Do you think this guy is super cooling his koi? ;)

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Waddy pioneered the export of koi from Japan, He learned his trade from the folk that invented the koi

What fishkeepers are learning now is what lurks in temperate waters, how unknown diseases and pests mutate. Some of them are a challenge, which many a science nurd rises to
 
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You're welcome to feel that your experience with your own pond and your own tiny, listless koi qualifies you as an expert all around the world. Rather than engage you further I've simply added you to my ignore list. Best wishes with your YouTube channel.
 
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Colleen I fear you may blow a gasket if you keep it up.

Would you be willing to concede that the UK koi keepers MAY face a DIFFERENT challenge, equally difficult just not the same, as the one you face with your frigid winters? Perhaps it's EVEN HARDER to keep koi where the water doesn't get as cold as yours and mine and so they have to find ways to keep their koi healthy and alive in the unique conditions that they face. You seem to suggest that your cold winters are the hardest thing for koi to survive - perhaps the UK winters are even more challenging because they AREN'T as cold.

And I suggested this many, many posts ago but I also think it's possible that koi that are not accustomed to temps below THEIR norm could be killed by a sudden drop. An example of that would be a fish that is taken from a tank that is warm and put directly into a pond that is many degrees colder. While the fish would eventually adapt to the change if it were done slowly, the sudden change would be deadly. And I know - you have fish from warm places in your pond. But you wouldn't drop them into your 32F pond - you'd put them in when the water was warm and let them adapt to your pond - they would cool slowly as the weather cooled the pond. Acclimate as opposed to a flash freeze.
 
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It does complicate a kois life, if its gut is still digesting food, its blood stream is used to warmish temps and metabolising various fats, when temps swing from active to inactive, umpteen times through Winter

Then there is its immune system, switching on and off willy nilly

Warm enough to be active, cool enough to stop digestion, maybe a gut blocked by fats that won't digest, turning rancid, limited fat resources...

Not the worst problem on a big pond with low density numbers where stable waters can be found, can be a biggy problem on volatile ponds with high density, a lot of stress... who switched that damn filter on forcing them to flounder and burn energy round the clock,,,, in cool waters...

A problem that sneaks up on folk where koi are growing and pooping at max rates and what was a happy pond suddenly becomes over stocked one winter
 
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callingcolleen1

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I'm sorry if the above seems rude. I did take issue with your insinuation that Peter Waddington is clueless about koi though LOL.

I recently took the time to complete all of the coursework for the Certified Koi Keeper certification from Koi Organisation International. Since then I've been studying about how to manage the water at koi shows and how to judge koi. I'm taking online classes to learn Japanese. None of this makes me an expert. In fact, I can say that the more I learn, the more I realize there is a ton still left to learn. There are a lot of different levels of koi keeping. None is inherently better than the other but what is a simple issue to someone with one set of goals might be a much more complex issue to someone with a different set of goals.

I think it's fantastic that you've found something that works for you with your pond setup, your climate, and your size, quantity, and quality of fish. It clearly brings you a lot of joy and satisfaction--and that's the point of the whole thing.

If microscopes and TDS meters and ORP measurements and dissolved oxygen content and ozone use and reverse osmosis and the science behind the nitrification cycle and all of those "super wicked setup" things are unnecessary to you then that's 100% fine. What's important is that you enjoy the hobby and clearly you do--but that doesn't mean those things are unnecessary to koi keepers who have different goals than you do.

its ok, I have a bad temper and I get mad very easy as I am so tired of so called experts over the years tell me that it is impossible to keep koi in those low temperatures', that my water will super chill and the koi will all die, that I must have different type of koi cause koi just cannot be wintered in such extreme weather. Oh the stuff I have heard over the years is just unbelievable. My many friends on Facebook had to come to my defence after I got thrown off some top koi club cause I told them koi do very well in Ice Cold running water and that my Koi have been outside and alive since 1991. They just cannot believe that koi actually do extremely well in ice cold running water and that my koi are never sick, never had a dead koi in all the years I have had koi. It is true that the further south you go, lots of koi people have to battle so many paradise's and horrible disease and their pictures make my skin crawl. Back in 1991 nobody had much information on wintering koi and I never heard of anybody wintering their koi. I decided myself that they should be wintered as they are "cold water fish" and not "tropical". There is no such thing as "in-between, like half tropical. The Oxford Concise dictionary says that there is only the two. I also used to fish lots down at the creek and lakes and noticed that if you fish in the middle of the hot summer, whitefish and pike are horrible some years and taste like "slew sharks" and can be full of worms if the weather was too hot that summer. But if you catch them out of the ice, they are so perfect and very tasty. I decided I did not want sick fish and I never had much luck bringing them in for the winter as my first year I brought some goldfish inside and they got ick, they scratched and were not very healthy looking after spending the winter inside. I was very young back then. My very first pond was a very cheap pond back in the late 1980's and back then I just had goldfish. Then I bought my first two koi back in 1991. They were very tiny and I paid only two dollars for them. I picked the white one with a red head cause it has sparkles on its scales and I thought it was very pretty. The old gold one used to have lots of sparkles and now some of the scales have darkened, and I am told that is a sign of a very mature koi. I do everything myself, I don't like people telling me how it should be done, and a good thing or people out there m ight still believe that Koi are sub tropical and cannot winter or something. When I first got on this forum next to nobody wintered their koi, especially in ice cold running water in Canada. My UTube channel goes back quite a few years now, and it is my documented story of my ponds and garden mostly. So it is not like I just popped out of nowhere and claim my koi are 27 years old and I have wintered them since 1991. I have been on our local Garden tour in this town three times, and they usually never show the same garden home twice if they have to, but so many people were amazed that my koi do so well when so many others in town died over the years. The biggest difference is I left my ponds run while others used a bubblier, but they freeze shut after extreme cold, and a pond heater alone is not nearly enough, you need running water to flush out the ponds.

