Derek Broughton wrote:

Gill, there's no such thing as a pond in England that can't support "Koi or
Goldfish" - if you want to get into some of the fancier goldfish, it might
get dicey, but comets are going to be fine. There are good reasons to go
deep when raising koi, but it's not for the temperature.

It was the actual depth and size of the pond that I was seeing as the
limiting factor here.....but of course, I'll also have to bear that in
mind if I go for the goldies to make sure that they have adequate space
to grow and move about.....

I have an area of the garden that would make a great Koi pond....problem
is that it currently houses the kid's outdoor play stuff and they will
fight me tooth and nail to keep the stuff for now - lol.....but there is
plenty of time when they grow out of it for digging my Koi pond....




Where's your frost line? In Ottawa, Ontario, one of our regulars did fine
with an 18" deep pond. The frost line there is well below 3' & weeks
of -20C temperatures are expected most winters. Koi & comets did fine in
my Ontario pond (which did reach 5') with 2' of ice on it.

That is interesting to know....our winters are nowhere near as severe as
the ones that you get in Canada.....I'm not sure exactly where the frost
line actually is and can only go on how deep I need to dig the garden to
get past the frozen soil - which IIRC is around 6" when the frosts are
at their worst....not that I make a habit of going out and digging the
garden in sub-zero temps too much :-)




If it's liquid, they can survive. If it freezes solid, there are some
(possibly apocryphal) stories of goldfish surviving. Far more important
than the temperature is getting some oxygen in their when there's ice on
the surface for extended periods.

Thanks
Gill