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Introduction:
Minnesota has some extreme weather conditions
that call for special measures when trying to overwinter koi outdoors.
This article is written with the assumption that your pond is deeper
than the frost level in your area. With MN temps dipping into the
-40°F range, the frost level can be 4 feet deep or more.
A pond with an area 5 feet or deeper is the most reliable depth of a
pond for over-wintering koi in MN.
Koi ponds shallower than 4 feet can be over-wintered but the risk of
death and gill damage becomes greater, and the ability to keep the
pond from freezing solid becomes more difficult and expensive.
If you are just starting out, do yourself a huge favor and put a
deep area in your new pond!
So, how can your koi be over-wintered safely? The only 100% effective
method is to bring them indoors! However, by applying the methods described
below your koi survival rate outdoors will be higher and much more reliable.
Read on.
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How can koi be kept alive in |
1) Minimize Population:
Do you have too many fish to over-winter?
Consider this... ...during the winter in an overstocked koi pond, generally speaking,
the largest, most expensive specimen fish dies first,
then the next largest, and the next.
Big dead bodies in the pond create excessive toxic ammonia
and more fish continue to die. By springtime only a handful of the smallest,
hardiest fish are left.
Again, do you have too many fish to over-winter?
How many koi can I have in my pond?
A healthy pond with adequate or (better yet) excessive filtration can only hold a limited
number of fish before health issues start arising. The general rule of thumb
is that one mature, 30"+++ full-sized koi needs about 1,000 gallons to live comfortably.
Smaller fish require
less space. A 12" koi would be comfortable in about 100 gallons, but next year there will
be overcrowding issues. Some folks dispose of their koi every season. Please contact
the KOI KONNECTION if you dispose of your fish at
the end of the season. We find suitable homes for your fish so they can continue on in size.
When evaluating the population of your herd, you'll have to decide if you want to keep
a couple larger specimens, or keep more smaller fish, or just risk it and see what happens.
In 2006 my winter pond was minimized to a couple medium quality mid-sized koi and a couple large
goldfish. Two 15" koi were donated to the Koi Konnection
(ask me) where they found a 25,000 gallon
pond to live in, a bunch of small koi, goldfish, and hybrids were stripped from the pond and
brought into basement aquariums, and my especially nice 18" koi was brought indoors to
winter in a heavily filtered stock tank with a few 6 inchers and my grand-daddy 10" goldfish
to keep him company.
Clickable
Taxonomic Tree of the Plant Kingdom.
PerryPost@plantkingdom.com