Oh that is lovely, you are very fortunate to have the water flowing in and out - that gives the fish very healthy water with not a lot of effort on your part! If this guy who advised you was the original owner, or at least had been caring for it a few years then don't mess with success. NO I would not vacuum - there could be frogs and critters living/ hibernating downt here. Maybe only scoop out leaves/debris if super excessive, but I guess I first would contact the county extension or someone who can advise about natural ponds (natural in the sense that its spring fed and could have other critters around besides your koi - obviously koi and goldfish are not native species!). Spend the year watching and observing and learning what kind of ecosystem you've got going. In the pic that looks to me like a very healthy, not excessive amt of algae. Ive learned to be a fan of carpet or string algae. You need some type of plant that utilizes the nitrate created by fish waste and leaf debris and since koi eat and make a mess out of mody aquatic plants, algae serves the purpose quite nicely. So you don't want to go hog wild removing too much of it! The alternative is green pea soup algae and that is BAD NEWS so learn to love your carpet algae!

Re the grass, I would just remove it by hand rather than rely on chemicals - lift the rocks gently, digging out the grass and the roots and plant some nice creeper or ground cover or edging type plants that fill in around the rocks and drape over them a little. (Im doing creeping thyme around mine which forms dense mats about 3-4 inch thick you can actually walk on (smells nice and has little purple flowers) but theres lots of other option, some that would be more native species and natural looking vs cultivated. Grass does hold the soil well though (due to its root system) and keeps dirt from washing in, so maybe you want to just seed in the bare spots and let it be grass? Lotsa possibilities!

Hey thanks for the feedback! I'll reply more soon but just wanted to show a couple things. First, yesterday was first feeding of the year and they were ravenous! Maybe I'll put a video on YouTube sometime..

Secondly.... the pond definitely gets some algea. String but also just... green water. Is that green pea soup algae? In the heat of the summer you can't even see the fish unless they come to top. Literally. He said it's like this every year.

Oh side note. Any idea what these fish are? Brown with sorta blueish stripes.. and lots of lil grey guys.

I went to scoop out the leaves once where it's piled up on th bottom down on the waterfall side.. and so so so much muck just started massively clouding the water so I got nervous for them and stopped.

I guess they'd be ok the other side would be clear still while I did it. It was a lot of sludge..

I go back and forth with wanting to clean or leave to be more natural. I just hate that they kick it up and make it hard to see them when you approach sometimes..

So when they are not active most the fish tend to hang down around this giant pot that is used to house lilies half the year. I assume anyway, it had some when I moved in and they died off by winter and I'll get more soon.

Is this just, coincidence, where they like to hang out, or is it an indication that they want something in there to hide under/around and I should try to accommodate that? I do know over there years there's the occasional blue heron that they had to scare away. I've had to a couple times. I don't think it's got anyone yet..

Be careful with feeding. Yes they are hungry but over feeding will mess with wter chemistry. Wheat germ pellets are good for spring feeding if your fish are in cold climate. How about a koi club in your area? I have a website I go to for questions/advice. It's been helpful for me.

Yeah I haven't fed since that day, I realize I should get some spring/fall stuff that's easier on the belly for coming out of the winter. :)

And a master water test kit. In my experience, things go bad quickly and usually on a Saturday night.

I dunno though, the man we bough it from said in 15 years he's not done a thing to it but let the water flow in, and out. :)

How has your pond progressed as spring is turning to summer? I'm
fairly new to ponding myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
Anyway, people tend to not want to plant out their koi ponds because koi
love to dig and root, and often the potted container is the only dirt
available to indulge them. If you don't want to do a lot of filtering
and you want to let nature run it's course, you've got to plant
anyway. You need enough surface coverage to shade out some algae, and
enough hungry plants to absorb some of the nitrates. I honestly don't
think you can do TOO good of a job filtering the water given what you've
really got is a open system. I have quite a few plants sitting on the
bottom in fabric pots with rocks covering the dirt just under the
water's surface, as well as lillies in fabric pots on the bottom (with
rocks to try and keep the koi from pulling them up).

Also,
the little grey fish, do they pretty much look like the gold fish?
Wild carp are grey and stripey; they are probably the result of
indiscriminate breeding.

Heya! Thanks for the reply. Well, so far so good but I'm sure green water is coming. ;) I got this barley type powder but, with the flow in and out its not real effective, it just kinda makes it way down the waterfall.

