Do KOI get bored?

Tetley,
the only problem with plants is to prevent the koi from digging up the roots. They won't mash themselves if they can't move whatever protects the lily root system. One method is to use a large plastic pot from a tree planting. Ýou don't need the full depth of the pot. So you can cut some of the edge down but leave it high enough so that any rocks you put over the kiddy litter and the roots can not be pushed out. If they'll always remain in the pot they imbed themselves pretty good. My mistake was to not do that with all my lilies. I filled several pots to the top and then placed some rocks on top of that. That was an invitation to rock and roll those rocks onto the pond floor and work on the gravel beneath them. Where I left enough rim space all is well.

Fred

Only filling the pots part way is a great idea, thank you for passing that tip along! I was going to put in the kitty litter and top it with the screen and bypass the rocks altogether. I thought maybe the koi would eat the leaves that were growing from the plants. My thought with the bricks or cinder blocks was to stack them up on top of each other to create places for them to swim through and hide but I am concerned that if they nudged the brick or cinder blocks too much that would knock them down and injure themselves. Could they hurt themselves on the rough edges do you think?

During spawning it's possible but most of the rest of the time it should be OK.

If the tub or pot is large enough to keep from getting tipped from an accidental bump I don't use rocks when I use the plastic fencing as a cover. The koi pay no attention whatsoever to lotus leaves or stems as they grow up through the fencing. Occaisionally a koi will take a swipe at a lilly leaf after it has opened and is laying flat on the water. The damage is not serious enough to bother with. So far, the plastic fencing cover has worked well. I have koi AND plants, albeit a select few. Water hyacinth are out of the question. I have reeds growing in large pots on a shallow shelf. The only reason the koi don't destroy them is because the shallow water prevents them from getting up high enough to root in the pot. I will throw in some hornwort as soon as the water stays warm enough. They don't bother that either. I love parrot feather but they just play tug of war with it. I have koi castles for hidey holes. They have been in the ponds year around for three years now with no signs of deterioration. There are always koi parked in them, sometimes several of the smaller koi together at once. They easily lift right out for the annual vacuuming. http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/3214/cid/966

Snapple, thank you so much for the link. I had a look around their site and the koi castle is just perfect. It looks easy to build and I am very tempted to try that before I purchase one. They also have the water clarifiers like barley straw that I was looking for. They are so expensive at most places but their prices looked very reasonable.

You just might be able to put one together. Try shade cloth or untreated weed fabric for the material. At the moment I am stumped for the frame though. The store bought jobs are aluminum. Not something everyone has laying around. What is non-reactive, sinking, lightweight, can be bent and can have something fastened to it? I dunno!

Someone asked what to do to keep the Koi from eating the roots on Water Lettuce and Hyacinth. Several of the water garden club I belong to use hula hoops with the net stuff on the bottom so the Koi cannot eat the roots and it keeps the plants contained. Another club member showed us a huge (2.5' - 3') plastic colander with the kids styrofoam "swim noodle" attached to the edges so it would float. I have looked everywhere for the colander, she said she got it at "the dollar store", I don't know which one because I can't find it, still looking though. It was a cute idea.

I have the same problem with Water Hyacinth, I cannot get them to grow in my pond. Our pond club president suggested having two batches. Put some light fertilizer in one batch and rotate every 2 or so weeks. Put one batch in the pond and put one batch in a tub to get better. My friend who has a nasty pond can grow hyacinth 2' tall and have wonderful blooms, I don't know how her fish live in her pond. I try to keep mine very clear and well filtered, even in my full sun area, & I can't grow them. I decided my pond was too clean. I put some in a baby wading pool and let the dogs drink out of it and didn't feed them or anything and they bloomed like crazy. Go figure!!!!!
I'm sure I'm going to try it again this year though.
PeggyP

I tried the hula hoop. While it kep the water hyacinth from swooping into the skimmer it did not protect it from the koi. On the contrary - it just rounded it up one place for them to graze on! A three foot colander? Some noodle drainer that!

I have seen mesh chairs at the dollar store that you put a pool noodle in around the top, so it hangs like a hammock. I think Big Lots/Odd Lots had them too.

I'm not trying to be a smarty but I don't have a problem with my hyacinth. In fact I put 3-5 in my pond in May, by July I'm composting hundreds of them. Why do you suppose my koi don't mesh with them? I feed the koi like twice a day. I dunno...

The first two years I had koi I could grow water hyacinth. The koi were too small and the hyacinth out grew/out numbered what damage the koi could do. I had enough plants to supply most of the county. I hauled em out by the bushel basket weekly. Year three the koi just shredded them. Smarter koi? LOL

Here is a picture of my peronias.(sp?)

Jeri

Gosh, that's beautiful.

Thank you!!! They aren't small and very active. I don't understand. Plus I have a box turtle that set up residence about 4 years ago. His name is Fertile. (Fertile the Turtle) LOL

I have a liner pond and just planted everything right on the liner 12 years ago. I did put some waterlilies in pots but they aren't in the pot any longer they are growing out the bottom.

Jeri

Jeri11....How deep is that? Is it a natural pond, or did you build it?

We started it and my DH got busy and we had it finished by NYS Landscape out of Baton Rouge. The owner of the Co. was from Syria and a really super guy!!! His name was Emile, go figure. He said he had spent a lot of time looking at rock formations in his native country. It's a liner pond with the depth varing from 2'-4'.

wow, it;s absolutely beautiful! Looks like a natural rock quarry.....

Here is a link I hope to my diary. http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/m/jeri11/

Check out "The Beginning of Jeri's Oasis". It was quite an experience. I found a quarry out of Cookeville, Tn. and called. I asked her to take pictures of her inventory and mark each with the weight and snail mail them to me. Jim & I picked out the ones we wanted and figured the weight to load out her truck. She said she couldn't have added 1 pea gravel more on either truck. They were so nice to deal with that later when we decided to add flagstone to the walkways we got a truckload of them from her.

Jeri