Moving Koi to new pond

[buckry]

Does anyone have any advice for moving the small koi in my goldfish pond over to my newly created koi pond? I have 12, should I do them all at once, 4 every other day, half each week? Does it even matter? Once the pond stabilizes and I get the waterfall waterproofed I'll be ready so I need to know if there are any super secret tricks here. Should I pump the koi pond's water into the goldfish pond to get them used to that water? At this point my only plan is to put them in a 5 gallon bucket of their current water and put that in the new pond for a while and slowly add the new water to the bucket. Any input would be appreciated.

 

[sissy]

I would only try a few at a time just in case .See how they respond and if water is not good and you see them acting strange or dieing it will take less work to move them back .Did you put some solar salt in the pond, seems koi need it more for there slime coat

 

[buckry]

No I didn't put any salt in. I wan't sure how I would know if they would need it so I haven't done anything along those lines yet. That's an excellent point though about catching them, but to be honest what are my chances of catching 4" koi in a 2000 gallon pond? It's going to be hard to catch them in the 300 gallon pond, I believe it's impossible in the larger one, but the fewer I move, the fewer will die if something is wrong so I think I will go with that. 3 fish a day every coupe of days? Sound reasonable?

To be honest, I built the new pond for these koi, but now that it's time to move them I don't want to kill them so I keep telling myself to buy 12 new ones just for the new pond. I know this is crazy, and I'm definitely not going to do it, but I keep thinking that every couple of days.

 

[sissy]

yep sounds good and you get attached to them I know .I don't add as much salt as they say .I just add enough to see the koi's coat looks good .I think they say a cup for every 100 gallons and I just added 4 cups to mine and rain dilutes it .Mostly i can tell by looking at the fish as 1 of my koi is dark and if I see white showing on his body ,I add salt .He is sort of the tell tale for me .I add more than that it seems fish start acting funny .I guess salt does a lot more for fish than that but it is a lot of different things .The only time I can catch a fish in my pond is when i don't want too ,like when I am netting the bottom of the pond for fish poo .I use a pool net for that cheaper than pond nets .I know that crushed oyster shells stabilize the ph once you get it where you need it .Tractor supply sells that and activated charcoal i keep a 1 lb bag in each of my filters along with a bag of oyster shells .Seems to do fine in my pond and fish have not suffered for it .I have only lost one fish in over 8 years and that one jumped out ,my fault it was spawning time and did not know they could jump like that .Live and learn .

 

[buckry]

I thought salt was just when they were sick or injured. I never planned to keep salt in the water at all times. It makes sense to add some now to help them through the transfer, but after that I don't know why they would need salt.

 

[buckry]

That's what I do with shells and charcoal, I have these plastic mesh bags and I just keep one filled with each in my filter boxes. When I take the filter box out to rinse it I add more of each.

 

[buckry]

I've added new fish to my small pond at least 5 times since I've had it and I've never really seen the older fish react. In fact someone gave me their last goldfish from their aquarium just yesterday and after I put him in it was like he had already been there for 5 years. Is this how it is for koi and goldfish or is there the possibility for issues when introducing new fish? Really doesn't seem like an issue, but it's something I'm curious about.

 

[sissy]

I have never had a problem but koi are curious about the new fish and will follow them around ,guessing they think they are a food option ,

 

[buckry]

I guess there was one fish that was sniffing around after the new one's tail, only did it for about 2 minutes then they formed up the school and started patrolling the pond.

 

[Waterbug]

I've seen new fish pretty much instantly spawn with original fish, and I've seen no interaction at all. I've only really ever noticed 3 modes with Koi and Goldfish; food, spawn, sick. I've heard people say original fish attack new fish. But Koi and Goldfish aren't territorial or predatory. I've had the impression people saying new fish are attacked haven't ever seen a spawn. And it seems logical to me that if you add a male fish nothing happens because if there were any females already in the pond ready to spawn they already would have, so no action. Add a female that been isolated like in a tank, she's ready to go, as soon as she hits the water the pheromones spread fast, every male fish in the pond go ape.

So in this case my guess would be the new fish just has a different pheromone level than current males are use to and are just checking her out to see if she's ready to spawn and she wasn't.

Back a few days ago...salt irritates fish which produces extra slime. For certain stresses this can be good, but better to deal with the stress. The slime doesn't really fix anything, just offers some short term protection. Long term salt is a problem because the production of salt uses resources the fish could use to combat other things. Longer term the extra slime can build up on gills and cause problems. I think it's best to think of salt like running a temperature in humans. It's there to fight something so it useful. But you wouldn't want to run a 100F temperature if you weren't sick, and if forced to have a 100F temperature it might cause you to actually get sick because a high temperature interferes with other defenses.

There are a lot of pond keeper who think maintaining an elevated salt level is good. But I've never heard any logical reason or data backing up their opinion. Normally it's just the regular "I add salt and my fish are perfect so salt must be the reason for perfect fish" type logic.

 

[buckry]

Ok, that's good to hear. I'm going to plan on never salting my pond then, and if salt is needed I'll do it in a quarantine tub.

 

[don't ask]

can't say i have ever experienced anything bad when introducing new fish either

 

[addy1]

I haven't either had issues with new fish, but then again I don't have koi

 

[buckry]

Ok, they're all totally adjusted. They spent half the morning playing in the open on Saturday, then some more on Sunday as well as being out a lot in the evening, and now this morning they were going crazy playing in the waterfall. Each time I see them out I throw some flake food down and they normally ignore it, but this morning they all swam to the surface and took a few bites. I've got pictures, but they're so tiny and far away it's not really worth posting.

 

[poconojoe]

Catching those fish to transfer them into a new pond can be a challenge. Our pond was getting a bit crowded. We had 5 koi and 9 goldfish. The koi were getting large after 3 seasons. The pond was about 200-300 gallons, never actually measured the water. The new pond is 1500 gallons. I managed to get everyone moved into the new pond except for one stubborn koi. It is a gray/white/orange dots colored one, so he was hard to see in the spring murky water. I had to drain it down to catch him.
They are living happily with some new brothers and sisters added recently.