Waking Fish Ponds

During the warmer weather, we talked with a few customers that were picking up the supplies they need to get their ponds opened up and running. One of the main things we recommend adding, and add ourselves, is a beneficial bacteria. If you look at the water as an open volume of space, either good bacteria is going to be there or bad bacteria is going to be there. The reason we add the beneficial bacteria, the good bacteria, is because it helps break down the fish waste and any plant material that gets in there and starts to rot. It helps clean that water up and make a better environment for the fish to grow and flourish.

We’ve got guys here on staff, several of us, that have had ponds or been keeping fish in ponds for many, many years. We also test water for free. If you want to bring a sample your pond water in, we’ll test that water here and make sure all the parameters look good and look right. Sometimes by testing the water, we can tell you exactly what you need to do to adjust the water so that it’s the optimum environment for those fish.

The other thing that we add in the springtime is a little bit of pond salt. And people think well, they’re freshwater fish, why do they need salt? The slime coating of the fish, which is a big part of their immune system, about 80 percent of it is the electrolytes found in salt. We add just a little bit of salt to the water and that helps the fish, like us taking vitamin C. It keeps them as healthy as they possibly can be.

Now you should start feeding your koi fish when the water temperatures are above 50 degrees. Their digestive tract isn’t very active below 50 degrees and you don’t want the food to get compacted in their gut. The water temperature rises up in the daytime, but it cools right back off at night.  When you start feeding, you want to make sure the filtration system and the pumps are turned on, and the filter is working. Add a little fresh bacteria about a week before you start the feeding process. Usually around the first week of April everybody’s getting their pumps fired up again and running, and then by the second or third week of April that’s when we’ll start feeding.

Double check your fish food! As long as there’s no mold on the food that food should be feedable You don’t want to feed food more than a year old because the food does spoil, and it loses nutrient value. As long as the food’s less than a year old and there’s no mold present on the food when you look at it. The mold has something called aflatoxins, and those aflatoxins can actually kill the liver and the kidneys of the fish.

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).

Our Portage location has everything you need to get your pond back up and running and healthy. If you’re looking to build one, we can do that too!