Newbie to Koi game - Question(s)

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1) I know I should have a lot of patience with these guys, but they are scared of everything and will always hide when I go near the pond. They're extremely smart! They learned the sound of the patio door and will hide as soon as we open, but rome around once we close (I have a clear view from the bedroom from above). I've had 4 rats die in the pond (try to go for food, can't get back out = dead). I've been good that I always scoop them out right away and the parasites/diseases dont leach into the pool. Fish were definitely spooked. Is there any "quick" (probably not) way of getting them comfortable again?

2) I had my Hikari and Bully jump out of the pond today which was quite alarming. It wasn't as if they jumped onto the rocks (if the water was higher they could, which is why I leave it as low as it is from the top), more like a dolphin jump then back in. Is this normal? Is it just Koi for "hey we missed you!" - lol just kidding.

3) I'm thinking of a water heater for the winter or simply placing a piece of plywood to cover 3/4 of the pond. I'm in Ontario, Canada and temperatures have already dipped under 10C//50F so I stopped feeding them as of last night. Would the heater/plywood suffice? The pond is about 2.5-3 feet deep.

Thanks,
Jimmy.
 

sissy

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Fish are shy until they get to know you and thrust you and that takes time .Fish are such pigs that once they associate you with food they will get to know you fast .Colleen and haro are both from Canada and can tell you what to do ,they seem to be experts in cold :razz: :cold:
 

Ruben Miranda

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Hello
They are more then likly spooked by that rat splashing around
As for jumping I have only seen that when they see a bug or something but never saw one of mine clear the water.
Not to say they could not do it just never saw them unless they where really spooked.

Ruben
 

sissy

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yikes rats .we get field mice but I have a one eyed owl that has a nest in the tree here and he just swoops down and snatches them up .I also have a lot of buzzards and they snatch up snakes and stuff besides road kill .
 
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To be on the safe side always test your water perameters to see if your pond has any problems once that has been written out of the equasion rats included and if it still happens then I would try and get a scrape of my koi done to rule out any parasites .
It may well be however that the water isnt as yet mature.
Here in the UK we recomend for koi a minimum depth of 4ft which our ponds depth is but 5ft is the prefared depth

rgrds

Dave
 
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I don't know what a Hikari or Bully is but if we're talking about Koi and/or Goldfish that have been in the pond awhile, say more than a week, I'd say there is probably a problem based on the behavior. Step one if to test water parameters, ammonia, nitrite, KH and water temp. For the behavior the numbers would have to be pretty bad. If those are OK then step 2 is to test for excessive electrical current in the water. It's not uncommon for pumps, UV, whatever, to leak current into the water and cause fish to act spooked and jump out of a pond. It can also cause long term damage.

When multiple fish are doing the same behavior I tend to discount parasites and disease. While they can all be infected it is unusual for multiple fish to all act in the same way at the same time. Normally it's a one at a time type deal.
 
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I don't know what a Hikari or Bully is but if we're talking about Koi and/or Goldfish that have been in the pond awhile, say more than a week, I'd say there is probably a problem based on the behavior. Step one if to test water parameters, ammonia, nitrite, KH and water temp. For the behavior the numbers would have to be pretty bad. If those are OK then step 2 is to test for excessive electrical current in the water. It's not uncommon for pumps, UV, whatever, to leak current into the water and cause fish to act spooked and jump out of a pond. It can also cause long term damage.

When multiple fish are doing the same behavior I tend to discount parasites and disease. While they can all be infected it is unusual for multiple fish to all act in the same way at the same time. Normally it's a one at a time type deal.

At the moment we dont know what filtration there is for the pond or even how many gallons the pond holds, how long the pond has been set up for has it cycled etc surely we must ask all this first
When newbies to the hobby ask questions its better to not try and confuse KH is one too many water perameter to check. Ammonia PH Nitriite and nitrate and PH are the ones we would stick with for the time being,at a later date the use of Lythaqua by Kusuri should take care of the KH should the need arise,
Oystershell used to be the one we used for this and recomended but its become old hat nowadays.
"Lithaqua is a form of calcified seaweed used extensively in the UK by koi keepers, it is available in the US thus probably over the net from the US Kusuri is the brand name and is well known by our club in the Southwest of the UK as many of its products are bought by us and the club is very friendly with the firm, its hard for a company to break into the Japanese market i;e like selling coals to Newcastle but Kusuri has managed to do this it also has markets in the US and EU as well as the UK".
As to currents leaking into the water then wev'e learned something today as in 26 years of koi keeping that is something that weve never come across or heard happen to anyone, thanx for the lesson.my friend it's been duely noted .
Parasites can and do cause fish to jump we are unclear as to if they both jumped out of the pond at the same time or one then the other later.
This can and does happen when koi are introduced to a water they are new too i;e coming in to a soft water area to a hard one.
We are unsure at the moment even how long the koi have been in the pond or if any sort of Quarentining was undertaken prior to them going into the pond .
Cant comment on the heater etc as we dont know anything about Canadian winters apart from what weve been told


Rgrds



Dave
 
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Fish are shy until they get to know you and thrust you and that takes time .Fish are such pigs that once they associate you with food they will get to know you fast .Colleen and haro are both from Canada and can tell you what to do ,they seem to be experts in cold :razz: :cold:

awesome, thanks as always Sissy.

