My koi have been in my pond for five weeks now, and only since last week have they been coming out at feeding time. I rarely see them at any other time. Last week, I tossed some food on the surface and just sat down in the lawn chair and waited. Within a few minutes, I saw them sticking their heads out of their hiding places, then they would duck back under. I continued to wait them out, and finally I guess they were hungry enough to venture out. Now, they swim around in circles under the food, then gain the courage to come up and grab a mouthful, then dart back in their hidey-holes. A few minutes later, they come creeping out again. We do this every day, and I sit there and watch them. It apparently does take time for them to get accustomed to you, but I can see my koi looking right at me, so I hope eventually they will recognize me as the person who brings the food.

There are many ways to run a pond, each person has to decide for themselves. The dirt in the water is a tough one because it depends on the kind of dirt. Some will settle right away, some will stay cloudy for a long time. It will most likely settle at some point in the future. Tomorrow, next week, next year, no way to tell. There is also the question of what "clear" means to you. What one person considers clear another person would not. If it were me, unless water was being rationed or really expensive I'd dump the water and start over. You will have plenty of other issues, no sense adding to that list. Chalk it up to learning. I don't think there would be any problem adding fish to a pond that's cloudy from dirt. There's a small issue of the fish getting grit in their gills, but I think that concern is way over hyped. Grit settles. What stays suspended is clay and Koi live in mud ponds all the time. There are endless products being sold to clear the water. All are scams. Some actually could work, like flocculants. These are used in waste treatment plants. But in order to truely work 3 steps are needed. 1. Pour in the flocculant. 2. Apply extreme agitation to get the bits to clump into large enough clumps for the next step. 3. Removal of clumps using a fairly sophisticated filter. Pond flocculant products being sold don't talk about steps 2 & 3 of course. So people buy the product, which is the only step the seller really cares about, pour it in and it often makes things worst or if the pond does clear it's only temporary because the polymers in flocculants break down pretty fast and the clumped dirt goes back to being dirt. Virtually all pond products work that way. Part truth with a lot of scam. Sellers don't worry about repeat business because only people new to ponds buy these products. "Benefical bacteria" same deal. Most are completely worthless. There are a few that may sometimes contain some actual benefical bacteria and in a few cases can help. For example say you were about to add 20 full grown Koi to your 2100 gal pond. In that case you'd expect ammonia problems right away so trying to get bacteria working fast would save you some work in the next couple of weeks. But if you're like most people you're going to add a small number of very small fish which won't create an ammonia problem. You already have benefical bacteria in your pond, they're everywhere. They reproduce to fit the environment. Right now there's almost no ammonia for them to eat, so they just sit around watching Oprah all day. As soon as there's more ammonia they start eating and reproducing. Adding more bacteria to a pond that doesn't have the food (ammonia) available does nothing but add waste to the pond. If you really want to create more bacteria before adding fish you can do that by adding ammonia, plain ammonia from the drug store, to your pond. Use your ammonia test kit to get it up to some reasonable level, say 2ppm. Then use your test kit to to measure ammonia dropping, and maybe nitrite climbing and then falling. Takes about a week for the ammonia to go, nitrite can take longer if you measure any. Ammonia is also a food for algae so doing this really requires a UV filter to stop algae from sucking up all the ammonia as fast as you can put it in. Or, just add a few small fish at a time and let them produce the ammonia for the bacteria. Simple as pie. Local pond store guys are the worst pond keepers on the planet. They have to be. Water Gardens are very easy to run and require almost nothing be added. No pond store could stay in business based on that. So they make a living selling stuff no one needs. I have seen a few good pond stores that made most of their money selling good quality Koi and useful products like liner and high end filters. But those are rare. Adding salt to a pond is done by some people, not a lot. Whether it's a benefit is inconclusive in my book. The biggest problem I have with it is what do you do with waste water. Dump it on your lawn? Over time that probably isn't going to be good. Most cities have laws against sending down a storm drain or sewer. With no clear benefit I say who needs the hassle. And it takes a lot of salt to raise a 2100 gal pond to a level that matters. I'm guessing the pond guy sold you like a few pounds of sea salt flown in from the Black Sea or something. Regular water softer salt from the hardware store is all that's needed if you chose to go that route. $5 for a 40 lb bag. I'm guessing the pond store guy's salt costs a lot more. Salt is salt.