But last summer, the one summer so far I've had it, it was green and VERY slow flow in the heat of the summer. So, once it gets to that point again I'll bet the powder will be effective.

I'm debating how much cleaning of sludge to do from the bottom. We have some lillies and other flowering spreading floaters of some sort we just got, and a pot with a standing plant now.

The grey fish are bluegill. I've been spending time every so often catching them and minnows and transporting out, because I think the pond is pretty crowded. I've probably take about 100-150 out, almost all minnows and these other much smaller fish. I dunno what they are but not minnows. I'll get a picture of them next time. Probably 5 bluegill so far, they're harder to catch.

But, so far so good. :) We love them. Glad to be back to feeding season that's really fun. I walk to the pond and they all come up and gather together by me waiting for the food. :D

so far to the 2 smaller ponds on my property that had no fish. So they can help with the mosquitos. pretty much all have been minnows with a few other small things that I thought were minnows before catching. we do have various ponds nearby that I thought about going to but.. sounds like I would need to call first!

When you call you might skip the whole "I've already done this, so I'm calling to see if I can"....Just ask them what the state law allows, and go from there. And transplanting them on your own land may not be a legal defense either. Fish and game regulations are no different on public lands or private lands/water. Good luck. You may just have to cull the ones you don't need.

I do have 10 stray cats. Heh. Those I did NOT know were part of the house sale. I'm cough not going to mention cough how much they like fish..

The guys on the koi breeding forums often have to point out you need to develop thick skin when keeping koi, or actively sterilize their eggs with an egg mop. If you let them breed, you eventually have to play the part of the predator.

That's a nice looking pond. Wish I lived where fresh water was 'free'. Here, a hundred or so yards from one of the biggest harbors in the world, the only water my pond gets is from the sky via the rain barrels.

My house came with a small pond. Indeed, it appears to have been a neighborhood fashion statement fifty years ago, as several of the adjoining houses had 'em, though all but two have since been removed.

I would strongly suggest getting places for your fish to hide - both from the sun and predators - like herons. Aquatic plants like water lillies, but DON'T plant papyrus. This stuff will take over a pond. You'll find that the fish love places to swim into/under. Son-in-law dug up part of his yard and found a length of glazed terracotta drain tile 8" in diameter that wasn't connected to anything. The fish love this artifact. (You could probably find broken pipe in you area for free.) Another option is a slab of slate supported by inverted flowerpots at the corners. Plant shallow aquatic plants on top.

Cheers

I have no idea what is going on but, over the past 5 days three of my fish have died. One a few weeks ago too. Todays had blood coming out of his gills and I believe his fins/tail had the red streaks I have since read about. After the second one died (first over the past five days) I had someone come out and test the water, and he said the levels were fine and that I needed UV light, and a filter system with a waterfall. Several thousand dollars.

I'm sure he's right, I'm sure filtration and uv and movement would be nice. We have the spring water trickling in but in the summer it really is a trickle in (and out). I stood there yesterday with my house shooting in spring water from the well for half an hour hoping to get movement and oxygenate. Today another was dead.

So far its my biggest Koi, and the rest were goldfish. All older fish that were here first, none of our new ones that have been in there about a year now have died. I believe the ones that have were around 8 to 10 years old but I'm not sure.

Water is green right now and was this time last year, I am told in summer months it does that, all others it clears up. It has been true so far.

I'm very very frustrated right now. The guy we bought from said he never did anything but who knows how often fish died for him either. They have certainly never been pretty fish, the ones that were there already, they all looked like they haven't been in the best of shape - our new ones are so much prettier even a year later, healthier looking.

Still. I don't think putting all that money into this would be a best choice for us right now but I hate this and even worse, what if it didn't really help. Well, I'm sure it would..

I was really excited about and hoping for maintenance free.

I got a test kit, I think the guy that came out only checked pH. Soooo worth the 100 bucks. :( I have found pH to be 8.1 which, I read to be the high end of acceptable (so long as it's stable) (and it was evening which I understand to cause higher readings), and the 2 Ns to be at 0. but I found ammonia to be .25 and according to several writeups, this is very bad for the fish and after some time they will start to die. Worse, one place said higher pH readings will make the effects on the fish from ammonia a bit harsher.