Hello
They are more then likly spooked by that rat splashing around
As for jumping I have only seen that when they see a bug or something but never saw one of mine clear the water.
Not to say they could not do it just never saw them unless they where really spooked.

Ruben

I've seen them poke there head above water a lot to eat tiny (I'm assuming here) mosquito/flies then they swim back down. Yesterday was the first time I saw the two (only the 2 out of the 7) clear the water.

To be on the safe side always test your water perameters to see if your pond has any problems once that has been written out of the equasion rats included and if it still happens then I would try and get a scrape of my koi done to rule out any parasites .
It may well be however that the water isnt as yet mature.
Here in the UK we recomend for koi a minimum depth of 4ft which our ponds depth is but 5ft is the prefared depth

rgrds

Dave

Test the water almost every week. The pH, alkaline, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, chlorine are in the ideal range except the water is hard (not sure if I should have soft or hard water).

I don't know what a Hikari or Bully is but if we're talking about Koi and/or Goldfish that have been in the pond awhile, say more than a week, I'd say there is probably a problem based on the behavior. Step one if to test water parameters, ammonia, nitrite, KH and water temp. For the behavior the numbers would have to be pretty bad. If those are OK then step 2 is to test for excessive electrical current in the water. It's not uncommon for pumps, UV, whatever, to leak current into the water and cause fish to act spooked and jump out of a pond. It can also cause long term damage.

When multiple fish are doing the same behavior I tend to discount parasites and disease. While they can all be infected it is unusual for multiple fish to all act in the same way at the same time. Normally it's a one at a time type deal.

Hikari is an all silver koi, Bully is just the nickname I gave my Tancho Sanke because s/he is a bully when it comes to food. It will push the others away. "Bully" is also my largest koi at 12".

It's only been the 2 clearing the water and it was only 1 it ever happened; yesterday afternoon. I've never seen it before and haven't seen it happen throughout the day or even this morning.

Leak current? That sounds dangerous...and a lawsuit should I ever get shocked by the equipment. I put my hand in the water every now and then when I'm feeding brine shrimp/blood worm.

At the moment we dont know what filtration there is for the pond or even how many gallons the pond holds, how long the pond has been set up for has it cycled etc surely we must ask all this first
When newbies to the hobby ask questions its better to not try and confuse KH is one too many water perameter to check. Ammonia PH Nitriite and nitrate and PH are the ones we would stick with for the time being,at a later date the use of Lythaqua by Kusuri should take care of the KH should the need arise,
Oystershell used to be the one we used for this and recomended but its become old hat nowadays.
"Lithaqua is a form of calcified seaweed used extensively in the UK by koi keepers, it is available in the US thus probably over the net from the US Kusuri is the brand name and is well known by our club in the Southwest of the UK as many of its products are bought by us and the club is very friendly with the firm, its hard for a company to break into the Japanese market i;e like selling coals to Newcastle but Kusuri has managed to do this it also has markets in the US and EU as well as the UK".
As to currents leaking into the water then wev'e learned something today as in 26 years of koi keeping that is something that weve never come across or heard happen to anyone, thanx for the lesson.my friend it's been duely noted .
Parasites can and do cause fish to jump we are unclear as to if they both jumped out of the pond at the same time or one then the other later.
This can and does happen when koi are introduced to a water they are new too i;e coming in to a soft water area to a hard one.
We are unsure at the moment even how long the koi have been in the pond or if any sort of Quarentining was undertaken prior to them going into the pond .
Cant comment on the heater etc as we dont know anything about Canadian winters apart from what weve been told


Rgrds



Dave

Thanks Dave.

The Pond has been there for 4 years maybe. I bought the house this May/June 2012. Since then I did a fatal error of changing the water (100% - my own foolishness of not researching / asking questions). In doing so I killed my 8" showa and the 25 babies the Asagi and Showa had.

Since June I have added 4 more koi for a total of 6 (not sure if the 7th fish is a koi or goldfish).

My filter is a Tetra BP1500 with bio balls and a bag of activated carbon.
My UV light is a Tetra 9W and I'm unsure of the pump size.

The pond is good for 600 gallons. I plan to dig some more next year and get it to about 1000 gallons as I don't think it's big enough right now.

The fish jumped one after the other within a 5 minute interval.
 
