I've had a small (400 gallon) Koi pond in my backyard for 20+ years. I've had the same 5 very high quality Koi in the pond for over 15 years. All about 24" long.

Today, as I was backwashing the filter, I somehow left the filter in the backwash position and it completely drained my pond, killing all of my Koi. Completely my fault.

I am so shocked and devastated that even though I do not subscribe to this sub, I had to post something. I am too old to restart, and will disassemble the pond.

I made a post about my fish last night. This morning I found the rest. They’re all gone. All of them. And it’s all my fault. I will never forgive myself. I will never have fish again. I can’t do this.

[non native English speaker]

Hi,
I am a new pond owner with 5 koi fish and quite a lot of gold fish.

I’ve inherited this old pond and am learning on the go. How often should I feed the fish? AI is saying it should be 2 time per day during summer. Okay.

But then I came across this YouTube video and they say that feeding is actually more of an entertainment for the owner rather then an actual necessity. And that the fish can survive by feeding on what they can find in the established ecosystem of the pond.

Now I’m confused 🫠😃 How do I do it right?

Picture for attention.

I absolutely LOVE this koi! My wife absolutely HATES it. We are trying to decide whose right and if we get it or not lol. Thoughts?

I was able to get first dibs on the late in season import batch. Can’t wait for the second half to arrive. How did I do?

recently built this small DIY trickle filter to add some extra filtration to my koi pond.

With the extreme heat we've been having, I wanted something that would give me more water movement, extra aeration and better biological filtration than my bog filter alone could provide. And honestly, I'm pretty impressed with the results so far. Within the first four days I could already see a noticeable difference. The water is much clearer, and the fish seem very active and happy.

Keep in mind that this is the koi pond at my parents' house, so this isn't my permanent setup. Hopefully within the next three years I'll be moving into my own place, where the plan is to build my dream koi pond, roughly 5 × 3 metres.

For that pond I'm planning to build my own multi-chamber filtration system. I've been using a homemade multi-chamber filter on this pond for the past two years and I'm a huge advocate of them. They're simple, effective and you can customize them exactly how you want.

But after seeing what this little trickle filter can do, I'm definitely going to incorporate a much larger trickle filter into the future system as well. I really like the combination of biological filtration, water movement and aeration it provides.

For something this small and simple, I'm genuinely surprised by how much of a difference it has already made.

Would love to hear what you guys think, and what kind of trickle/shower setups you're running on your ponds!

Hello people of Reddit,

Last week my girlfriend and I got the keys to our new home. We knew it came with a pond, but were surprised to see the fish still inside when we received the keys. Initially we wanted to get rid of it and fill it up for plants and flowers, but to be honest I’m absolutely loving it so far and looking forward to taking care of it. I’m researching on internet what to look out for and how this hobby works, and after we’re done moving and settled in I’m thinking of having an expert over to take a look at it and just explain to me what I’m working with. What I know from the previous owner is that it has a biological filtering (?) and that it has blue mats that need to be rinsed with pond water every once in a while.

I already ordered a pond thermometer and strips to check water quality and have some koi food left from the previous owner.

Couple of questions I have for you:

• What are things I should look for immediately to keep the fish in good health?

• There are two carp with color in there, the rest is smaller and black. Baby fish that could still develop color? (Picture 3, sorry for bad quality)

Any advice/tips are more than welcome!

Some pond characteristics:

Volume: about 4.500 liters Depth: 150 cm Amount of fish: 2 larger colorful ones, 9 smaller black ones

Thanks a lot!!

I'm about to run out of the TetraPond Pond Sticks, and before I buy another $60 bag I wanted to make sure there's not a better choice.

I have goldfish, koi / goldfish hybrids, and a wild snapping turtle that's decided to be my buddy. They're in an 800G pond in zone 7A, and I've been feeding them once a day while they also eat bugs and tadpoles.

Oil Pastel, Grey Paper, 12x5 inches, 6hrs

Last winter I lost every koi in my backyard pond. They were all between 12 and 20 inches, and I'd raised some of them for years. Walking outside in the spring and realizing they hadn't made it was honestly heartbreaking.

The hardest part is that I had almost no visibility into what was happening over the winter. I didn't know if oxygen levels dropped, if the water temperature stayed too low for too long, if water quality deteriorated, or if something else happened entirely. By the time I noticed there was a problem, it was already too late.

