Moving Koi Fish | How To Move Them Or Transport Them To A New Pond Safely
What challenges Does Moving Koi Fish present?
Moving Koi fish can be a relatively straight forward procedure, including moving large Koi as long as you make the relevant plans beforehand. Remember that Koi are often transported many thousands of miles in a temporary plastic home; especially those reared in their native Japan.
Koi are ravenous creature that consume vast amounts of food and pollute their home with significant amounts of ammonia and solid waste. For this reason starve the Koi for at least 5 days before you intend to move them. This will not harm them in the short term and will significantly increase their chances of them not being poisoned by their own bodily excretions.
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What dangers do Koi Carp face when being moved To A New Pond?
As mentioned above primarily toxic poisoning if they are not starved beforehand. If they are not bagged securely and packaged correctly there is a chance that the bags may leak causing suffocation. The transportation method will need to ensure that the ride is as smooth as possible to prevent disturbing the Koi and causing shock.
What are the right and wrong ways/techniques to move Koi Carp?
You need to use heavy duty polythene bags and double bag each. Inflate the inner bag with oxygen and then using water from the existing pond fill the polythene bag to roughly 1/5 of the bags volume. Once each of the required number of bags is ready, place it in a secure box with the neck rolled down.
How much water do you need to keep Koi Alive When Transporting Them?
As stated above you need approximately 20% (1/5th) the volume of the polythene bag used. Depending upon the size of the particular Koi the size of the bag will vary.
What mistakes Occur When Moving Koi Fish To A New Home?
The majority of the mistakes are a result of not planning ahead. They use plastic bags that easily puncture or tear. They do not secure the bags properly within darkened sturdy boxes. In addition and most importantly they don’t starve the Koi for at least 5 days prior to transportation. This means that the Koi in effect poisons itself in its own toilet… much in the same way the goldfish won at the fair and placed in a goldfish tank quickly dies.
It is important to ensure that the sturdy cardboard boxes are tightly sealed and dark. The darkness helps to reduce the stress levels. Try to transport the Koi in as safely and in as little time as possible.
What are the easiest and safest ways to catch large Koi?
First of all remember to remove air stones and other obstructions from the pond to reduce Koi hiding places and to ensure that you can see into the pond much more easily.
The best method of catching Koi is to use a stiff long handled pond fish net with a wide head, so as to avoid possible damage to the Koi. It is important at this stage to be careful and not to stress the Koi, causing oxygen depletion and possible injury. In doing this you will reduce the likelihood of fish disease problems.
The less you have to chase the Koi in order to net it the better; this reduces the opportunity for stress and oxygen depletion. Many professional exporters often chill their Koi prior to transporting them.
When it comes to actually netting the Koi the best method to use is to guide the Koi into a corner where it can be trapped. Never try to scoop it up from behind as it will out run you and cause exhaustion and stress. The worst case scenario is one where the Koi tries to leap out of the pond to escape.
Once you have cornered the Koi and netted it then you can do one of 2 things:
a) Transfer the Koi to a floating basket or bowl by placing it below the pond surface and moving the net (including Koi) into the bowl. This ensures that the Koi stays in the water; therefore reducing possible shock.
b) The second option is to bring the bag of clean pond water down into the basket and transfer the Koi within the pond itself. This method reduces the opportunity of you dropping the Koi but it unfortunately increases the chances of murky pond water entering the polythene bag.
How closely do you need to match the water quality?
As mentioned earlier on you need to use the existing pond water for the best results before the transportation. When transferring the fish to the new home it is best to try to get the pond pH as close as possible to the previous pond.
Read the interaction between ammonia and pond pH for further information relating to the affect pH has upon ammonia levels.
Also float the bags on the pond surface of the new pond and gradually add water to the bags from the existing pond water after about 5 minutes. This will allow the Koi to become acclimatized to its new home.
Over the next couple of days monitor the Koi behavior. They sometimes try to jump out of the pond. Remember to measure the ammonia and nitrite levels of the pond water as the introduction of new fish, depending upon the load will affect the workload placed upon the biological pond filter.
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