Anyone Have Experience With Next Day Koi?

[DavidWH]

Today I ordered 35 3-4 inch Koi from Next Day Koi. I got 25 from their AA premium grade mix and 10 from their Kohaku and Sanke mix. My plan is to grow them in the garage in a 400 gallon trough during the winter and then transfer them to the larger outside pond in the spring. I plan to cull them to around a dozen-ish, possibly order a few specific fish to round out the collection, and sell or giving the culled ones away locally.

Does anyone have experience with Next Day Koi? I'm hoping that letting them choose the selection will work out.

 

[brokensword]

Today I ordered 35 3-4 inch Koi from Next Day Koi. I got 25 from their AA premium grade mix and 10 from their Kohaku and Sanke mix. My plan is to grow them in the garage in a 400 gallon trough during the winter and then transfer them to the larger outside pond in the spring. I plan to cull them to around a dozen-ish, possibly order a few specific fish to round out the collection, and sell or giving the culled ones away locally.

Does anyone have experience with Next Day Koi? I'm hoping that letting them choose the selection will work out.

I've bought koi from them; no problems.

Now, I will say what you're trying to do is going to require a ton of filtering and mainenance. FOUR HUNDRED gallons? THIRTY FIVE fish? Are you going to try to get ANY growth out of them? The general rule of thumb we tend to go by is 1000 gallons for ONE koi and 250-500 for each additional. I know, I know; you have small 4" fish but they DO grow fast, esp if that's your goal (growth).

I have TWO 6" koi and 4 turtles in 1000 gallons in the basement and I'm not worried but am watchful that my filtering is enough to insure they all thrive.

Anyway, good luck!

 

[DavidWH]

I plan to cull as early as needed. Because they are choosing the mix I wanted to get plenty extra. Depending on weather, the koi will likely be in it for around 4-5 months.

Filtration is a 420gph pump to a diy sieve filter with sponges and two bags of bio balls under the screen then a 55 gallon drum with moving K1. I have an extra 55 gallon drum for declorination and to facilitate frequent water changes.

 

[yorkshire pudding]

hi @DavidWH, i really think you are going to struggle with what you are planning, have you cycled the tank ? i used to do grow ons quite a lot and i had "Massive filtration for 10 2-3 inch koi" with daily water changes and a water trickle in/out. i think you will need a bigger pump/filter as a minimum i would go with at least double what you have,as for culling its not as easy as it sounds you get attatched to them even after a couple of days, you say they are going to be in the tank for 4-5 months is it going to be heated ? because i had some grow from 2 inch to 12 inch in 3 months and that was feeding normally, these things grow fast, a centimetre a week without excessive feeding. i really enjoyed doing grow ons but it is hard work and your water parameters need to be spot on all the time.hope this helps and i hope you have every success but get ready for some hard work ahead. cheers mark

 

[Swalker]

You should be fine with what you have going on. Filtration would be a challenge if anything but it sounds as though you got that covered. It’s only for the winter
Good luck to you!!

 

[Mmathis]

Yeah, I agree that this doesn’t sound like a good idea — more like something suited to a very experienced koi person, and still, they would have immaculate filtration, etc. No way that size pump is going to move enough water for that many koi. Nope, a disaster waiting to happen. You will find yourself cleaning filters a lot more frequently than you think you will — and “culling” a lot more than just undesirable fish. Personally, and just MHO, but I think it’s cruel to put fish through this…yes you will be culling, but do you even know what to look for in a quality koi?

As to your original question, I don’t know anything about Next Day Koi, but also have not heard bad things. BTW, do you plan to quarantine new fish as you add them…..?

 

[yorkshire pudding]

You should be fine with what you have going on. Filtration would be a challenge if anything but it sounds as though you got that covered. It’s only for the winter
Good luck to you!!

hi @Swalker, im sorry but i have to disagree with you, the filtration required for this is a heck of a lot more than what is going to be in place, i really hope it does work but i cant see anything but problems and fish lossas i said koi grow a centimetre a week with minimal feed thats 35 centimetres a week with 35 fish for 4-5 months thats over a metre a month, sorry but this aint going to end well.

 

[DavidWH]

Thanks for the advice y'all.

To answer some of the questions-

No. I don't plan on quarantining. The fish are all coming in the same bag. There are no koi in the setup now. I don't know what good quarantining would do when they are all being shipped from the same source. Is there a reason to do this that I don't know about?

My garage never gets blow 50 degrees F even in the winter. I also have a radiator space heater in the garage that I can turn on if needed.

I have a larger pond outside with a 8,200gph pump if I need to move them in a hurry. The pond itself is complete and holds water. I have not finished the waterfalls, but I can bypass that if needed. It has a skimmer, filtration and a bottom drain with an air diffuser. My thinking is the koi may be better off when small if they have some climate control in the garage and will almost certainly grow more over the winter since they wont enter that slow moving winter stage when they stop eating.