So, I got a bottle of "top fin pond ammonia remover" which treats 1900 gallons. It was all they had. I think the pond is about 6k. I put that in according to instructions, and will test the water again tomorrow while also testing the well water. If the well water is good, I'm going to pump it in once a day to try to help flush out some of the pond water with fresh. True, it is the same water going in (overflow trickles into the pond) but maybe a flush of 500 gallons will do better than a trickle that might be getting tainted on contact with the pond water. I dunno.

Tomorrow I will also try to find 2 or 3 more bottles of the ammonia since I only put in enough for 2k gallons. Hopefully its okay to stagger like that and I don't need to put in enough for 6k all at once. 25 bucks a bottle!

Going to stop or cut well back on feeding while I work on this too. And, it'll be cooling off the next few days so hopefully that too will help.

I have this API Pond-Zyme sludge destroyer... barley etc... used to help clear the water. I am not sure if I should continue use at this point. Will it add to or help remove ammonia, does anyone know? I cannot find an answer out there.

So, 3 fish dead this week, one a few weeks ago. A couple months ago during mating season I lost one or two when a female being chased lept out and a male or two followed her. I got her back in as she landed at the base of the waterfall and chilled there till I found her, they died. (I assume, they were chasing her around like crazy for days, I read up on it and learned what that was all about..)

So, not been a good few months for me :(

Tested the spring water. It too has ammonia! Now I'm really worried about this, I don't know how to battle a constant feeding of .25 ppm ammonia. :(

Regarding the weeds, you can pour boiling water on them, use a fire weed torch or put black plastic over them until they die.

Regarding the water, you need plants, plants, plants and more plants. You need to have some waterfall or something, where the water is moved around and filtered. This will oxygenate the water and if necessary, put a separate aerator in the water. I do that in the summer. You want to try to build a balance that resembles nature.

For string algae problems, I have found high-fin sharks to be a miracle. I fought this every year, by hand pulling, putting chemicals in the water, which the fish barely tolerated. Last year I put in three baby high-fin sharks. This year they took care of everything and I had to do nothing.

I should note that I also do an approx. 10% or less water change every week unless I forget of course.

My pond is approx 4000 gallons, have 8 large koi and 3 high-fin sharks and of course mosquito fish.

Karin

I drained the pond completely last weekend and cleaned it. It had a foot of sludge at the bottom! Maybe not a foot but it sure seemed like it! Got electrical run down there, and a Airmax KoiAir 2 so I now have aeration (submersed) on both sides of the pond. We brought down all 5 things of lillies that were in the shallow frog ponds (and instead put some floaters in those), and there are floaters on top and some other plant we had bought that stands up out of the water in a pot. Also cut a 55g drum longways and made them a tunnel to go through and attached the put on top that.

All the water is testing perfect, and the fish seem really happy. Lots of movement and aeration happening now. Enough to where I'm concerned it'll actually make it seem dirtier because nothing will ever be able to settle! But, we'll see. Been going nearly a week now, so far so good.

The spring water contains ammonia? You may have to divert that water for a while and keep testing it until it zeros out. Ammonia yes will kill your fish! The ammonia-processing bacteria that live on the surfaces of the pond must undoubtedly be well established, and can process ammonia up to a point, but it could be they are overwhelmed by too much. Have you fertilized anything nearby with a high-nitrogen fertilizer? That could be contaminating the water.

Oopsie, cross-posting there. Glad your fish are okay.

Oxygen always helps in warm weather.

Oh I should have updated! No ammonia, spring is great. I was looking at results in poor lighting. Even the rainwater and everything was showing it until I realized it was the incandescent lighting. Everything when viewing outside in overcast or inside with neutral or cool or whatever leds shows perfect. :)

Looks very nice!

we have VERY small water feature compared to yours...dh feeds our gold fish once a day...we lost fish 2x before building a cover to keep heron out. I had seen a simple redwood structure, with clear roof...(the wavy stuff, lol) we do have bubbler, tiny water fall and of course filters...being in Michigan, and with freezing temps we add heaters to keep the water from icing up...your looks fantastic and you seem to be doing everything right...btw when you cleaned it out what in the world did you do with the fish? i'm afraid if I show your pond to dh he'll start digging, lol....

