Spotlight Fish: Pond Fish

A scenic pond or water garden makes a beautiful addition to a backyard, and can be even more rewarding with the addition of unique and vibrant pond fish.

The most common “Pond Fish” are koi or goldfish (comets). These fish can handle varying temperatures all year long with the proper equipment. Pond fish require a large amount of space and volume of water. For every adult koi fish it is recommended to have 100gallons and for every adult goldfish is 30gallons. 

Fish are great addition to your outdoor pond and garden. Koi and goldfish are known for their grace and tranquility and perfect to enhance the ambiance.

Just like aquarium fish, pond fish need maintenance and water testing done. The API® POND MASTER TEST KIT is helpful to measure water parameters like ammonia, phosphate, and nitrite, to provide accurate data to alert if appropriate actions need to be corrected water. If any readings are off or too high, you can perform a water exchange. When changing your pond water, remember that water from the tap contains chlorine and chloramines, which are harmful to fish and to pond plants.

API Pond Stress Coat will dechlorinate new water that is being added to the pond. This will eliminate chlorine, chloramines and heavy metals and keeping the fish safe during this process. If there’s high ammonia, you may use API Pond Ammo-lock and API Pond Aqua Essentials to dechlorinate the water but well but will remove ammonia. Maintaining a good bacterial ecosystem can help reduce sludge and fish waste but using API Pond-Zyme (dried bacterial spore) or API Ecofix Sludge Destroyer.

Depending on the time of year, Pond Fish need specific nutrition. In the fall and winter season pond fish need API Cool Water Food. This will help gear the fish metabolism as their digestion slows down in the colder months. Pond fish will be in a form of hibernation throughout the winter, where they do not require to eat. Letting up to these cold months API Cool Water Food will prepare them. Observational feeding is important, the colder the temperatures become the less interested the fish will be in and you may taper off their feeding. 

For the Spring and Summer API® POND FISH FOOD provides all of the necessary nutrients for optimal growth and color vibrancy of your fish and is highly palatable with ingredients such as marigold and garlic. 

During the winter, your fish will “hibernate” at the very bottom of the pond to keep warm, usually in groups. Since pond fish like Koi and Goldfish are cold-blooded, their bodies adapt to changes in weather, and they won’t die in extreme temperatures provided that the pond is deep enough that water doesn’t freeze to the bottom. Keep a hole open with a bubbler or heater to allow oxygen exchange for these types of ponds. If you have a shallow pond, your fish will need to be kept indoors for the winter.

You can use a heater or floating pond de-icer to keep your pond from freezing solid, which should allow fish to get the proper aeration in the winter.

Pond Fish are a great addition to your water garden and they are fun to watch and feed. Talking with your local fish or pond store will give you greater insight of the care and maintenance to expect for the size of pond you choose.