Qu. for Pondman... "Unusual Oxygen Requirements" for Koi .. .. ??

[Julles]

In Amy's thread about brown fish, you mentioned that koi have unusual oxygen requirements.  What's that about?

[PondmaninAL]

Julles, what I meant by that is that koi suffer when oxygen/air is at a low level in the water. That is when koi gasp for air. The strange fish that I have gasped for air before I put an air rock in with them the same way that my koi did when the air pump stopped working. Goldfish don't have a high need for oxygen/air in the water. I hope that explained it.

[Michiponder]

I think that if you do a little research you will find that for fish the same size (speaking about goldfish and koi) the O2 requirements are pretty close to the same.  The thing about koi is they get much bigger.  If you weigh 200 two inch fish you would find that they weigh about the same as one 12 inch fish.  Imagine what the O2 requirements are for a 20 or 30 inch koi are.  Those figures alsokinda blow up many theories about how many gallons of water are needed per inch of fish.

[PondmaninAL]

Mike, I have two 20-24" koi. I know how much air they need. Of course, more air is dissolved in the water in the Winter.

[Michiponder]

Scott,  I often forget about the very warm water temps you get down there.  They simply are not seen up here in MI.  Have heard that when the water gets into the 90'sF they just sit and gasp and do not even spend the energy they need to eat.  Still, I wish I had the warmth for growth and I do miss having the ability to see my fish for 3 to 5 months of the year.  You are right about the cold water holding more O2.  I use that fact in winter and stack about twice as many fish into insulated covered ponds for protection. I have two ponds built just so they can be covered for winter.

[Julles]

Mike - got any pics of your set up?  Sounds like you have large pond(s), plus the overwintering tanks. 

We AP people love to see photos!!

[matherfish]

There is some excellent information in this thread for newbies (and actually all of us) to consider when starting a pond and/or adding fish. Great ideas to take into consideration. Lots of fish in a pond may be nice to look at, but if there are too many for the size of the pond, it is their death trap.
Happy ponding!

[tranquility]

no matter whether you going with goldies or koi---when it comes to a pond you have to have plenty of airation...even with goldies--they will breed and multiply and eventually stress not only the water quality of the pond but, oxygen levels--koi get larger and require more O2--ever notice when a pond is low on O2 either from a power outage or something else--the larger fish die first....and not to mention more air helps with bio colonies--your biologic filter thrives on O2.....
Lawanna