Koi eating water lily

[underpressure]

We have several Koi in our water garder they have started eating our water lily's....its not from lack of food!  Does anyone know what to do?  Its killing me! 

[ThornyGardener]

My dog had his dinner tonight but 10 minutes later I left my plate on the coffeetable and he ate my hamburger.  Can't leave an delicious burger around a dog even if he just ate. Same goes for lilies and koi. I moved my plants to a separate lily pond. Good luck.

[tinkster]

oh I am so with you on this.  This is the year I think I am gonna have to make the call that it either becomes a koi pond and I let them have their way with the lilies or they gotta go.  It only gets worse as they get bigger.  Almost every single lilly I have is unpoted and floating in the water.  For now I am letting them just float and give me the shade coverage I need till I decide what to do. 

I dont know how big your koi are but mine didnt start eating my plants till last year.  I was able to cover the pots with rocks and that helped but this year they are so huge the rocks dont detour them.  I think its because I have had these fish so long and kind of chuckled at others that said their koi bothered the plants and mine didnt touch them.

Be great to hear if there is someway to have both!

tink

[tranquility]

Yep once they start eating them they don't stop...some will eat them and others wont....you just happen to have lily eaters 
Lawanna

[underpressure]

Okay well thanks for the replys! not really what I wanted to hear!  I have had most of my Koi's for years along with the lilys....I guess my koi have won for now but I might think about finding new homes for them......Anyone interested in lily eating koi's????  LOL

[labs2006]

We just put in a new koi pond a few months ago. A friend told me to put clean lava rock in an ice cream bucket with handles. She uses a rod to hook the handles if she ever wants to move the plants. She has big koi fish and they do not like the lava rocks and leaves her lillies alone. Before putting the plants in with the lava rocks, her kois would eat hers too, plus scoot them around.  And oh, her lillies are beautiful and health in these buckets with lava rock.  Just a suggestion, have a good day.

[reddad35]

I have 20 inch koi and not a nibble on the lillies. I feed them 3 times during season. I add WH. and they gobble that up. WH = water hy??something. Grammar police are out there.

[ThornyGardener]

If your koi are just digging in the pots to eat the lily roots, there are ways to reduce that. When I still had plants in with the fish, the wide quarter barrel pots were filled with gravel (no dirt), ending with egg-sized river rock, then I attached a circular peony grid. They could no longer root around, but by the end of the season they were ripping up the pads so I gave up on plants. It could be that part of the attraction to plants is when food pellets get in the pot's gravel/dirt or collect around the pads.

[tranquility]

I've never tried them but, they also make lily protectors....I have never understood why people are ready to get rid of the koi when they get too big or they start doing what nature has told them to do for centuries...People really need to educate themselves on pond fish before they buy them...koi do get large-my biggest girl is 30"--they do constantly root around and aren't picky whether thats in the bottom of the pond or if its in your pots of plants---and they do eat plants again just something that they do...goldfish don't get as large--they will root around to some extent and normally they don't devour you plants as though they are at an all you can eat buffet....koi require more work and filtration that goldies do....and to me none of them should be considered disposable pets....So please people start doing your homework before buying pond fish....
Lawanna

[Julles]

Two suggestions:

I have most of my lilies in a "corral."  It's a rectangular box built from PVC pipe, spray-painted black and then covered on all sides but the top side black plastic screening (like for a porch, or sun screening).  It sits on milk crates in my pond, and protects the lilies.  I also keep my fancy fantails, google eyes & orandas in there.  Make sure there is enough room between the corral and the sides of the pond, for the fish to swim around the corral.

For a lily that is in the middle of the pond, I got a black plastic laundry basket, cut a hole in the bottom, and put it (weighted with rocks) over the lily pot.  The stems grow up through the hole and reach the surface of the water.  Small fish can swim through the basket, but the large koi cannot.  My lily is doing great!  Some pads float over the top, and the fish sometimes mess with those, but there are plenty more inside the confines of the basket, and the blooms are totally safe from the koi.

[underpressure]

Julles I  Love those ideas I am going to try the laundry basket to start thank you so much....I will keep everyone posted on the progress.
Thanks!  Emily

[Julles]

The best part is, I got the laundry basket at the Dollar Store, for $1.