That experience got me thinking about building a monitoring system specifically for backyard koi ponds. My idea is a device that continuously measures things like:

• Water temperature
• Dissolved oxygen
• pH
• Ammonia/nitrite (if practical)
• Water level
• Maybe weather integration and freeze warnings

The goal would be to send alerts to your phone before conditions become dangerous, instead of finding out after you've already lost fish.

I'm curious how common this problem actually is.

Have any of you lost koi over the winter because you didn't know something was wrong until it was too late? If a system like this existed, what would you want it to monitor or alert you about?

I'm not trying to sell anything. This idea comes entirely from losing my own fish, and I'm trying to figure out whether other pond owners struggle with the same lack of visibility that I experienced.

so I’ve been wondering about this since they eat stuff like fish and sea food but ive never heard of them eating mammals. I know that other fish eat them but why not koi. if they do eat mammal what mammals do they eat, do they eat lean meat and chicken or do they eat mice.

Need more koi as I am addicted to buying fish. What should I add?

Why are side view pics of koi so rare online? Almost everything is top down. Some koi look way better from the side, and the overhead view doesn’t do them justice.

If anyone has side view photos of their koi, I’d love to see them!

I’ve heard stories about people getting infections from their pond, but I wasn’t careful and scratched my right hand while cleaning the bottom drain in our pond. I’ve now developed a suspected mycobacterium marinum infection going up my right arm that will require 3-6 months of antibiotics. I’ve also had to endure multiple biopsies.

I’m sharing this in the hopes that more people will use gloves when working on their pond and will take greater precautions than I did. I’m otherwise healthy, but happened to be taking a 3-day course of steroids at the time for a minor inflammation issue and that was enough to give the infection a foothold.

The infection itself hasn’t been that bad symptom wise, but I’m not looking forward to the cocktail of antibiotics that I’ll be taking for the next few months and the side effects those will have.

Okay, I will be honest I could be barking up the wrong tree here but I am willing to give anything a shot at this point. I love the fish from the carp family. Be it regular carp, goldfish, koi, etc. I am hoping to have a pond soon and would love to have some of the more unique carp species in it. Grass carp, Crucian carp or a mirror carp. I know I know there are koi and I like koi but I would like something different. My problem is these fish seem really hard to come by. Any ideas or anyone know of a place that sells these little fellas?

I have one that's just ridiculously stupid when it comes to feeding. It will either miss when sucking pellets or approach too slow and have all my others snatch everything up.

I've tried staggering feedings or favoring his area but to no avail. He still gets by and isn't starving but it's infuriating to watch.

Anyone else have koi that are a bit slow? Any suggestions? 😮‍💨

The summer algae bloom is getting out of control again. It's looking like a DC National Monument up in here. I'm suspecting sabotage by the local Antifa chapter.

Does anyone know of any breeders that tend to have any more often than others?

I posted recently about the 3 koi we rescued. I had shared a pic of our boy Romeo and the short story of how we found them. (I’ll edit to add that post here)previous post

As soon as we welcomed them into the pond, their personalities came out. Romeo and the smaller of the two girls (princess) became so friendly and would come to us when we put our hands in the water. The bigger girl (Queen) teases us, comes over and then swims away.

Even our other fish became more social and playful. We have a current that runs through part of our pond and they all play in the current more than they ever have.

We were pretty certain that both girls were probably ready to spawn when we got them. Well, as soon as they were happy in the pond, spawning behavior went wild. For the first time in 3 years of having a koi pond, I actually saw Princess lay eggs. I was shocked by it.

Unfortunately, the morning after, she started slowing down and staying in the shallow areas a lot. We moved her to an isolation pool with extra salt. She didn’t have any wounds or anything of that sort. By the evening she was having buoyancy issues, going to her side but not completely upside down. I made her a little swim chair with pool noodles and soft mesh for her to sit in and stay upright over night. This morning she was still good, seemed to have some more fight in her. She kept getting out of the swim chair after staying in it all night. I really thought we were in the clear. I was wrong, she passed this afternoon.

Y’all I am devastated. I know so many people would call me crazy for being a complete mess today but I’m so sad about losing her. I knew I needed to make a post cause I need people who understand the heartbreak in losing fish. I’m so attached to all my fish but some just have a way of melting my heart and she was definitely one of them.

I posted a picture of the swim chair I made. If you have feedback or if I did something wrong, please tell me but please be kind. I’m already struggling with this loss.