If you’ve ever had to continuously pull pieces of plants out of your skimmers, you will understand what I am saying. Koi and plants are a disaster-in-waiting. It’s natural to want beautiful fish and blooming flowers on the surface of your pond. But having to choose one or the other is sometimes difficult. The problem is that koi are always investigating their territory, looking around the bottoms of plants for worms. They aren’t trying to eat your plants. While koi may eat algae from time to time, they really do not bother with plants. It is simply not on the menu. However, insects are always on the menu! That’s what a koi sees when there are plants in the pond.
One year, the day before a pond tour, a guest gave me a pond plant. I did something I will never forget: I planted it in the pond the night before we were supposed to meet at my pond to start the tour. When dozens of people arrived at my house, we were met with a brown pond and the filter was not working. What happened?? The koi had had all night to pick and pull and play with that one little plant. I had thrown all caution to the wind in order to be a kind host. The yard was gorgeous. The pond, a mudhole. The fish? Fine, but not to be seen.
As for differences, koi need shade, plants need sunlight. Koi need nutrient-free water and plants need lots of nutrients to grow and bloom. Nutrients = fertilizers, one of the very reasons we do weekly water changes. When building a new pond one year, the fish were kept in a huge vat in my garage for 6+ months. Did they suffer? Not at all. Had that been water lilies, they probably would have died with no sunlight. There is a way to have a Watergarden and Koi, but they shouldn’t be in the same pond. Microbe-Lift has a better idea! We have Legacy Fruits & Greens to happily offer your fish something different. And, we have Legacy Variety Mix that in each bite they will have four different type of food (Summer Staple, Immuno, Growth & Energy, and Fruits & Greens!!) …