Then when I made my ponds, they are totally different than everybody's ponds as I used my own design and choose to run the ponds similar to the creeks and rivers, as they flow all year round and they break up the ice first in the spring as the water is flowing, whereas the ponds and lakes can take a full two months to "de-ice" here in Canada. I did not want my pond to be frozen that long and so back in the spring of 1991 I built my ponds to run like the creeks. My top ponds are for the largest koi as the upper ponds have the freshest water, and the bottom ponds should be marsh like and planted with large sedges as they are best at photosynthesis filtration. I have a very large yellow flag that floats in three feet of water and is planted in no soil, and it is very sturdy as the roots touch the bottom of the pond and the fish like to swim under those roots in the winter. I read about yellow flag water Irises and they are the only true water irises and during big storms they break away and float to the other side of lakes and that is how they spread. My floats so beautifully and lots of people marvel at it. It is also the best filter in the world, and the roots lick the bottom of that pond so clean in the summer, there is nothing left but black liner under that iris...
So you see I do nothing like anybody else, well everybody has their main pond the "bottom pond" I have a totally different style, my own style as I copy nobody, they copy me.... Its true, and I was the first to spin large stainless steel balls in my pond for better circulation and aeration with minimal evaporation and splashing. It creates the "river effect" on the surface of the water and they look so awesome spinning as well.

I tell it like it is, and well that peter wellington my be a koi expert with some things, he never wintered his koi in ice cold water with temps below minus 40 so he really is not an expert when it comes to wintering koi. Unless you have done it for many many years, then you really do not understand and that is why so many koi people in the UK are so afraid of winter. I get told even today by so many koi people from around the world, who seem to know much more technical stuff, that it can't be done.... after I have done it for 27 years. So you see, nobody can be an expert at anything they have not tried. Its simple logic and I only operate on logic, and that is why my ponds flow like the creeks and river as I learned of nature cause back in 1991 there were no Koi winter experts around.

Here is my koi at night last fall. The lights at night with the rushing water show off their shape so well, and they are very big, and I am so amazed as every spring after a long dark hard winter, they come up from the bottom, looking even bigger than before!


yes, you heard right, my fish eat super fresh grain free puppy chow, made right here in Alberta, and I have been feeding them that for at least 14 or 15 years now! Feel free to "creep me out on UTube" ha ha ha
 
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callingcolleen1

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Colleen I fear you may blow a gasket if you keep it up.

Would you be willing to concede that the UK koi keepers MAY face a DIFFERENT challenge, equally difficult just not the same, as the one you face with your frigid winters? Perhaps it's EVEN HARDER to keep koi where the water doesn't get as cold as yours and mine and so they have to find ways to keep their koi healthy and alive in the unique conditions that they face. You seem to suggest that your cold winters are the hardest thing for koi to survive - perhaps the UK winters are even more challenging because they AREN'T as cold.

And I suggested this many, many posts ago but I also think it's possible that koi that are not accustomed to temps below THEIR norm could be killed by a sudden drop. An example of that would be a fish that is taken from a tank that is warm and put directly into a pond that is many degrees colder. While the fish would eventually adapt to the change if it were done slowly, the sudden change would be deadly. And I know - you have fish from warm places in your pond. But you wouldn't drop them into your 32F pond - you'd put them in when the water was warm and let them adapt to your pond - they would cool slowly as the weather cooled the pond. Acclimate as opposed to a flash freeze.
I have had many sudden drops of unexpected winter so many times. One time it snowed here in Medicine Hat in August so sudden drops in temps are not a factor, but treating cold water fish like tropical is why they have so many parasites in the UK for sure.

