Fall care for your koi

As the leaves start to drop and the temperature begins to fall, its time to think about how to care for your koi and koi pond.

Preparing the Pond for Fall

Leaves are one of the biggest nuisances for a koi pond in fall. To keep the leaves from getting into the pond, a useful tool is a pond net. Cover the entire pond with this net to catch any falling leaves. Leaves in the pond can be troublesome. If the pond has a bottom drain, the leaves could clog the drain. If the leaves make it to the filter, then there will need to be an increase of cleaning of the filter to remove the leaf matter. For ponds without bottom drains the leaves need to be manually removed. If the leaves are not removed from the bottom of the pond, as the leaf matter decomposes the water will be toxic to the koi.

Preparing the Koi for Fall

An important tool for your pond is a thermometer. Every pond will cool down and warm up at a different rate. The gallons of the pond, the surface area of the pond, the amount of shading around the pond are a few factors that take part in the ponds temperature.

At this time, if you do not heat your pond, we do not recommend adding new koi to your pond this season. The koi we have for sale here at the farm are in warm greenhouses on a steady diet. Adding koi from our warm greenhouses into a cold pond in the fall can lead to many problems with health problems for the koi. So, save introducing koi to the pond until spring time. And for those must have Koi, we offer winter boarding for your Koi until your pond is ready to receive them in spring.

As your pond falls to around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you should change your koi food from their summer growing to a fall wheat germ food. This food will help clean out the koi's digestive system in preparing them for their winter dormancy.

By having healthy koi and a healthy pond as winter approaches, you will be more likely to have healthy koi when spring arrives next year.

Other Koi Care Articles

Be sure to read our following articles: Winter Pond Care, Spring Pond Care and Summer Pond Care.

Back to Koi Care