Koi with Sunnie's

[rob199]

I have a 6000 gallon pond, I started building it and finished close to the winter months so I just put 3 small butterfly koi, a few commets and small sherbunkin in it to see what would happen during the winter. Everything went well through the winter and now in the beginning of the april months I caught 10 small sunnies (sunfish) from a pond in NJ. I threw them into the pond thinking I dont have many fish in there now and a lot of room to work with so why not mix some regular fish in there. Now a few weeks later I have purchased some other 3-4" koi and then I ended up getting 4 foot long koi and 5-7" cat fish. Now I am starting to worry if maybe the sunfish will start attacking or damaging some of the nicer koi. My cat fish have not been harmed which i thought would maybe be one of the first harmed since it comes out at night with the sunnies and swims along the bottom. I did however put about 30 inch long mosquito type fish in there and they are all gone.

What are some feelings about mixing koi with the sunfish? Sunfish on the smaller end

 

[DrDave]

The 4, foot long, Koi are fairly safe, but those sunfish are aggressive and will chase them. Is it worth it?

Be thankful they ate the mosquito fish unless you don't want your fish to spawn. My guess is they didn't get them all and you will live to regret ever putting them in your pond as well.

Koi ponds are not the place to put what you catch out of our lakes and rivers, those fish are by nature aggressive and will establish and defend their territories to the death.

 

[objec]

i had some very large bluegill in my pond, with small goldfish. and they were all ok. i just made sure they had plenty of fish food.

so if they cant get food from you they will find it else where.

 

[Chef Dave]

Here's a link to another website. The person who wrote this post claims to have successfully put koi, sunfish, and goldfish together.

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showtopic=841&mode=threaded

 

[objec]

i believe it, those bluegill/sunfish would feed just like the koi or goldfish. they would hit the food alot harder and faster though.