"old dirtbeard" wrote in message
y.com...
We recently had a koi pond installed by a company using Aquascape products
(biofilter, skimmer, pond liner covered with gravel). We live in the
South Bay area of Los Angeles. We just had a new koi get sick and I did
a little sleuthing on the net and it seems that the gravel of the bottom
of the pond collects debris where bacteria and other organisms can breed.
Has anyone had success with koi in a gravel bottom pond? Thanks.
=================================
In nature the bottom of rivers, lakes and ponds are soil mixed with assorted
size gravel and stones. The fish thrive. Unless the gravel is deep and
anaerobic areas are developing there should be no problem. I had gravel in
one pond the first year and removed it all the second year. The fish were
healthy but it was too hard to shop-vac the bottom with the dirty gravel in
place. The mulm would swirl up out of the gravel when I tried refilling the
pond. I'd rather have a clean liner bottom, more crud goes to the filter
that way.

You don't actually know what made the koi sick. It could be parasites or
almost anything........
--
Koi-Lo....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
All rude and/or obscene messages posted in my
name are by my impersonator.
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