My Michigan pond

i live in michigan and let me tell you i have only have had luck with try color koi, your best bet is blue gill cannel catfish, bass crappie, pike, shiners, and put it to use and fish it, but like you said you dont want to do that so i would say koi, what a wast :(
 
I would go with bluegills or some sort of sunfish. Channel cats are also a good choice. Check local hatcheries. How big is this pond?
 
Fishfiles1 said:
i live in michigan and let me tell you i have only have had luck with try color koi, your best bet is blue gill cannel catfish, bass crappie, pike, shiners, and put it to use and fish it, but like you said you dont want to do that so i would say koi, what a wast :(
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pike need alot of room and would eat everything. i'd say the blue gill, koi and crappie would be nice. where are you located?
 
pike would be bad... I would also agree that bass and other native fish are better, but Koi will do fine. if you stock any sort of bluegill or sunfish you are going to need some sort of predator to keep their population down. Koi will keep the vegetation down well, and they'll most likely do alright over winter.
 
We do have a pair of candian geese and a pair of ducks that "live" at our pond. Would that be a problem for the koi? Oh, and BTW this pond is HUGE! It's not manmade... all-natural LOL. I just found some Daphnia in it a few days ago. Perfect for my baby guppies.
 
Cichlidgirl91 said:
We do have a pair of candian geese and a pair of ducks that "live" at our pond. Would that be a problem for the koi? Oh, and BTW this pond is HUGE! It's not manmade... all-natural LOL. I just found some Daphnia in it a few days ago. Perfect for my baby guppies.
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sweet, but where you located?
 
Geese and dabbling ducks (such as mallards, teals, pintails, etc.) will not bother koi; some diving ducks (mergansers) might catch juvenile koi but would cause no trouble to larger fish. You're more likely to lose fish to herons. This is just an inevitable fact of keeping fish in ponds. But if you have a good population of fish, and provide them with sufficient cover, you will probably never notice the few you lose to birds, watersnakes, raccoons, and the like.

Predatory fish are another matter. You really need to know what fish are in the pond now before you can decide what fish to add. If there are any big pike, trout, walleye, bass, bowfin, or catfish in there, any goldfish and all but the largest koi would end up as fish food. Snapping turtles could also cause trouble, though they seldom bother healthy large fish.
 
Ok, great. The ducks are only mallards, so I guess that won't be a problem. How large should I start my koi off in the pond? Would 3 or 4 inches work. Oh, and Sarge, I'm in-between Flint and Detroit.
 
Start them off as small as you can. The birds can get them until they are well over 18". No need to spend extra money for a bigger fish when they will get large soon enough. :).

Figure out about how many gallons the pond is and stock it accordingly. Given how cold it is where you are 500-600 gallons per fish is reasonable if you have a filter and 1000 gallons per fish without. These guys get to be very large and will live, if taken care of properly, the rest of your life, you kids, and maybe your grandkids lives as well.

Be sure that the pond is over 4 feet deep so that the fish have someplace to swim in the winter. Also invest in a small pond heater to keep a small patch of the pond unfrozen, otherwise the lack of oxygen will kill the fish.
 
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