Koi watch: Tips On Maintaining Your Koi pool In The Four Seasons
Season 1: Spring
Springtime is the time when your koi pool really comes to life. The life in your koi pool has been hibernating during the winter, and now as the warm weather comes, they’re now ready to come back to life! In koi care, this season is the best time to start maintaining your koi pool before the life in it (the fish, plants, etc.) come back to live from their cold, winter break. Your koi pool will start to change extremely as days gets hotter.
Be very careful so as not to miss this opportunity to do the necessary maintenance. What you do is you watch for temperatures that falls around 50 degrees (this will be the perfect time).
This season is considered as the very weak time for your koi, and that’s because they haven’t eaten for months, which have put them on a low energy level. Due to this, your koi is prone to attacks by different kinds of organisms, such as parasites, fungi, bacteria and viruses…. and this makes it the best time to take all of the possible preventative measures. To significantly reduce the amount of pests and materials that could cause diseases, you can add a wide array of treatment solutions.
Once the temperature gets warmer, you can give your koi pool another dosage of this treatment to get your koi well-protected as they are again developing their own immune systems (which will be effective enough to serve as a protection from various kinds of diseases that can affect them).
Season 2: Fall
The fall will bring a significant change to your koi pool, because this is the time when most of the plant life will begin to change. In this time, what you should do is to move all of your plants that has the inability to withstand lower levels of temperatures indoors (or you can put them in a green house). Another thing that you have to focus on in this season are the leaves, which has to be cleared as well. Doing this will give you a clearer and healthier koi pool. You can also buy a pond cover too as an alternative for this.
Season 3: Winter
Let’s say that this will be the first winter season that your koi pool will go through. Now, this is the time when your koi pool will undergo a down period, due to the fact that less events are happening in this season compared to any of the other seasons. There are necessary steps/precautions that you need to take before winter arrives, so as to ensure the survival of your koi pool as well as your koi. You’ll have to feed your koi lesser during this time (for tips on how often you should feed your koi, you can always talk with your local pet store).
Summertime is the season wherein you can invest for the stuff that you’re going to need to prepare for the winter. Your koi can withstand constant temperatures that fall as low as 39 degrees (and those that are slightly lower than 39 degrees) for a short period of time.
If you buy a heater for your koi pool, just make sure to make a research first on what size you’re going to need to sufficiently heat your koi pool during the winter time, otherwise ice will still continue to form, and this can cause very dangerous amounts of gas in the water (as it is being trapped under the ice). You can opt to have an emergency tank inside your koi pool to prepare for extreme kind of events.
Season 4: Summer
Summertime is one of the best and more lively times for your koi pool. In this season, temperatures are beautiful, and this is the time that can help you enjoy your koi pool more. But as beautiful as things are during this season, never forget to keep up your maintenance, so as to keep your koi pool staying lively and beautiful as well.
This is the time when the oxygen level in your koi pool decreases and proper and necessary precautions and steps are to be taken (especially if you’re located in a place wherein the temperatures stay on a high level for most of the year). A good indication that your koi pool needs oxygen is when you see your koi hanging out towards the surface of the water, seemingly gasping for air.
The heat that the summer paves way for potential parasites and illness into your koi pool. You must watch and observe your koi for signs of illness, as most of the parasites are invisible to the naked eye. Symptoms like your koi rubbing against objects, shaking, scratching, or shivering could indicate different types of illnesses, so it is of utmost importance to watch your koi closely.
In koi care, you should look out for illnesses like the Koi Herpes Virus, which have high mortality rate, and this needs immediate treatment. If you observe any kind of changes with your koi, contact your Koi dealer, local vet or pet store as soon as possible.
Tags: Koi, koi care, Koi Pond, Koi Pond Maintance
