Well, koi have two reasons to massacre waterlilies. First of all is their digging behavious which results in uprooting the whole thing. This gets worse when they are overcrowded. Second reason is basically them eating all plants available. That's typically a lack of greens in their diet. You can feed them lettuces or Eichhornia. If they have enough veggies then by and large they'll leave the waterlilies be.
Koi can be a bunch of digging pigs for sure. Leaf nibbling is a bit different. You can first select stronger hardy species, like a classic N alba. Then often their behavious is linked to stress and dietary needs. Stress is a result of too many or big individuals in one pond. You can adjust that by reducing the stress hormone by adding a bag of clinoptilolite. Dietary needs can be adjusted with different feed or simply feeding them shredded salad (not too fine tho).
great idea, how do you stop the koi damaging themselves on the metal sticking over the edge of the pot? I can see them doing themselves some serious harm if they bump into it or even flash against it
The stainless steel is fully blunted (rounded) which takes a while. Then the structure is loose in the soil, so serious bumps get absorbed largely. This is a bit of a universal size. One could also cut of the ends further but seeing it's stainless steel it would 'burn' quite a bit of the non ferro metal. We also have a fully domed version with all pins firmly in the ground. We'll put more info in due time on our webshop: www.professionele-vijverstofzuiger.com, which alas now is only available in dutch. Thanks for the comment.
I did something very similar to my koi pond and the kois ate all the leaves. I’m curious if yours survive.
Well, koi have two reasons to massacre waterlilies. First of all is their digging behavious which results in uprooting the whole thing. This gets worse when they are overcrowded. Second reason is basically them eating all plants available. That's typically a lack of greens in their diet. You can feed them lettuces or Eichhornia. If they have enough veggies then by and large they'll leave the waterlilies be.
My problem is the koi eating the leaves of the water lilies
Koi can be a bunch of digging pigs for sure. Leaf nibbling is a bit different. You can first select stronger hardy species, like a classic N alba. Then often their behavious is linked to stress and dietary needs. Stress is a result of too many or big individuals in one pond. You can adjust that by reducing the stress hormone by adding a bag of clinoptilolite. Dietary needs can be adjusted with different feed or simply feeding them shredded salad (not too fine tho).
@@Navicula-duurzaam-waterbeheer Thank you so much! I will try that.
great idea, how do you stop the koi damaging themselves on the metal sticking over the edge of the pot? I can see them doing themselves some serious harm if they bump into it or even flash against it
The stainless steel is fully blunted (rounded) which takes a while. Then the structure is loose in the soil, so serious bumps get absorbed largely. This is a bit of a universal size. One could also cut of the ends further but seeing it's stainless steel it would 'burn' quite a bit of the non ferro metal. We also have a fully domed version with all pins firmly in the ground. We'll put more info in due time on our webshop: www.professionele-vijverstofzuiger.com, which alas now is only available in dutch. Thanks for the comment.
Thanks and sorry for the late reply