Areyanna
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Should koi ponds be outdoors or indoors?

Hello,
I see lots of outdoor koi ponds but not many indoor ponds. What is the difference? How do you get rid of algae in a koi pond? And what should the level of water density be in a koi pond?
Thanks in advance.

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rainbowgardener
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I have a small (50 or 75 gallon, I'm not sure) artificial pond outdoors with a few goldfish in it. In the winter, the goldfish (currently only two of them) come in and live in an aquarium (more or less 14" deep, by 16" tall by 26" long).

Both the outdoor pond and the indoor fish tank require a fair amount of maintenance. I assume an indoor pond would be just a larger version of fish tank. In order to keep them algae free, the water has to be changed out pretty often. For the indoor tank, we vacuum up any loose debris and then siphon out maybe a third of the water. Then replace the water with clean water that has stood for a couple days to outgas the chlorine and come to room temperature. Do that about once a week. So an indoor pond you would have to have it located so that you could easily be moving a lot of water in and out. Also a pond indoors, I.e. bigger than the fish tank and with more surface area, would tend to add a lot of humidity to the environment. In winter that might not be a bad thing. If you kept it going in summer, maybe not so much.

we do the same changing the water thing in summer to the outdoor pond; it's just a little easier to do in the outdoor environment and then I often have rainwater I can add from the barrels, so don't have to worry about having buckets of water sitting around. They say the koi like lots of light, but we have had a lot less trouble with algae with the outdoor pond since the lilac bush next to it got big enough to give it a lot of shade. Lots of light heavily favors algae development. In shade your koi might not be as brilliantly colored, but in sun, you will have to work a lot harder to keep the water clean, so it's a trade off. And yes, indoors or out, the ponds need pumps, filters, bubblers....

I am by no means any expert on this and the above is everything I know on the subject!

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PunkRotten
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Cost is usually a factor in choosing an indoor or outdoor pond. Koi are pretty cold tolerant.For an outdoor pond it needs to be atleast 4 feet deep so that predators do not get them.

Causes for algae are usually too much sun and/or nutrients. Lots of live plants help keep the excess nutrients down. And building a pond in an area that has shade during the day is a good idea.

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rainbowgardener
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Our outdoor pond is more like 3 feet deep than 4 feet and we were having trouble with predators getting the goldfish. Then we bought some of those decor things that are made for aquaria that the fish can swim in to. Gave them a hiding place and now predators don't get them any more.



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