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I have seen my koi jump and clear the water. I had one that jumped clear out of the pond and onto our driveway. It was found quick enough and survived. I had another that decided the lower goldfish pond looked more inviting and jumped over the wall into it. I know it didn't go via the waterfall as it was too big to fit through the weir. Maybe those were spooked by something but I don't know by what. They are familiar with the dogs and the dogs keep away the undesiribles...both the four legged and the two legged varieties as well as the winged creatures.

I have also seen them clear the pond water but it is rare. Usually in the early evenings and Ive only seen it a handful of times in the 17 yrs of our pond. I wouldn't worry to much about it unless you see it happening more. My professionial opionion is one fish said to the other
"You're too fat to clear the water".
"Am Not!"
"Are too!"
"I'll do it if you will"
"OK!"
One jumped
"See.. Your turn"
"Your tail didn't quite make it"
"Did to. You're afraid to do it"
"Am not!
"Are too!"
"Am not.. Here I go!"
And the second fish jumped.

:)

Craig
 
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Jim.e
Thanx for the reply I'd do maintenance i;e waterchanges on a monthly basis we actually do it weekly ou can buy a thing called a declorinator :-

http://www.vyair.com...sp?idproduct=68

This is a UK site but they should be available in your neck of the woods via the internet , they declorinate all your water when doing a water change they last for thousands of gallons before the insides need changing all you have to do is trickle the water back into the pond via your tap , with no need for dechlorination chemicals you save yourself quite a bit of money.
Research into your subject is a must and something weve done for 26 years building a huge library of koi/fish health books with titles Author names IBSN numbers and thanx to the former head of the AKAC one spike Cover we even reveiwed each book as we found them i;e helpful confusing etc. Weve posted this list on the website for all to use many books you can pick up via Amazon US at half the price you pay for them in bookstores you are more than welcome to use it this is what they were posted for .
Activated carbon is ok but you must remember to change the bag on a regular basis the 9 watt UV-C "question" is this the new generation UV-C I have a 36 watt AquaPond that is very similar and is again a new age UV-C , what does it say about changng th tubes am I correct they recomend 2 years ?
If so remember to do so .
Can you get hold of zeolite where you are ? this is good at keeping your ammonia levels down here they sell it in large bags buy two and keep one in reserve all you do is to make sure the water flows through it when you need to reactivate it place the spare bag in the flow and the spent bag in a bucket of salt for around 48 hours and its recharged ready in reserve ,
Normally your pump size is that of the filter unit i;e 1500 LPh or there abouts , our own is 3500 our pond size is 1,000 gallons imperial we own 14 koi ( overstocked I hear folks cry) but our pond is a former koi Dealership QT pond and designed to take many more koi than we have in it at this time not that we want anymore koi in it .
The acctual filter is overkill with three 32" vortex type filters the first is a vortex the next two have Jap Matting, (zeolite in the second with sponges) in the third we have Jap matting Lythaqua and filterwool the last is a barrel filter with k1, Aqua one bio balls, larger bio balls from another company and biochips.
Powering the second, third and barrel filters we have an airtec 40e with three airstones in the second and third fitler and six in the barrel filter with a second 40e supplying a spindrifter bottom drain cover as I said overkill .
Hope this helps some?
rgrds

Dave
 
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I've actually had that happen before with electrical shocking. It was years ago, I noticed some of the fish were swimming around the pond erratically, stuck my hand in the pond to clear a twig out of the water so they wouldn't get hurt on it and I got shocked! Not a huge shock, but enough to make me jump back. Never did figure out where the pump was leaking current, but replaced it and all was good.
 
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Fishylove sticking the one hand in most probably saved your life, it was a thing we had to remember in our large indoor setup but nothing ever happend all fishkeepers should know that.
But it shouldnt happen on the larger far chunkier outside rated equipment they are built to a far higher specification with thicker cable at least ours is we have armoured cable running to the control box and everything is designed to cut out should water and electrics get together it will blow a circet on our fuseboard which runs seperately to the rest of the house electrics.
How old was the equipment you were running at the time .
We have a set of two external sockets one for the pond the other for the QT tank and its systems.
The pond system is the airpumps the main inline pump and UV-C the QT system runs two further external sockets to llow the airpump wet dry pump and UV-C to run on.
Everything is supplied by the armoured cable which is sliced into and from a seperate set of external sockets at the side of our abode .
A reminder here folks "Never rig the electics up yourselves use a qualified electrician" at least then if something god forbid should happen like this you have comeback on it and you can start a lawsuit...
rgrds

Dave
 
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The amount of current laked is commonly way under what human can feel and under what will cause a GFI to trip. There's two ways to diagnose problems. One is to talk about the possibilities and talk yourself out of a potential problem using suspect logic. The other way is to test to see if a problem exists or not. In the case of electrical leakage the cost is less than $25 for a multimeter.
 

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