Koi Ponds: Freezing Ice Cold Winter Weather
More Top Pond Keeping Tips: Click image right for UK pond products. Any pond pump with a guarantee of less than 2 years is probably not suited to most pond environments. Short term guarantees indicate lack of product confidence in difficult environments such as ponds. For safety sake use with the longest possible cable and avoid joining wires if you can. It is always best to wire a pump directly into the earth leakage system of the house rather than depend upon a plug and socket. If you do join wires outdoors use waterproof cable connectors.
Koi & Gold Fish in Winter
So what do Koi think of the UK weather and winter?
So long as the conditions are not in the real extreme koi are quite happy to lay back, endure the sleet, snow, frost, rain and wind and rest until spring when the urge to awaken and procreate kicks in.
If you've fed your koi or goldfish well in summer and put them on a leaner diet of wheatgerm in autumn you have done the best you can to help your koi through the winter months.
Wheatgerm
is a great koi food for use in the autumn months and also for occasional
use in tiny quantities for those days in winter when the sun shines,
conditions are breezy, the pond water warms and the fish start to move.
If you've cleaned out all the muck and debris out of the pond and biofilter created by the those windborne falling leaves, in their once splendid autumn colours, bird droppings, fish faeces and whatever else found its way into the pond and you've given that biofilter a good clean out then you're well on your way to tackle winter koi keeping.
Sponsored Products...
In the long run the most expensive part of fish pond keeping is the cost of food. It pays to buy the best yet most economical.
Bradshaws Koi Food (and winter Wheatgerm) is fantastic value for money in modern sensible koi food packaging.
The natural solution to green water and blanketweed. Viresco is specially made in the UK
Viresco sold worldwide is A natural algae solution.
Keep that fish pond bottom clean with reliable
Pond Vacuum from Bradshaws
25 year guarantee
pond liner
Testing
pond water can in itself become an intriguing and interesting hobby.
Get a
reliable test kit however.
And,
by the way, if you don't want to get in the pond and clear out the muck
then consider a pond vacuum cleaner or pondvac for short. The picture
is of the
hozelock pond vacuum model but there are a few different kinds you
can choose from... from very cheap to the very expensive (OASE
Pondvac models are the best by far but also the most expensive)
It's important to clean out the settled debris in the fishpond since it will be a source of pathogenic bacteria in the spring when weather starts to warm up and all of God's creatures, good and bad, wake up as well.
Keep Your Koi in the Spare Room
I know it gets cold in that spare bedroom but it's warmer than outside. If you do this make sure you use pond water and not tap water and do not feed the koi fish at all under any circumstances.
