So my father has a 3000 gallon Koi pond and he wants to unload some of his fish. Is there any negative effect if I take say 4 of them for my pond? I'm thinking I probably dont want them for the same reasons I wouldn't want carp. I would have a heck of a time getting rid of them when they get really big and stir up my water.

I have SMB, BG, PSeeds, and Redbreast in my pond currently. Forage is in there as well - FHM, Crayfish, Grass shrimp, Snails, Freshwater clams, etc.

I had a decent amount of FA growth this summer as well as a very large amount of both Arrowhead and Widgeon Grass.

I'm still really new to the pond thing and I wouldn't have even considered these if they weren't going to be free.

I have lots of koi (too Many),I have had no recruitment.The SMB should eat most if not all of any fry that actually hatch from spawning. They should not be hard to remove if you decide to remove later as mine are very easy to catch on Stubby Steve's pellet baits during feeding time.
They will assist with the FA by tearing it up, mine has completely disappeared. You will get some turbidity from them but I would think that only 4 would not be big issue. IF so you can remove them later.,,,some risk I suppose...

Upside I really enjoy the novelty of having them to watch during feeding sessions...

1 yes. More than that? I'd be worried that they would spawn. The SMB will have a hard enough time keeping up with the YOY BG. I think that will be even more difficult if they are slurping up YOY Koi.

My pond had all of the fish you have, clams, snails, etc, except I had large mouth bass in a one acre pond, plus I had carp, (20 KOI, and 6 Israeli carp) for 10 years until a fish kill. I fed my fish and so I know I had 20 KOI and 6 Israeli carp at the end of the 10 years and no more. I had all 20 of the KOI named as they were like pets. The carp kept my pond FA free. I didn’t feel the turbidity was bad.

John, LMB and SMB are two very different fish when it comes to eating other fish. He's got SMB in his pond, NOT LMB. I'd also bet that if you didn't have all those plants growing in your pond that you would have had FA.

Heres why I say that. I had underwater plants growing in my pond this spring. No FA. I killed the underwater plants with Fluridone. FA exploded. Now I have Curly Leaf Pondweed growing and the FA is gone again. The Fluridone was put in the pond after the CLPW turions had already formed, so that's why it's growing now.

John Monroe....how did you keep the count at 20 Koi and prevent them from spawning for ten years?

esshup....are you saying it's almost always going to be one or the other? Because I think I may have experienced what you describe this past summer. I used Cutrine Plus to really cut back on what had been a huge FA problem a year ago. But it did seem my underwater vegetation exploded. I'm not sure what it is, but it is thick and almost seems to have underwater trails cut in it where I see fish swimming thru the trails.

Zep:

Maybe not 100% one or the other, but yes, what you saw is typical, at least around here.

Only if you kill the plants AND the FA do you have a snowballs chance of establishing a bloom thick enough to minimize plant and FA growth by limiting sunlight hitting the pond bottom.

In my experience:

Kill FA = underwater plant growth exploding.
Kill Underwater plants = FA growth exploding.
Completely kill both = getting a bloom established.

Thanks esshup. I guess it's a bit late this year,
but I will try to do that(kill both) next spring.

Zep, look into Tilapia for your pond too.

I had stocked at the rate of 40#/surface acre, and while there were underwater plants to help utilize the nutrients, they could stay head of the FA. Once the plants were gone, they couldn't eat it fast enough and I had mats of it floating around the pond, and most of the shoreline was covered out 4'-5'.

Even hitting it with Cutrine Plus couldn't keep it at bay for more than a week or 2.

essup I think I have 170 lbs of tilapia this year...the tilapia and Cutrine Plus seemed to have really helped with the FA.....but I've got something that basically fills most of my 4 acre pond under water....it stays about a foot to two foot below the surface...and like I say you can see "trails" thru it and fish swimming along those trails. I'm not sure what it is...I know that you don't want all vegetation gone, but this stuff whatever it is....is a bit much. would koi eat that stuff?

with all the koi I have it seems they tear it up more than eat it. they root through it looking for food. My pond had no underwater plants and was always filled with FA. I added goldfish and noticed no change. Birds eventually nearly wiped them all out. Zero recruitment.
I added Koi and now I have zero FA and birds have only taken a few. Still zero recruitment. I have never seen a small koi. they have been in the pond 5 years now.

are there triploid koi?

Zep, get a piece of the weed in question and post a picture of it for an I.D.

I think I am going out there Sunday....will do.
Thanks.

Hey Mark, don't know why no mention of Grass Carp for aquatic vegetation control in our area.
Grass carp has controlled a bad invasion of bushy pond weed and chara at one time in our 2 acre pond - never had another problem. They will also control water primrose which is prevalent in our area.

