Koi Care - Starting Out - New Pond

When we create our first pond, we get excited about the introduction of koi. We cant wait to take the family to the local aquatic store and buy a load of fish. The wife wants to choose a couple, and so do the kids and before you know it, you have purchased 10 koi! Adding 10 new koi to a pond full of sterile water is a recipe for disaster. Humans cannot live in a 100% sterile environment and neither can fish. Tap water is by its nature as close to sterile as can be (to make it safe for human consumption). To do this, chlorine (and other chemicals) are added to the water. And while tap water is often rich in other minerals, the chlorine is harmful to koi. Chlorine not only kills bad bacteria, but it also neutralises good bacteria that is needed to process Ammonia and Nitrites. This bacteria is cultivated on our pond filter media.

But now imagine a new pond, with 10 new koi, with high content chlorine in the water, new filter media that has not had time to build a good bacteria colony. The outcome is a very sterile environment where Ammonia and Nitrite will build very quickly. Please refer to the Water Keeping page.

So how do we overcome this? Firstly, we get the pond up and running with no fish at all. We make sure the tap water used is dechlorinated and we allow the pond to cycle. We like to leave our pond a few weeks with no fish. Then we slowly introduce 1 or 2 small koi to start the Ammonia cycle. We allow the filter media to start the bacteria cycle and we gently cultivate good bacteria. We check water parameters daily and trend how the Ammonia and Nitrites are being handled. Once we see the initial spike of Nitrites start to convert to Nitrate, we know that the good bacteria is building up. After a while we can slowly add some more koi - but we must always keep an eye on water parameters.

if you are setting up a new pond and want more info, we would be happy to give you a 15 minute free of charge chat… you will learn a lot, save some money and prevent koi deaths!