotus leaf would be awesome! There is a pond place near here, they sell plants, pond equip. and even do installations. Perhaps I should mosey by after I get my supplies and see if the old codger will give me a leaf for my craft project! They are very pretty, thanks TK.
K
Enjoyed reading about all of your Koi, plants, problems and solutions! We have learned also that the Koi love the plants, we took our two bigger ones (over a ft. long each) to the pond at our Golf Course, they love it out there! I have one left, plus a large goldfish and two huge algae eaters that are comical to watch. Pluse we put in a few guppies that are doing nicely. I'm waiting for my hyacinth and lily to bloom, had to start with new ones as the Koi I gave away ate the orginal ones. The like the lettuce also, but it multiplies so fast it doesn't matter.