Enjoyed reading every word. Thank you! Nice pond picture's I posted earlier about my pond doing great. A few days later I had turned my 2,500 gal. pump off because the falls were starting to freeze solid. I still had a 450 gal. pump in the pond, a heater and a large air stone going. Then my electric went off. I heated two large pans of water twice to keep a hole in the ice. I finally had to rig a cardboard box upside down with a 4" hole to keep out some of the cold and wind. I then went out about once a day an stirred the water. That worked pretty well. The electric was off 5 days. I haven't been able to thaw out the line from the pump to the falls yet. The pump still works fine. I have heat and air now and am waiting for Spring. Today for the first time I saw one of my koi and 2 gold fish. Only ten more to go. You just don't know the thrill of seeing those babies alive. (or maybe you do lol) Last year was my first year for the pond. I had no problem the fist winter. "Thought this is a breeze". I have learned alot. I won't be in any hurry to see winter next year but.... I will do it again. Makes my life interesting. Garden Web RE: Anyone Running a Pond in Winter? Posted by: mgeca 5PA (My Page) on Sun, Feb 8, 09 at 9:36 Violet, I like your spirit and willingness to experiment again next winter. What an ordeal you went through--5 days seems an eternity without electricity in the winter. Were you in your home the entire time or did you have to find shelter elsewhere? I learned a lot with my failed experiment, what caused problems and what were potential problems. For me, the fatal blow would have been damaging my pumps. The potential for physical damage of exposed elements from freezing is what made me lose my courage. And I had no fish then. You are fortunate indeed and obviously energetic and determined. For sake of your quality of life and comfort may the 5 day outage be a one-time thing. Hope you report on next winter's fun. Tip of the hat to a winter ponder Mike RE: Anyone Running a Pond in Winter? Posted by: violet4491 6 (My Page) on Sun, Feb 8, 09 at 17:52 Mike,Thanks for you kind words. Here is a picture of the frozen pond. I did stay at home while the electric was off. We had a gas kitchen stove and a 10.000 btu wall heater. This isn't a very good picture.It seems as though I didn't take many pond picture's during this time. The large black spot is a garden mum. The water fall is located behind that. Maxine RE: Anyone Running a Pond in Winter? Posted by: mgeca 5PA (My Page) on Mon, Feb 9, 09 at 17:51 Maxine - what an ordeal. If people are without water as well it is tough to stay home I guess. You must have stayed well-ventilated if you were able to burn gas enough to stay fairly warm. Some of the saddest reports are about people burning charcoal or gas grills and being asphyxiated. But with the right set-up it can be a good adventure too. The longest outage I ever experienced was three days but in the summer on a lake so the only issue was refrigeration--couldn't put things outside to stay cold. I like your pond and see why you want to keep it running. It actually must be quite charming and pleasant to have it going year-round--that was my thought at least last winter. With the investment of time and money getting the most out of your pond sure seems reasonable. Maybe your pipe will thaw soon and you will be good to pick up where you left off. Let us know how it works out, how pipes etc fared in the cold. Mike RE: Anyone Running a Pond in Winter? Posted by: violet4491 6 (My Page) on Mon, Feb 9, 09 at 19:38 Mike, We did have water in the house and my heater is a vent-less type my dh just had it installed in Dec.08. we cooked on the gas kitchen stove. Took cold shower some times. We still haven't been able to run the water fall. It must be really frozen in the ground. It has been warming up the last three day's. (60's today)I worked cleaning around the pond today cutting off the old dead plants. Now I can see the fish out the kitchen window. This is another picture of the pond in summer. Maxine http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn194/violet4491/DSC01150. RE: Anyone Running a Pond in Winter? Posted by: brownthumbia 5aIA (My Page) on Tue, Apr 6, 10 at 11:10 For the first time ever, I left the fish, koi and goldfish, in the pond all winter. Becauses of nearby trees I left the net over the pond all winter. I took the pump out, bought an inexpensive pond heater and hoped for the best. We had a vicious winter in Iowa this year--started early,extremely cold, snow, sleet, etc. worst we've had in a long time. There was a very thick cover of snow over the pond so I thought everything would be gone. Maybe the snow acted as insulation? I was so surprised and needless to say elated when the snow melted and there they were!! Alive and seemingly well. I haven't found any dead ones but a lot of little ones along with the larger ones. I am so happy to think I don't have to bring them in the house for the winter. Still can't believe my good luck. You might want to try it. BTW my pond is probably 450 - 500 gal., 2 feet deep at the deepest part so it's not a very big pond. BT RE: Anyone Running a Pond in Winter? Posted by: hardin 7 SE OK (My Page) on Tue, Apr 6, 10 at 22:53 I built my pond in May 2009 (still working on it) and debated on whether or not to run mine all winter. Oklahoma is usually fairly mild with very rare snow and long lasting snows. That said, we had one of the longest, coldest, snowest winter in many, many years. Needless to say, it being my first winter, I worried. I left it the pump on all winter that runs to the waterfall. While a little ice built up on the sides of the falls, it did not create any ice dams. The pond did ice over, but but a hole was kept open right below the falls. I kept an eye on the water level in the skimmer to make sure it didn't get low but with all the snow and rain, levels stayed high. All my fishes made it through just fine and are doing very well. Pictures of snowfall on Christmas Eve: Post a Follow-Up Your Name: Your Email Address: Zone (optional): Subject of Posting: Message: Optional Link URL: Name of the Link: A copy of your follow-up will automatically be emailed to the original poster. Return to the Ponds & Aquatic Plants Forum

lisak1, You have a clever and interesting pond. It is a truism on the forum that every pond is different, which makes sharing fun. Hot water heater! So far so good for you. I too observed the falls kept a nice opening in the ice, but when my attempt failed a bubbler system in the pond and in the skimmer did the job in the coldest weather. I spent some time thinking about my failed winter run. I think the greater the volume of water (and I was running several thousand gallons per hour) and the amount of spray resulting from the flow and the configuration and height of the stream and falls are the key. If I were to try again I would reduce the flow to a low volume and see if my observations were right. As with much of life, dumb luck is a variable, but I got the dumb more than the luck. I posted pictures years ago; maybe you can find them with a search. I might try to find and post a couple here. Good job, keep us informed. Nice pond!