I have been known to have an explosive temper.... not to worry, I work so darn hard moving heavy pellets at work and that helps me let off steam. Plus come July first I can legally by my "medicine" to help me calm down.... I need to be medicated some days ha ha ha
 
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For someone who might find this thread in the future when doing a search...

When the water is consistently 40 degrees F and below: (1) there is essentially no bacteria or parasite activity in the pond, (2) the water holds much more dissolved oxygen than at higher temperatures, (3) ammonia in the water has almost NO negative affect on the fish.

Water between 50 and 65 degrees F is much more dangerous because parasites and bad bacteria are more active than the immune system of koi and the fish are more susceptible to ammonia. Not everyone lives in a climate where the water will stay 40 degrees or lower all winter. Many warmer climates (such as the UK or the southern states in the US) are much more susceptible to broad swings in water temperature. If left alone, the water temperature might routinely fluctuate between 40 and 60 degrees F based on the weather. These fluctuations along with the fact that the fish are at high risk for infection when the temperature is between 50 and 60 F makes for challenges that fish simply do not face when the water stays at or below 40 degrees.

Another factor to consider is that many more hobbyists in the UK raise show-quality koi than in North America. Show koi are not bred to be hardy; they are bred to adhere to strict visual traits and to grow big. Frankly, these fish are less able to handle bacteria and parasites than so-called pond-grade koi.
 
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I tell it like it is, and well that peter wellington my be a koi expert with some things, he never wintered his koi in ice cold water with temps below minus 40 so he really is not an expert when it comes to wintering koi.

Pete 'Welly' has travelled annually to Japan to visit every koi farmer for decades. Below freezing for three months and blasts from Siberia are the usual....Snow on the ground for 130 days

Summer temps are in the 70-90f range. Tropical.
 
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OK, lets see if I get this right, the koi that are bred in ice cold Japan, are "show quality" koi and when they go to England where the water is warmer, they get lots of parasite's and sickness, and are kept in heated warmer water even before the frost falls, and that leads to more parasitic activity and then they are weak after being riddled with bugs all summer, and then one bad winter storm hits and lots of them die..... where did I hear this before.... OH that was what I originally said and tried to tell you guys, but what do I know, I never read Peter Waddington's book, but somehow I got it right!! Imagine that!!! Maybe you guys don't hear well cause it is a "female" telling you !!!

So the solution is to put them back in cold water so they don't get sick and bugged with parasites all summer long, and then they will be heathier in the long run! Again, did I not try to tell you guys that??? Did I not say somewhere that they should invent a pond "cooling system" instead of heating the ponds in England after a long hot summer?

Maybe you guys just never bother to read what I said cause "what could I possibly know" !!!

I should write a book! I was right all along, but when I told you I was "wrong", but when a "man" tells me the same thing, then he is right!
 
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callingcolleen1

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I tell it like it is, and well that peter wellington my be a koi expert with some things, he never wintered his koi in ice cold water with temps below minus 40 so he really is not an expert when it comes to wintering koi.

Pete 'Welly' has travelled annually to Japan to visit every koi farmer for decades. Below freezing for three months and blasts from Siberia are the usual....Snow on the ground for 130 days

Summer temps are in the 70-90f range. Tropical.
same weather as we get in Canada... No wonder the Japanese all come to Canada to live, cause we have similar weather, and did you happen to know that in Japan they have the same type of trees as in British Colombia, and that at one time Japan was part of Vancouver a very long time ago? And did you know that Japan has more in common with Canada than it does to its closer neighbors in Korea??? If you look at Korea and Japan, its like the two nations are from different planets, the landscape, trees and animals in Korea are totally different than that of Japan? Look it up if you smart guys know so much...

So if Japan was once part of British Colombia Canada, and the animals in Japan are more similar to the animals in BC Canada than their close neighbor Korea, then the Koi MUST HAVE ORIGINATED FROM CANADA CAUSE JAPAN was once Part of Canada, and that is why KOI do so well in ICE COLD Canada !! Just so everybody knows, I live in Alberta, right next to British Columbia.

I really should write a book! I will make sure I wear glasses so I don't make any mistakes....
 
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Colleen, it is the squeeky wheel, girly syndrome. A lot of folk, like Waddy's super rich buddies don't struggle with these problems. You won't hear much from them. The cads. It's just the folk who are doing the girly tantrums who are doing the drama queen stuff. Granted, they have more excuses to struggle with climate change.
 

callingcolleen1

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Colleen, it is the squeeky wheel, girly syndrome. A lot of folk, like Waddy's super rich buddies don't struggle with these problems. You won't hear much from them. The cads. It's just the folk who are doing the girly tantrums who are doing the drama queen stuff. Granted, they have more excuses to struggle with climate change.
????
 

callingcolleen1

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I am so darn smart..:ROFLMAO:. no wonder my koi are so healthy and well, cause I know what I am taking about even if I don't speak in your scientific langrage..

I might also be known to have tantrums ....
 
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