Fish Extraction which resulted in too many (maybe) big koi

[jgell]

In 1997, while still in college, I stocked my parents 1/2 acre former farm pond with fish which included 5 koi. 3 are still surviving. In 2005 I built my first koi pond and for the next 12 years bought many koi, some of rather high quality. During that time some koi went between the farm pond and the koi pond as I tried to grow them bigger. In fall of 2017, I was essentially living with my soon to be wife at her house and planned to winterize the koi pond at my house the day before thanksgiving. I was a day or two or too late. The debris overwhelmed the filter and the big fish were dead but the smaller ones survived. The next spring we bought a house together and all remaining koi went back to the farm pond. Over the winter I built a pond at the new house. I feel it is much better designed. On May 1st I borrowed a seine net, drained the farm pond down to 4 feet, invited some friends over and extracted the remaining koi (see the pics). We ended up pulling out 11 koi averaging over 30 inches, the biggest are 36 inches. I took them all because we want to see how the farm pond does without koi. I was figuring this would be too much of a fish load for my 3600gallon pond and bog filter. I have been monitoring chemistry and the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all reading 0 ppm. I'm currently feeding 4 cups of food daily. Do you think that is too little, too much or about right? How do you determine how much to feed your fish?

 

[mrsclem]

How old is your test kit? With your fish load , I would question all 0 results

 

[jgell]

Nitrate kit is brand new. The ammonia and nitrite are pretty old. I too was thinking they might be passed their shelf life.

 

[addy1]

Sounds like too many for your pond size.