Small move

[mingus2112]

Newbie here! I've got a lot of questions, but i'll leave most of them until AFTER i've gone through old posts. Don't want to reask questions that have already been asked AND answered!

We just moved to our new house in December and inherited 2 fish filled ponds. They're a mixture of Koi, Goldfish and Catfish. I have some cleaning filtering questions, but again, i'll ask later. Right now i'm wondering about moving the fish.

There are 2 roughly 300 gallon odd shaped ponds. After cleaning (the one pond we had no idea if there were fish in it!) we found that the back pond had 3 Koi and 3 Catfish and the front pond had 2 Catfish and a mixture of 10 more Koi and Goldfish! (the front one was the one we couldn't see into) Today I came home to find a headless Koi! No doubt from a duck (we live 2 houses down from a park with a duckpond!). We're thinking of moving some fish from the front pond to the back pond. Seems silly to have 12 in one and 5 in the other! Most of the fish in the 12 fish pond are smaller, but it's still a huge difference. I also think that the abundance of fish in that pond is why we have trouble keeping it clean.

I've found a lot of resources on moving Koi, but nothing about moving them 6' to a new, almost identical pond. From the test strips i've used (paper strips in a bottle from Lowes) it seems as if the water is the same and the temp is definitely almost if not THE same. Would it stress the Koi too much to scoop 2 of them out and put them in the back pond? The only variables would be the clarity of the water and the other fish.

-James

 

[koiguy1969]

welcome to the group MINGUS2112 LOTS OF GOOD READS HERE

 

[mingus2112]

Thanks! Hope you all can handle all the questions i'll have! The previous owners didn't do a very good job with the ponds and I think the filtration system is the first thing that will need to be replaced. First thing's first though. Don't want to move these poor things from one pond to another and stress them to death!

 

[newbieincalifornia]

I would say if there is a large enough difference in size that the larger fish could possibly eat the smaller ones. But if you pick out the largest and fastest swimmers it should be ok. Just on the safe side though I would bag them with their pond water and leavePLENTY of air in the top let them float for a while and pour a cup or two of the new pond water into the old pond water wait a while (15 minutes) and do it again repeat a few times just incase there are differences in the water, you dont want to shock them. The only other thing I can think of is parasites or desease that cold possibly infect the larger fish but if the smaller over populated pond survived all that then I'm sure they are fine.

 

[newbieincalifornia]

Oh and net them out of the bag don't dump the (what should be) now mixed water of both ponds, just to be safe.

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the forum , Let us know how it goes.