Mozambique Tilapia WILL NOT control aquatic vegetation in our area.
George

You are right George. We did apply for carp and were turned down because of no barrier. I was just basically looking for a pieces of the puzzle that didn't require a permit/barrier. We are going to try and get the barrier built this winter.

Mark, check with Al - he came up with a neat "barrier" idea that was acceptable to TP&W - waiting for approval reply IIRC.

Will do - thanks George.

IIRC Al has the approval reply in hand.

I put a dozen Koi in my 3/4 acre pond and have seen no turbity, or recruitment. They definitely have cut down on the FA, at least by 40%. They grew extremely fast. I put 12 inch fish in, and had 2#ers within a month. I would say they are now 5# after 3 or 4 years. Bright colors, and easily seen. Never tried to catch one so not sure how easy they are to catch. They are in shallow water close to shore a lot.

Nope, still waiting on the grass carp permit. It's been a month since TWPD cashed the check, so hopefully I'll get the permit soon and can get my coontail controlled.

Zep, I'll post pics of my drain guard if it's approved. Pretty easy deal.

My mistake. When we talked, I thought you had it in hand and were going to get them this past week. FWIW, I'm picking up a bunch of 12+ GC this week for delivery. (another road trip)

Esshup I didn't have hardly any plants doing this 10 year period because I had the 18 grass carp that cleaned nearly every plant from the pond, and this is the time period that FA was only a trace once in a while. So plants didn't play a part in stopping FA. And don't forget the Israeli Carp which Zetts of PA. said was even better then KOI eating FA.
I was once setting on the deck and heard a loud slurping sound. I looked and an Israeli Carp was sucking down what little trace FA was floating near the deck.

Zep I knew my KOI well and had names for all of them when they came to feed everyday. Ghost, Flag, Rudolph, etc. to name a few of my KOI. I had very few minnows in the pond and I assumed the young were eaten very early in life. I also had channel cats and I remember Zetts saying he saw his grass carp scoop up a bunch of bass fry, so I don’t think minnows had much of a chance to survive.

Thanks John. How big is that pond that you had the GC in?

I'll say this, Mr. Zett's certainly shares some very "interesting" observations he has made...

Esshup my pond is one acre.

As I remember Zetts started in business around 1900 when they didn't have chemicals to speak of and so a more natural means was used to control ponds. Once he saw the grass carp eating his bass spawn he quit using them for plant control, but said that Israeli & KOI carp did a good job for that. He said when he would drain a pond with the two types of carp that had been in it and the bottom of the pond looked like it had a comb run through it. Of course that causes turbidity but I didn't think it was so bad in my pond. Then you have the green pea bloom also and I think there was a mixture of both.

Zetts listed the FA eaters as first, Israeli Carp, second, KOI, third, channel cats, and he kept all three in his ponds for FA control. I think he was right with the channel cats. I was once at a pond seminar talking to a guy that had bad FA but didn't use to. I told him about the fish used by Zetts to control FA and he said that he had had a lot of channel cats but made a concerted effort to rid the pond of them, and that’s when the FA started showing up. So in my experience Zetts was on to something that worked.

Appreciate it AL. Can't wait to see it.

I've been doing a lot of internet searching and not much out there.

John that Zetts has a pretty cool website!
Interesting what it say's about Koi cleaning up a pond.


BTW --- I don't see Israeli carp listed on Zetts website,
do you know where you can get them? And do they not require
a permit?

Im thinking koi and goldfish would have a hard time reproducing because of their bright colors. Wouldn't the yoy be easy targets for all other species?

ZEP,
They are listed here under their FHM prices.
http://www.marlowsfishingpark.com/stocking1-html/

Zep, you are probably looking at another Zetts, perhaps the off springs of Andrew J. Zetts. Andrew went out of business many years ago. He was never online and did business the old fashion way, by mail and phone. His address at that time was,

ANDREW J. ZETTS, JR.
ZETTS FISH FARM & HATCHERIES
DRIFTING, PA 16834

Israeli Carp are really hard to find. I know they are sold in southern Ohio at some fish hatchery as I had the link and have lost it. I probably originally got the link from someone here on a discussion of Israeli Carp, so it could be in the archives on Pond Boss.

John here is the website & it says "Andrew J. Zetts" on the site. Maybe his son?

http://www.zettsfishhatchery.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/CompleteCatalog.pdf

Zep I'm positive it’s old Andrew Zetts son. I check many pictures, graphics and words from Andrew's old aquatic farming book I have, against the online catalog in the Zetts of W. Virginia and they are exactly the same, even down to most of the pictures being black and white, and the few pictures that are in color. So much of the old Zetts catalog was used to build the new one. They have dropped the Israeli Carp I see.

It's a shame how many people get bad advice from fish farmers who may not have bad intentions, but are just ignorant.

I second and third that thought CJ !