My little guys are in hiding

[GinoLicious]

so I finally opened the pond thins weekend. I bought 3 Shubunkins and 1 Koi. I saw the little buggers right when I bought them. Now for about 1-2 days I have not seen them at all. I tried to feed them the other day and they came up for not even a minute. Turns out I over fed them as a lot of food was still floating. Some even fell to the bottom. Scooped as much out as I could. I have a waterfall and two oxygen pumps pimping O2 into the pond. Do not have too many plants yet or places for them to hide but they are hiding. How long is it going to take them to come out and chill or let me see them? Also when should I feed them next? Should I be feeding once a day or is that too much? Do not want to contaminate my water. All fish are about 5 inches. I bought baby Koi to grow big myself haha.

 

[Smaug]

How big is your pond?

 

[GinoLicious]

I'm not too sure how big my pond is. I bought the house with it already in. It is about 4-5 feet deep approximately. It's a big square and would assume it's 5 or 8 feet by 5 or 8 feet again.

 

[Smaug]

I'm not too sure how big my pond is. I bought the house with it already in. It is about 4-5 feet deep approximately. It's a big square and would assume it's 5 or 8 feet by 5 or 8 feet again.

Canadians........not much for precision

 

[Lisak1]

Canadians........not much for precision

That made me LOL!

@GinoLicious - I put three tiny koi in my pond when it was new and they immediately disappeared. That was in May. We didn't see them again until October. By spring they had enough confidence to swim with the big guys.

 

[Faebinder]

The minimum pond size with the given number range is 750 gallons.

Gino, it doesn't surprise me. Takes forever for fish to warm up to you sometimes.

 

[Smaug]

I put a 2 inch koi in my pond near beginning of summer 2015. Never saw it again so assumed it died. At beginning of fall 2015 I cleaned pond out and saw he was still alive and was 4 to 5 inches long and very healthy. A month later I accidentally netted him out and found him 2 days later when our dog was eating it's head.

 

[GinoLicious]

Well I guess I'm doing everything correctly then. It's not me rather the fish.

How frequent would you recommend feeding them? I didn't bother feeding yesterday.

 

[peter hillman]

Canadians........not much for precision

But a least have consistency...
How frequent would you recommend feeding them? I didn't bother feeding yesterday.

 

[ChrisP]

What's the water temp? If it's cold, they'll likely stay hidden for a while. If that's the case, don't feed them.

When it warms up and they eat well, feed them daily (or more frequently) if you can and try to do at the same time each day - they'll learn when dinner time is and be expecting it.

 

[GinoLicious]

Yeah I want to feed them at like 8pm. I'm home by then. Relaxed. And the sun is going down. Get to spend time with them and watch them. My pond is roughly at 70F. I would not consider that low would you?

 

[Faebinder]

At this temperature now you should do the feeding twice a day. pre-work and then post-work.

 

[GinoLicious]

Oh geez. Alright. Fair enough.

I guess I will feed them in the morning and at night around 8PM. Poor guys are probably hungry then.

I think my airation machine and waterfall are scaring them and preventing them from eating. Oh well. I shall follow these guidelines provided as I am new to this.

 

[ChrisP]

I can't see the pump or waterfall scaring them - nothing gets in the way of my fish and their food!

Regular feeding - they'll get to know the schedule.

 

[GinoLicious]

My waterfall moves the food around and sometimes it gets stuck in the plants. But I know they are not starving even if I don't see them. Don't have any dead ones yet lol. I see em maybe once every 2-3 days. Have the pea soup stage right now.