I've had koi before, but in a very large pond. Never in such a small space. So, I do have some experience with koi.

The extra 55 gallon drum is so that I can do frequent water changes, daily if necessary.

Culling means putting them on Craigslist.

I didn't consider them growing as fast as some have suggested. My old koi were slow steady growers. If they grow that fast I may have to build a move into the outside pond earlier than anticipated. Acclimatizing them to outside weater should be easy as I can just crack the windows in my garage and slowly bring the tank temperature down.

I consider a quality koi to be any healthy koi that I like.

 

[Mmathis]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder….

 

[secuono]

I've bought several separate orders of individual fish. They tend to be 1-2.5 inches shorter than listed. I do not count tail fin in length, they do. Though, they use a slot method to sort the sizes. Which is kind of dumb, seeing as how they get individual pics of them, several, so it would be easy to paint the bottom of the bin or toss in a ruler.

If anything goes wrong with shipping or illness, contact immediately and keep them constantly updated with pics and info. They'll refund you for deaths.

 

[secuono]

Thanks for the advice y'all.

To answer some of the questions-

No. I don't plan on quarantining. The fish are all coming in the same bag. There are no koi in the setup now. I don't know what good quarantining would do when they are all being shipped from the same source. Is there a reason to do this that I don't know about?

My garage never gets blow 50 degrees F even in the winter. I also have a radiator space heater in the garage that I can turn on if needed.

I have a larger pond outside with a 8,200gph pump if I need to move them in a hurry. The pond itself is complete and holds water. I have not finished the waterfalls, but I can bypass that if needed. It has a skimmer, filtration and a bottom drain with an air diffuser. My thinking is the koi may be better off when small if they have some climate control in the garage and will almost certainly grow more over the winter since they wont enter that slow moving winter stage when they stop eating.

I've had koi before, but in a very large pond. Never in such a small space. So, I do have some experience with koi.

The extra 55 gallon drum is so that I can do frequent water changes, daily if necessary.

Culling means putting them on Craigslist.

I didn't consider them growing as fast as some have suggested. My old koi were slow steady growers. If they grow that fast I may have to build a move into the outside pond earlier than anticipated. Acclimatizing them to outside weater should be easy as I can just crack the windows in my garage and slowly bring the tank temperature down.

I consider a quality koi to be any healthy koi that I like.

No, QT is to protect current fish from new ones. So no point in it if you don't have others.

Can you insulate the tank to help with temp swings?
Do you have a lid or net over top? Smaller fish like to zoom and may jump out.
Turning lights on suddenly can spook them.

You can up the filtration and water changes. Adding a powerhead will give them current to swim in and feel like they're in a larger tank.

Under 65F, they won't eat a ton and won't move about a ton. So wouldn't expect a ton of growth.

 

[Faebinder]

I remember buying from them five or six years ago. No issues.

 

[DavidWH]

No, QT is to protect current fish from new ones. So no point in it if you don't have others.

Can you insulate the tank to help with temp swings?
Do you have a lid or net over top? Smaller fish like to zoom and may jump out.
Turning lights on suddenly can spook them.

You can up the filtration and water changes. Adding a powerhead will give them current to swim in and feel like they're in a larger tank.

Under 65F, they won't eat a ton and won't move about a ton. So wouldn't expect a ton of growth.

I don't think temperature swings will be too much of a problem. The garage is warm with house on two sides and above it, and it's insulated. Definitely much more stable than outside. I suspect that the temperature is relatively stable. I ordered a pool thermometer so I can monitor it. It's likely below 65, but above 50. I do have a garage heater that I can set to temp and use as needed in case of very cold weather.

I've seen fish jump before. I'm looking into something that I can hook up around the sides to make a buffer that's difficult to jump over instead of covering. My kids like to look at the fish.

Will look into powerheads. Good idea.

 

[GBBUDD]

Here is why doing a quarantine tank is ALWAYS good idea. Yes they are all coming from the same supplier. And no matter how careful they are something can slip through. while they are in a much smaller space and volume the cost is drastically reduced. so if one of the fish came from one tank different from the others or even if they all came from the same. You want to insure before they go in your pond there health is as good as it can be. if anything i would treat for gill flukes they seem to be the pests in the trade

 

[DavidWH]

My koi arrived today. I ordered 35 and received 36. I scheduled it today since I had to stay home and wait for the freezer warranty repair guy anyway. Thanks to our german shepherd that lets us know the second anyone steps foot on our property, the box was on the front porch for less than a minute.

I wish I had taken a close up picture of the koi in the bag with the bag open, but I was eager to get them in the pond and didn't think of it at the time. I might get the gopro out in the next week or so and get some footage of them under water.

The koi were packaged well, though some of them seemed lethargic in the bag after their long journey. They became much more active after a few minutes in the pond.

So far, I'm happy with my purchase. I'm planning some upgrades to their temporary home this weekend.