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Toward the end or even better the middle of summer it is time to start thinking about fall and wintertime and what you should do with your fish and pond. Hopefully during the summer you fed your fish as much as your filters could handle to prepare the fish for the approaching wintertime. It is very important to feed your fish a fresh, high protein food during the summer so when they go into dormancy during the wintertime they can use stored body mass to sustain them. You really can’t over feed your fish but you can over feed your filter. So please test regularly for ammonia and nitrite when you increase your feeding schedule.
The care, health and feeding of your fish in the summer is very important for how your fish go into the wintertime and emerge in the spring thaw. That is why it is important to use a fresh, good quality food. You should replace your food according to the expiration date on it and do not feed last year’s food. The koi will still eat it but it could be rancid and most vitamins will not stay stabilized in the food for extended periods of time unless the food is vacuumed packed every time it is opened. You would not eat Wheaties from last year would you? Then you should not expect your koi to eat old food. Don’t miss understand me, they will eat old food but it is better to feed them fresh food. Here are a few general things to consider about food and feeding. During the summer or when the water temperature reaches 70° feed the fish a high protein food to help them gain weight and grow. Gradually cut back on the high protein food as the water temperature drops between 55° and 60°. At these lower temperatures you want to cut back on the amount of food you give and start using a lower protein food, most of these are wheat germ based foods. Be on the safe side and read the feeding instructions on the can or bag to see what temperature they recommend to feed what type of food and how often to feed it. Most manufactures recommend something slightly different from their competitors so read the label on the food you are feeding. When the water temperature is expected to be below 45° on a consistent basis, stop feeding. Watch the weather forecast, you do not want to feed when the water temperature is near 45 or 50 if there is a cold snap on the way. Your fish could become sick if they have undigested food in their intestines when a cold snap hits, especially if the colder temps last for any length of time. Please feed smart, your koi will not starve to death and you should know when to feed, what type of food to feed and how much to feed. As the water cools off in the fall or when it is cool but warming in the summer you can experiment with feeding your koi fresh vegetables. You would be surprised how many different fruits and veggies your koi will eat. Watermelon and oranges are a couple favorites. Here is a recipe for some homemade food by Dr. Art Lembke, Past Mid Atlantic Koi Club President:
Dr. Art Lembke's Cubed Koi Food Reciep
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10 oz frozen collard greens
10 oz frozen peas and carrots
5 oz imitation crab meat
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
3 tbsp wheat germ
3 cups water for puree
6 pkts Knox unflavored gelatin
3 cups boiling water
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Mixing Directions
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Combine first 6 ingredients in blender to puree {may need to do 1/2 at a time}. Place puree in large bowl. In separate bowl dissolve gelatin in boiling water and stir. Combine gelatin with puree mixture and stir. Pour mixture into small ice cube trays that have been sprayed with Pam. Recipe makes about 12 trays. Place in freezer with waxed paper between trays if stacking them to prevent sticking. Feed frozen cubes as needed.
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About the same time that you start to cut back on food you might want to consider mucking out a lot of the debris that has accumulated in the bottom of the pond such as leaves, twigs and debris from water plants. If you can clean this stuff out without changing all of the water in your pond you will be better off. Water changes are a good thing but when you do a water change you don’t want to change the water parameters too much. A few smaller changes over a longer period of time are better then one large change. Water conditions like pH, temp and total alkalinity should be kept as consistent as possible. The pond walls are home to a large portion of the beneficial bacteria that live in your pond so it isn’t recommended to scrub the pond walls, this will kill the beneficial bacteria and possibly cause your water to turn cloudy or even worse cause you to have an ammonia or nitrite spike. Now would also be a good time to cut back any plants that you have to keep them from shedding into your now clean pond water. It would also be a good time to move the plants that over winter into the deeper part of the pond. If you live in a climate where frost or cold weather occurs it would probably be smart to completely remove the water hyacinth and water lettuce. I have seen these plants turn black and sink over night from an unexpected heavy frost, completely polluting an already clean pond.
You can add pond salt to the pond if you feel the need. The fish will definitely like the soothing effect it gives them as well as killing some unwanted parasites if they have any. Some plants do not respond well to salt so you might want to consider whether adding salt is right for you and your plants. Aquarium Pharmaceuticals makes a test kit to measure salt accurately enough for our purposes so read the directions well and measure the salinity levels if you decide to use salt.
After you have discontinued feeding and cleaned the pond another winter precaution is to have a pond deicer ready to help keep a whole open in the surface of the ice. You can use a birdbath deicer or a cattle troth deicer but a pond deicer is probably best. Some have a built in thermostat to control when it runs so that it will only run when it is cold enough. This is a smart energy saving feature considering the average pond deicer draws from 1200 to 1500 watts of electricity so you can see how is important. This is not a pond heater and should not be confused with one, but it is a very important item to have for winter. You need to keep the hole in the ice for gas exchange between the surface of the water and the atmosphere. You can use a small air bubbler to do this but I have seen these freeze over on a cold day. I have also seen people use their waterfalls and fountains to keep their surface hole open but this can work against you if the water freezes and cracks a pipe. Also a fountain or waterfall can have a super cooling effect on the water bringing the temp down to uninhabitable conditions for fish. I had a customer that insisted that he have his waterfall run during winter. He refused to turn it off because it looked so beautiful when it froze. I have seen plenty of frozen water falls in nature and this is a beautiful look that I would like to recreate in my back yard too but when his waterfall started to freeze it allowed the water to channel outside of the pond rather then back into the pond. His pond drained leaving a 3” thick coating of ice on the surface but nothing underneath. Please be careful this winter to keep your fish warm and safe as you can.
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