What plants will Koi leave alone?

[BennyLava]

I have recently built a new pond, and I need to add some plants to the plant shelf in the pond. But I don't want to buy plants that my fish are just going to eat. I would like to have a wide variety of plants, and I have goldfish as well as koi in my pond. So which species of plants will the fish leave alone?

 

[koikeepr]

none. they will toy with pretty much any plant unfortunately. You need to build a plant ring for them to leave a plant alone.

 

[mrsclem]

Plastic works well- but seriously if you put your plants in with the pots edge right at water level they won't be able to get into them. Just make sure they are weighted down with gravel or rocks so any large koi can't drag them off the shelf.
I modified the plant ring plans from here to include fabric all the way to the pond bottom for my lilies.

 

[koiguy1969]

my guys leave my lillies alone...but nothing else, i have my pond iris's "bare root" in milk crates now that i split the big a$$ root ball in half thery eat the roots that stick out past the crate, but theres plenty of root to support them nicely.

 

[BennyLava]

Ok thanks for the help. Now I'm curious:

How do plants actually help reduce ammonia levels? Is the ammonia absorbed into the plant through their roots? Or is it absorbed though the stems and leaves?

 

[koiguy1969]

the bacteria in your filter break down ammonias to nitrites then to nitrates the plants feed on nitrates.....thats the short story, read up on the nitrification cycle

 

[MikeyToo]

I tend to think the eating habits of koi are similar to humans in that we all have stuff we like to eat and stuff we push aside. Some ponders have a terrible time with koi damaging plants and others do fine. The koi leave my water lilies alone except for an occasional bite now and then......but that of course could change...... I completely covered the soil surface of the potted lilies with Home Depot river rock (roughly 2"x3") and that prevents my koi from rooting around. I used to have lots of water hyacinths in the pond and the koi may have nibbled at the roots but if they did it didn't harm the plants because they flourished. Last year some raccoons took a liking to my water hyacinths and ate most of them and I have now removed all of them so as not to attract the raccoons..... Of course the more koi you have in your pond the odds will increase that you will have some that takes to eating plants.... I only have two large koi and roughly 15-20 comets, shubunkin, wakin and goldfish.

 

[Squidhead]

Ok thanks for the help. Now I'm curious:

How do plants actually help reduce ammonia levels? Is the ammonia absorbed into the plant through their roots? Or is it absorbed though the stems and leaves?

It really depends on the plant, true aquatic plants (plants that grow completely under water) and some marginal or bog plants, and though I am not sure but am guessing floating plants use ammonia directly from the water column. They "prefer" their nitrogen in ammonia form for food. This is actually how they keep nitrogen levels down. They use ammonia before it's converted. This is how in a planted aquarium and possibly ponds also, if you get the plants that use ammonia as a source for nitrogen growing good, then add your fish, you wont even detect ammonia or nitrite in tests. Bacteria does grow in the biofilter media, but not as much as in a pond with no plants because it's not required. I used to have links for more aquarium or pond related purposes, but here is an article from a quick search on the subject - http://www.water-research.net/Watershed/ammonia.htm

 

[CliffandJoann]

Taro, they don't like taro, it tastes like glass to them. :regular_waving_emot

I love hyacinth, problem is, so do the koi, they eat the bulbs
and destroy the plant in a few days. They even rip off the moss -- like a bad toupe,
on our precious moss rocks !

This is what we do, we continually rotate the hyacinths ( and water lettuce too)
between the
biological pond and the main pond. We call it going to rehab, the koi munch on
the hyacinths for a couple of days and then we scoop they out and put them
in the biological pond and replace the ones we took out, with last weeks
hyacinth. If you don't have another pond, use a large tub or kiddie pool to hold the hyacinth.
Be sure to use mosquito dunks in the tub or kiddie pool.

The water lettuce fair much better in the pond than the hyacinth does.

 

[BennyLava]

Well I know one plant that they freakin love. Parrot feather. They are that up like it was candy or something. Forgoing other plants just to get the parrot feather.

 

[PurpleDingo]

This post says koi won't eat lotus but can anyone confirm that?

 

[Angel]

I have a few plants in the pond in plastic baskets lilly and arrow and i think an irisi all are good i just use rocks to fill the baskets and cover roots all are good so far 3-4 years or better and going.

 

[Jhn]

@PurpleDingo I have kept lotus in my pond with koi for 9 years and they have left it alone. However, I let it grow throughout the shallow end of the pond for a few years before I opened the whole pond up to the koi. So at this point koi could be nibbling at it but there is so much of it I don’t notice.

 

[Lisak1]

Our koi pulled all the lotus tubers out of the pots before they started growing last year. They didn't eat them - just curious I think. Once they had aerial leaves we put the pots back in the pond and they left them be.