Koi Filters and Water Quality
Koi filters provide the clean water that your koi fish needs to stay healthy and grow as big as possible. All fish, including koi need good quality water in a clean pond to avoid disease and poor health. So how do you keep your pond water clean? Clean water starts with a good quality water filtration system.
Novice koi keepers may have heard that swimming pool pumps and filters will work just fine on a koi pond. While these filters may work well to keep your pond clean they are extremely expensive to run for the 24 hours a day that your koi pond will require. Pump filtration might not even be the best option for you. So what type of koi filters should you use in your pond?
Koi filters should vary in operation and design according to the unique characteristics of your pond. For example, for smaller ponds with few fish a small pump style filter may work and be efficient. However, as your pond gets larger and the fish grow in number, pump filters won't be able to keep up.
The main concern for the health of your pond is removing biological waste before it decomposes and releases ammonia. Excessive ammonia can cause a whole host of illnesses in your koi. Keeping ammonia levels in check is hardest to achieve with pump style koi filters. This is because these filters are designed to suck in water from a small area in your pond.
Due to this, the filters aren't able to handle much of the waste at the bottom of your pond. As the pond gets larger, this task might become virtually impossible. So what are the alternative solutions for koi filters?
Recommended koi filters for bigger ponds with large numbers of fish is the gravity-fed filter which takes in dirty water by pumping out clean water. This allows for a natural gravitational cycle in the pond water and picks up most solid wastes that have settled to the bottom.
Although gravity-fed koi filters are more expensive and a little more complicated to install, once you see the difference in your water quality of your pond, it'll all seem worthwhile. There are a variety of filters on the market each one aimed at a different fish-keeping situation. Obviously no two Koi Ponds
are alike so it is difficult for me to tell you which one is ideal for you.
My advice is to read as much as you can about the different filtration systems available so that you can decide which koi filters are most suited to the size of your pond, the number of fish you have (or plan to add at a later stage) and other mitigating factors. Never ever use a fitration system based on price. This could spell disaster for your fish if it cannot cope with the demands of your pond. It is better to invest more time and money in choosing the right solution for your pond than having to treat your fish for illnesses or even worse bury your fish in the garden and start all over from scratch.
