Koi Ponds, Goldfish & Garden Fish Pond Care

Page Summary: Care for koi & goldfish, pond water quality control, as well as design, construction & care of garden fish ponds with special emphasis on koi ponds and koi keeping. The site covers in detail, pond pump selection, liner ponds, pond water filter (biofiltration) systems including pond filter principles and practice. Koi breeding, koi feeding, koi health, koi care, koi pond maintenance and showing koi and transporting koi are all included in this series of completely new articles by Tony Roocroft (aka The Pond Professor).

The Koi, Fish Pond Website

This website consists of a wide range of koi and fish pond keeping articles completely updated for 2011.

The original articles on the site are all being replaced to make them shorter and easier to digest.

This will take a while so stay with us.

Where it makes sense the articles may include specific pond product recommendations from leading UK, South African or USA pond product suppliers.

For example see the Bradshaws Koi Food image opposite and below. These suppliers are world class.

The Pond Doctor in Context:

As much as we tend to see a doctor as being a curer of health problems it is a fact that top doctors of all disciplines are trained to be proactive.

It is in this sense that this website's name is Pond Doctor.

It does not pretend to be an expert in koi or goldfish vetinerary matters

Sponsored Products...

Every koi keeper buys food. All koi foods are not the same. Bradshaws Koi Food (and winter Wheatgerm) is as good as the best for quality and fantastic value for money in modern sensible koi food packaging.

Make sure that you don't have blanketweed problems this summer. Viresco sold worldwide from UK manufacturer is THE natural string algae solution.

Keep that pond bottom clean with reliable Pond Vacuum

25 year flexible pond liner guarantee

Testing pond water can in itself become an intriguing and interesting hobby. Get a reliable test kit however.

Products & People & Recommendations

Over the years we have had the privilege of dealing with some of the world's most well know pond product suppliers. We are also exporters of specialised pond and water feature products. In addition to exporting water features, ponds and waterfalls we have also licensed a number of our fibreglass fish pond and water fall products to the UK's leading water features manufacturer. Our fish ponds, waterfalls, and self contained water fountains have been exported worldwide.

Tony Roocroft, the owner of this website, has had the privilege of forming close relationships with the UK's leading koi experts... Nigel Caddock and Peter Waddington. Peter J May has also been a firm friend for many years and along with both Peter and Nigel has been a guest of ours in South Africa. Peter and Nigel are world famous koi keeping experts and Peter J May is one of the UK's leading water gardeners and water gardening landscapers. These friends are publishers of world class koi keeping and water gardening books. They have been an important source of learning for me over the years since I first started selling water gardening products in 1992.

Plain, Simple Easy to Understand "Koi" Pond Keeping

In writing these articles I have taken into account all the important questions I have come up against since 1992. Strangely enough most of the queries revolve around a couple of aspects of koi and goldfish pond keeping... paying close attention to these aspects is in fact the "secret" to successful pond keeping. Whether the pond be a koi pond or a goldfish pond the fundamental principles behind the creation of a crystal, clear clean and impressive fish pond are the same.

I will often refer to a koi pond because in my country (South Africa) the vast majority of gardeners want a koi pond when in fact they mean a garden fish pond. The term koi pond in its true sense tends to mean a larger more sophisticated garden fish pond where the only inhabitants are in fact koi fish and large ones at that!

Koi ponds to the true koi enthusiast contain only three things in the words of my friend, Nigel Caddock... "water, oxygen and koi".

Our koi ponds on this site might also contain debris, koi, plants, frogs, goldfish, and other aquatic creatures or fish that take the fancy of pond keepers. Make your pond an extension of yourself... and enjoy the pleasures of water gardening.

On this site we don't pretend to be "Koi Crazy" despite the fact that you will see I refer to koi more often than not.

Make fish pond maintenance easy all year round ... Pond vacs, pond nets tools and protective clothing for cleaning your pond

Fish food and water treatments for pond and fish

Ready for Breeding Koi in Spring

In spring when loves comes around the koi will need somewhere to lay their eggs. In a natural environment eggs will adhere to submerged aquatic plants but in a koi pond there are not always plants because the koi tend to eat them.

You'll be amazed at how simple it can be to breed fish with the help of spawning brushes. You'll need one mature female and at least two males.

Put the brushes one above the other at the edge of the pond. Spawning usually occurs in the early morning after a night of flurried activity and can take several hours. Most of the eggs will stick to the brushes which can then be taken out of the pond and put in filtered water of the same temperature. If the eggs are not separated from the adult fish they may be eaten.