Hey thanks! We have put a lot of time and money into it, so it sure is nice to hear people say it looks good :) And really, it looks.... more natural than "nice" like most peoples which, I think I like. The waterfall though just goes into a ditch so isn't any benefit to the fish other than draining out dirty water. The aerators are new and they LOVE them, I can tell. They seem much happier.

We used kiddie pools and a truck bed. 180 gallons in the truck bed (be sure you calculate how much you can have, water is a lot heavier than most people think!!) and probably about 300 in the pool, I was afraid to put more because the second pool i was using to retain spring water burst... be sure to cover and aerate them. Couple of these picks were pre-shading..

They were very happy to go back in, swam around following each other, was funny. Now the water is much better. Still natural, leaves, moss, carpet algae, some dirt - but NOTHING like it was. You want to leave enough of that stuff to keep the ecosystem in check.. so I power washed the dirt out of all the carpet algae but left it, for example. Now they can swim around or jolt when I pop up above them when startled, and it doesn't turn into a cloudy mess :) I'm very pleased with the outcome. Still have a ways to go with what we would like to do, a little at a time, but much better.

Is that water hyacinth? Can't quite tell from the pics.... Be prepared to 'harvest' mass quantities, 'cause the stuff will take over. It will make a nice addition to the compost pile....

When I bought the house 35 years ago from an estate, the pond was absolutely filled with water hyacinth...must've removed a ton.... To my surprise, there were still a few goldfish hiding down bottom. From the looks of the yard and (no) landscaping by the little ol' lady former owner, I'm pretty sure the pond hadn't been touched for over four years. Never having 'owned' fish before, I refilled the pond with city water.... ;-(

Rain barrels were added soon thereafter.

Ouch with the city water! Yeah.. I've had to take out large amounts of those plants and toss them in compost. Don't recall what they're called but, they spread pretty dang fast. I do like how the aerator keeps them all on the sides. Now they don't bunch up at the exit and fish have consistent sleeping spots!

If you keep ahead of the water hyacinths, they can be an effective way of removing excess nitrogen from the ecosystem - and adding it to the garden at a later date, a win-win situation.... I've read about these being used by smaller rural sanitation systems to treat sewage effluent.

Cheers

I've put a few videos up of the pond, feeding them. I think the 3rd is the best, but the 4th shows the pond better. If anyone wants to see it :)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJTa-FT7U1BpFqo77GaG8Q

What are you filtering the water with? One thing you may consider, is adding some crushed clam/oyster shells into the filtration system (at the bottom). This will help regulate the pH of the water. If it's too acidic, it will attack the shells. The calcium in the the shells will neutralize the excess acid. (sort of like a Tums or Rolaids). I had a HUGE pH crash/spike a few years ago and lost all my fish. I have never had any fluctuation since, and the cost of the crushed shells is like $5 for a large bag. You'll not need more than 1 bag.

No filtration, it was built like this about 17 years ago with 2500 or so gallons of spring water coming in and going out a day. I did drain and clean it all as seen some of the way down this thread and put the aeration in but, otherwise nothing as far as I know has ever been done. All the levels every time I check are good, but I understand with that much spring water coming in a day anyway theres only so much you can do.

We do plan on adding filtration when we have the spare cash. We broke it up, this time (month or two ago I dunno) we ran electrical and drained and cleaned and put in aeration. It helped A LOT, very clearly happier fish. Next year hopefully maybe the following we'll move foward with filtration and a waterfall.

Course, it's been stocked with fix for a long time, the two big ones been there about 10 years, so I think it's okay. :) Not perfect, but natural and everyone seems happy.

Just added a new video to that channel. <3 my fish!

We bought a house with a ~6k gallon koi pond and I know nothing about koi. The "upper pond" is 6'x8' (filled with parrot feather), then waterfalls to the main pond with the koi (only 2 right now), which is 16'x18' - about 4 feet deep. The former owner said "maintenance-free; all you have to do is add a little water from the hose every once in a while." Meanwhile, the water irises have overgrown their pots - about a 5'x3' MASS of roots and plants; there are rocks on the bottom and sides where the koi are; parrot feather again on the bottom. I live in western NC. Should I remove and try to pot the irises? now or in the spring? Are you still supposed to do water changes in the winter?

Pics might help if you can get some and upload them :)

I am only about 15 months into Koi pond ownership myself so, let's let other's chime in. I will say - I don't believe winter is the best time to do a cleaning. I'm not sure but a) I would think while they are low metabolism and stuff it wouldn't be good to stress them out and b) I watched and read many koi cleaning articles before doing mine and everyone was doing it in shorts and tshirt season. Spring is probably good to get all the leaves that have fallen to the bottom if you're going to pick a season to stick with.

