Preparing Koi Fish Pond for the Spring Season
Running a Koi fish pond in the spring season is tricky and can be a very dangerous time for your Koi Fish. Any wrong decision or misstep can get the Koi sick. But with the right care, you can enjoy the spring season with peace of mind as your Koi grow healthily.
Tips to Prepare and Maintain Your Koi Pond for the Spring Season
Clean out debris and other forms of dirt: there might be rocks, residue, and debris from plants, green moss and so on at the bottom of your pond. While preparing the Koi fish pond for the spring season, you must remove as much debris and dirt as you can.
Leaving the debris or dirt between the rocks in your pond will create serious problems and contaminate the quality of the pond water, causing serious issues to your Koi's health. You must take your time, and thoroughly clean your pond to get it ready for the spring season.
Check Water Temperature
This is as important as clearing out the debris from your pond. You have to ensure that the temperature of your Koi fish pond water is stable (between 50-55 F). If you do not have a floating thermometer, you will need to get one for your pond.
Koi are cold-blooded, and they cannot control their body temperature. Their body temperature and behaviour are determined and controlled by the environment they are in (the water temperature of the pond). The floating thermometers will ensure you keep a tab of the water temperature and you will be able to make accurate decisions about your Koi.
Treat Your Koi Fish Pond
When the water temperature of your pond becomes stable at around 50-55 F, your Koi will become active and start looking out for food. You, however, at this point must hold back on feeding them.
After a long season of fast, Koi are usually weak with a low immune system. So, instead of feeding them straight away, what you must do is to pay attention to the risk of potential parasites and bacteria that might have attached to your Koi before they became active. This treatment should be applied twice yearly, at the beginning of spring, and at the end of the season.
You can use products like Koizyme, Proform C, and any other antibacterial products that are good for your Koi. While using these treatments, ensure you find out the water level of your pond and the correct amount needed for the treatment process. This will prevent an overdose of treatment for your Koi, as well as provide the optimum levels of treatment to fight off the pathogens.
Activate Your Filter
During winter, a lot of fish pond owners usually deactivate their filters. If your pond is fitted with a mechanical filter or biological filter which you have previously turned off, you need to turn the filter back on to control the nitrogen cycle in the Koi fish pond.
Remember to clean the filters and get rid it of any waste or left-over water before re-activating or running your filter for the spring season. Add beneficial bacteria into the filter or directly into your Koi pond.
This beneficial bacteria will fight off the harmful bacteria in your Koi fish pond and kick start the nitrogen cycle that will keep your Koi in a good and healthy condition.
Be Careful With Feeding Your Koi
Possibly the best and most important part of rearing your Koi fish is the feeding. However, you must be careful and relaxed about this process. Most Koi fish owners are eager about feeding their Koi and a lot of times rush into the process. This is not good, as you need to be patient and careful while feeding the Koi so they won't have digestion problems.
The Koi have to be fed through a controlled process because they are just coming out from a long fasting season and their digestive system may not ready for this type of food.
For this reason, you need to start feeding your Koi with feeds that are soft, nutritious and very easy to eat and digest for them. This will enable them to eat proper food and gradually restore their digestive system to a normal condition, enough for more food options.
Things you can feed your Koi will include water soaked-pellets which will be easy for the Koi to digest. You can take a step further and use Manda Fu Koi food. This is currently the most digestible feed for your Koi with 98.2% rate of digestion. The Manda Fu Koi food also contains Manda Nishiki, a highly nutritious enzyme made by fermenting a fine selection of different fruits and plants, popularly used by the Japanese. This makes Manda Fu the ideal feed to give your Koi.
Physical Protect Your Koi Using Pond Netting
Just as your Koi are warming up for the spring season, many other animals and critters also come out of hibernation and hiding to feast. It is important to physically protect your Koi using a fine mesh netting as a barrier.
Even though your pond may be in an enclosed area, the animals will find gaps to intrude or birds will fly in. Use netting that is strong with a fine mesh so your pond water does not get murky from debris. This saves you a lot of work in the long run as you will not need to clean out the pond as often.
To install the pond netting correctly make sure the netting is floating just above the waterline. This ensures your Koi are out of harm's way and the collected debris won't get washed into the pond.
AlpineReach Pond Netting range is specifically designed with these qualities in mind. The strong mesh netting provides good flexibility to stretch across your pond. The netting is woven using a special process to give a fine mesh that is very effective at collecting debris. All this is conveniently packaged in a roll which makes it very easy to handle.
Final Thoughts and Tips
If you get all this in place, we are very sure that your Koi fish pond will be very readily prepared for the spring season. Feeding your Koi should not be rushed. You must take the utmost care when feeding your Koi.
- Give them the best easily digested food only
- Always keep their water clean
- Keep tabs on the pond water temperature
- Install and activate filters
- Regularly check up on your Koi and treat the pond water when necessary
- Physically protect your Koi by installing Pond Netting