Approximate number of adult koi in 1500 gallon pond?

[DaneDad]

My pond is 75% complete. It's 8x8x3 and will hold approximately 1,500 gallons.

I have two 55g barrels being fed by a sequence 750 3600GPH pump the discharge side feeds both barrels connected by a tee with a ball valve on each leg so the filter input flow can be adjusted.

I'm looking for a guesstimate as to how many adult koi this pond can support comfortably. I read on this forum that one 55G barrel will handle 1500 gallons.

I'm planning on 6 to 8 adults. Is this overkill or is it doable with the extra filtration?

thanks

 

[sissy]

It may be doable but would not risk that many .I have a pond 8x15 by 4 feet and have 13 fish and aggie and bert are my biggest 2 coming in at around 2 feet long and are 8 years old and I have fancy tails and butterfly and 3 goldfish and 2 fantails and I'm pushing it right now .I have a large air pump and 2 filters going .I net and waste out of the pond at least 2 times a week ,I know that they will eventially have to moved to the other house that has the bigger pond but I will have to admit I will miss them .I know I can go see them since I do own the house but if anything goes wrong I will not be there and it takes 45 minutes to get there .So you may want to think about the future of the fish you plan to get and also plan for the babes they will have .Don't want to put koi down but they are a lot of work also .I know first hand

 

[j.w]

Why not just build a bigger pond for them sissy?

 

[DaneDad]

Thanks I raised and bred discus for many years. I had 8 pairs going at one time so I know what it's like with raising the fry. Especially discus, I was doing water changes every other night lots of work LOL

 

[sissy]

Don't want to try that

Why not just build a bigger pond for them sissy?

I would love it but just can't go bigger than what I have at this time as it is just getting to be to much work for me and not sure how long I plan on staying here either .The property is just getting to be to much for me .I guess you don't mind the work then danedad but it still can be a bit much .I have seen this pond as easy to take care of at first but as the koi got bigger the work increased and being retired I thought I would have the time and have now found it to be harder as they get bigger .

 

[Waterbug]

6 to 8 Koi in 1500 gals is doable. It's not a slam dunk. You do have to monitor things to know your filter is large enough. If you're looking for easy trouble free I suggest a trickle tower filter.

Pond size isn't really the deciding factor. It's more how you plan to run the pond. How much food you put in is what the filter really needs to handle. So if you feed a lot (several times a day) or once a week will have a big impact on what's needed. The big element is water changes. If you change 25% weekly you can have a lot more fish than if you never do.

In this video Andy mainly talks about growing large Koi, but the info can be applied to regular Koi ponds too.

 

[koidaddy]

Yes water changes are a big factor in growing large koi, or any fish for that mater. But as noted there are a few veriabes to consider here.

 

[CliffandJoann]

There are many factors that make up a healthy happy koi pond. One being size.
Koi grow big, very big. The majority of our koi are thirteen & fourteen years old and are over two
foot long.
However, it didn't take fourteen years for them to grow that big, more like three or four years.
My point being you can put six to eight koi in your pond, but you will eventually have to plan on
making your pond bigger.
Koi love to swim and need a lot of room to do so.
Maybe some others will share their experiences with small ponds and big koi.
Is it possible to add to your pond in the future? You said it's above ground,
I am already thinking about how you can do this, but do you have the room?

How about showing us a couple of photos.

 

[fishin4cars]

1500 gallons for 6-8 koi, It's possible, would I do it? NO I would stay with about 5 adults for that size pond. Now I would probably start with 8-10 smaller koi and grow them until they reached about 15" and see what they turned out like and keep the 5 that I wanted to possibly breed. I've raised many types of fish over the years, Discus included, Keep in mind that Koi put out massive amounts of waste per body weight. Plus your dealing with a open outdoor system, not a indoor aquarium, where temps, plants, algae, insects, and other uncontrollable factors will come in to play over time unlike a closed system indoors.

 

[DaneDad]

I currently have six 3.5 to 4.0 inch koi, measuring from mouth to the base of the claudal fin. They are currently housed in a 125g bare bottom tank, no heaters and filtered by two Eheim 2028 canister filters. I also run a HOT Magnum with carbon only. The water is crystal clear ph 7.2 to 7.4. Complete water changes once every three weeks.

They are fed several times a day average amounts of Koi Vibrance pellets. They are growing nicely. I'm planning on adding two more but will quarantine the two new additions just to be safe.


My plan was to hopefully get them in the pond in the fall but it's slipping to the right so I may just wait until next spring. Growing them out and picking the best 5 or 6 is a good plan.

 

[fishin4cars]

Koi and goldfish for some reason prefer older water, doing large water changes may not be the best route to take. unlike Discus and some other species that do better with large water changes Koi seem to do better in older stable water. I've found for my own personal use that 10-20% weekly changes seem to do better than large water changes. biggest key is keeping the oxygen level high and the ammonia nitrite and nitrate as low as possible. Oh and if your starting with 3-6" koi be aware that they will change greatly until they reach about 12-15" some even larger. Small koi do pretty good starting in tanks, and will probably do better if kept inside this winter and introduced in the spring. In a 125 gallon tank with that good of filtration and water care you could easily keep 6-10 small fish comfortably in that size tank through the winter, then choose what ones you want to keep for the pond from them. One thing I would recommend is next spring once the temp reaches a constant 50 degrees F or higher start introducing with one or two fish that you would consider culling to start up the bacteria bed, once the pond has cycled then you can remove them and add the nicer fish. this will help reduce the risk of losing the ones you really one to keep.

 

[koiguy1969]

i do 55 gals every 3 days for water changes....100 gals every tuesday on the cycle. ie... tuesday -100, friday 55, monday 55, thursday 55, sunday 55, wednesday 55, saturday 55, tuesday 100..etc basically 5% every 3 days and a 10% every 3 weeks...i agree with fishin4cars ... small frequent water changes are much easier on the fish and the ponds stability...much less chance for a stressful change in chemistry. over 10% is for emergencies only IMHO. i stick to my schedule, and it works real well for me.

 

[camp185]

I think 6-8 is safe, but I would go much past that. You will most likely end up with other life forms, like frogs, to help stink up the tank. Basically, don't bank on just 6-8 life forms, there will be more. For the fish, as an old aquarium fan, I still stick to the 1" of fish per 10 gallons mentality, give or take an gallon or two. Using 20" ave size fish x 8 = 1,600 gallons required, so 8 would be a max in a well maintained pond. If you had 5 or 6, you could do I what I did and mix in some goldfish for variety. Or skip the extra fish, and enjoy feeding 4 or 5 more often.

I use a Matalla bio step filter, a second pressure filter, uv, and air to filter 1,200 gallons. Using two pumps, I manage to flow 900 gph to the matalla and about 500+ to the pressure filter. 4 Koi, and 7 goldfish. The matalla filter and plants in the pond do most of the work, and my only regular jobs are cleaning the prefilters and changing 10% water once a week.