We did our first in Fall but, it was an emergency cleaning. We will probably do spring/summer schedules unless others chime in with something different.

Hi Jane, the upper smaller pond is called a bog and it's purpose is to clean your water and offer a naturalized setting. This is a good thing that someone planned that feature.
Your iris as with most of the water iris can be on the aggressive side. I divided mine with a saw a year ago. You wouldn't know that today though. I have Gamecock and Yellow flag. Yellow flag are super water cleaners. My gamecock has never bloomed but I do feed them with the approved pond tabs so as to not upset the overall environment. Personally, I would wait to divide as you could still get some cold snaps and they might be too stressed to handle the cold under those conditions. Placing them in a water garden plastic container/basket would make the job of dividing in the future much easier. There are many bog type plants to choose from.
I love parrot feathers. They like to float on top and koi like to eat them so it is better the two don't meet.

In regards to water: You might check to see if there is a koi club nearby or a garden center with knowledge about water gardens and koi. Of course the internet is full of information and it can be like the wild, wild west. You will run into many differences of opinions. I ran into that and it was very disheartening and totally confusing. In the end, it's up to you to do homework on water chemistry and how best to maintain your pond. I only say this because of experience and I hope you understand. I would gladly tell you what works for me but our ponds and environments are very different. Sad experience tells me that stuff happens on Saturday nights when there are no stores open to get emergency supplies so now I have those things, just in case. At minimum, you should know how to test your water.

The good news is your pond is established meaning you have all those beneficial bacteria working for you. That can take months to get going. The first year of a pond can be an adventure :(

Barring an ammonia spike, the bacteria should be able to handle the majority of work. Prior owners said to just add water occasionally. That probably would be okay because of your total volume. Doing the whole chlorine removal probably isn't necessary unless you are changing out thousands of gallons. A couple of hundred gallons added to what you already have will dilute it enough, I would think.

Looking to the immediate future, spring is coming which will mean a food change. Water warms up, bacteria get more active. I would imagine the number one mistake people make is overfeeding. When the water temp. is low, you might not feed at all. The fish's metabolism slows down and food won't process. Koi can live in iced over conditions with a small vent hole for gasses to escape. They can do this for a long time so don't feel you are torturing them. But then spring comes and they are hungry and you need to be careful with the type and quantity of food because they will make a lot of waste and your bio filter needs to warm up in order to process waste.

Are your Koi more cigar shaped (male) or rounder (female)? Spawning season is coming and that affects water quality too. Finally, think long and hard about adding more fish until you feel really confident in your maintenance routine. You probably will have to muck out the debris on the bottom, old leaves and such. Does this pond have a liner? Cleaning it out is messy and exhausting. Your filter will need to be cleaned or backwashed and you should check all your equipment for wear and tear. Pumps do wear out mostly when you least expect it. Hopefully they left you some notes on the how, what, where for reference.
Did the prior owners take care of this themselves or hire a service?
I hope this helps a little. Have a great day!

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately, there is no pond/koi club in the area. I have been pestering the garden supply store guy weekly (we're on a first name basis now). There is a black liner in both the bog and the pond. Um, bio filter? what does one look like? There are 2 plastic mesh filters - one with the waterfall, and one I put in in front on the pump in its "box." I believe no maintenance has been done at all on any part of the pond/pump/filters. No notes at all. Maybe it's not parrot feather, as they stay at the bottom - they're not floating. Since I can't see the bottom of the pond (covered with plants), it probably is a mess down there with debris, etc. I added a bottle of bacteria about 2 months ago - will I need to do that again when it warms up? Should I be doing water changes now, even though the pond is starting to freeze? Do I need to add a bag of both lava rock AND a bag of oyster shells? The koi are more cigar-shaped, so I guess they're males. I definitely won't be getting any more fish until I see if I can keep these alive.

can you get a pic of the filters?

I'd like to see pics of it all!

does your pond have aeration to keep from completely freezing over?

I"ll take pics tomorrow when the sun is out. The pond has 2 waterfalls -1 into the bog and 1 into the "main pond." I don't have a separate aerator. Thanks everyone for the help.