What is my required minimum pond size?

[throwingcopper81]

Good Morning Everyone,

I have recently built my first pond and made an apparently normal (have been reading on here for the past few weeks) rookie mistake of making my pond too small. I wanted only goldfish, hubby added two koi (he did the majority of the work, I couldn't say no one is around ten inches, one is btw 5-6 inches. The pond is 458 gallons, other fish include a small school of rosy minnows for mosquito control, a large comet, four small comets, two small shubunkins, a couple of snails and a crayfish. I realize that it is much too small for long term, will be rebuilding this fall. I am wanting to be conservative with money bc we are planning to build our perfect pond in our new home in a year or two. I am sort of considering this pond a learning experience for our future pond. Water tests have all been within normal limits, fish appear active and happy. My ultimate question is how long will I be ok if I only increase the pond size to around 1200 gallons? Is that going to be too small? I am unsure how much the koi will grow before the move. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[sissy]

welcome and yep that is usually what happens and don't feel bad no one told me how big koi get either and had to build bigger ,but never thought they would get to be over 2 ft long GEEZE :cheerful: took my fish 9 years to get this big and only thing I can suggest is extra filtering because they produce a lot of waste.I am thinking of a 3rd filter
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[slakker]

I visited my local pond expert and he has a mud bottom pond fed by a spring... his oldest and largest koi is 26 years old and about 2 feet long!

I just built a 1000-1200 G pond and think I'm in the same boat as you... too small a pond for what I want to eventually keep!

 

[sissy]

I wonder why his fish are that small after 26 years and mine are 9 years old .I took just my aggie out and measured her and she was just over 2 ft last year and not sure about this year .I know here we don't get much of a winter though so maybe that is it and i only feed mine 3 or 4 times a week .Less waste to filter .I want to do a haydite filter by itself just to see how it works .

 

[throwingcopper81]

Thanks for your input guys.....maybe fish growth is not easily measured? I keep worrying that if I can't get like 2000 gallons now that I will begin to have problems but bc I can't add much to my surface area I can't get much more than 1200 gallons.

 

[Mmathis]

Welcome!

Here is a link that might be helpful, at least as a guideline. It's a fish-load calculator.

http://www.your-garden-ponds-center.com/fish-load-calculator.html

 

[sissy]

I think as long as you filter well you should be safe for 3 years or so and that should give you time to find your dream home .Are you staying in WV as it gets colder there so you may need deeper or get a pond heater .I retired here because it was cheaper and warmer than NJ .People at my other house came from Richlands WV

 

[dieselplower]

I ballpark 50 gallons per fish in my pond.

 

[slakker]

Woo hoo... with that calculator, I can keep at least 1 fully grown koi... LOL!

 

[throwingcopper81]

Thanks again everyone! We are planning on remaining nearby in Northern VA, close in miles but definitely slightly milder weather. We are planning on digging to 4' and on purchasing a pond de-icer.

Another question that I have read conflicting info about is .....Do minnows ( I think that I have 6) count toward your fish load? I have read that they do and then some people say that they do not. They tend to remain in my pond's very shallow areas and seem to be doing a great job of maintaining water movement and mosquito control.

 

[dieselplower]

Wow that calculator was very interesting. 20 gallons per inch of goldfish!

 

[Dave 54]

Koi unfortunately are the only fish that outgrow the boundries of what pond they live in and a larger pond would be advisable for them .
Some of the Jumbo koi can acheive 3 ft in length but most between 22" and like our own largest 28".
When building a pond for koi I wold suggest upping your filtration to a multi chambered filter for Koi by the way dont have a stomach just a intestine where the goodness is taken up from and they pass qute a bit of waste out of there anal vent thus the larger filtration .
You will however have time to build that dream pond

rgrds

Dave

 

[Jason]

That means I can only have 25" of fish

 

[mrsclem]

OOPS- I'm in trouble on both ponds!

 

[Fishylove]

Welcome to our forum! :wave:

Unless you were to have a ton of minnows, I wouldn't worry to much. Good luck