Hurricane, will the Koi be safe

[sesco]

We are expecting Hurricane Rita to hit us this weekend and I wanted to know if anyone knows if I should leave my Koi in the pond ( 150 gal prefab in ground) or remove them and put them in a large garbage can into the house for the duration.
Thanks

Sesco

[Tommy]

First off koi cant be in a pond that small even if they are small. I would give them to a pond store after the hurrican hits. Good luck.

[Tommy]

How many koi? are you getting a bigger pond? In a 150 gallon i would recomend trading in the koi for 4-6 goldfish.

[sesco]

Can someone give me a straight answer, I know that they need a larger pond but that is not my question, will they survive the hurricane in the pond or should I transfer them temporary to a protected container?
If this hurricane didnt materialize the Koi would have had a 1400 gal pond. I have $1750.00 worth of pond supplies sitting in my garage.

[reptileguy2727]

if i were in your situation, which i havent been so i dont have any direct experience with this, i would play it safe and put them in a protected area if only to protect from dirty water contaminating their water, as well as debris. do you have somewhere to put them? maybe a holding vat in the garage would do quite well. obviously you would still need adequate filtration and what not, but thats what i would do. good luck and no matter what you do, let us know so we can all learn from it and help out the next guy with the same or similar problem.

[JarrodRossi]

If i have to evacuate, the fish are going to have to stay. if the power goes out then the filtration system goes out, which means a lack of oxygen flow... hopefully if that happens, the plants and rain stirring up the water will make enough oxygen for the pond while i am gone.

the turtles more than likely are going to come with me, i will put them in a boxes until i get to where i am going and set up something for a couple of days.

[reptileguy2727]

thats sounds good to me. if you have a net i would put it over the pond to catch large debris, this may mean that it will be damaged, so thats up to you if you want to do it.

[Robyn]

Where do you live? If you're in the main forecasted to be hit area, I would bring in the koi into holding tanks inside if you plan to stay. If you plan to evacuate, I would leave the fish, net the pond (to keep large debris out), install a battery-powered aerator if you can find one (try pet stores, bait shops, etc.), and hope for the best. Rita is one nasty storm so you want to take care of yourself and your non-aquatic pets first. The fish are harder to deal with as far as moving, etc. They are probably safe from the actual storm unless the area floods (are you in a flood-prone area?). What will get them is the prolonged period without electricity, no filtration or aeration. I hope everyone who posted here avoids the brunt of the storm. When you recover, let us know how things went.

[Robyn]

I thought of a few things. If the pond is small, you might want to cover it with a piece of plywood and heavy rocks to block most things out. Leave a few cracks to let oxygen in though. Battery aerators need to be protected as well. You might stick one inside a plastic container or ziploc bag (leaving it open again to get oxygen in) and protect the whole thing with a pile of cinder blocks or something. Too much rain will lower the oxygen levels and often lower the pH and hardness. For that reason, test kits and things like baking soda might come in handy in addition to aeration devices. In most cases, most of us leave the ponds to fend for themselves during storms because it would take a lot of time and effort to catch and move fish and other animals (and move to where?). If you have just a few fish or a few expensive ones, then those can be removed.

Also, my section on what to do for ponds when the power goes out:
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/pcare.htm#power

[sesco]

Thanks for all you adivce, I tried to get the battery powered aerator but to no avail. I covered the pond with netting as adviced, but I am afraid that the koi did not survive. The power was off for 12 hours and the pond was murky and smelly when I return yesterday. the only fish that survived are the .29 cents goldfish.

[reptileguy2727]

if anybody survived it would be those as they are the hardiest. thats a shame. how many of the cheap fish survived?

[Tommy]

i guess you dont have to get a bigger pond for the koi now. sorry for your lose.

[sesco]

well, they were all cheap fish I had 6 gold fish, 2 fan tail ($4.95) and the others were the .29 cents deal. my Kois were more expensive which I gave up several of them when adviced. but I became very fond of them and decide to build a bigger pond for them. It broke my heart to see them floating in pond. but now that I have invested so much time, effort anf money into it I am determined to build a new pond. I hope to come back to you folks for more advice and send yu pictures of the new pond.

By the way is it better to have the waterfall in the deeper or shallow section of the pond?

[Tommy]

i have mine in the shallow. My pond was built by experets so i would definately say shallow, dont know why though.

[Tommy]

how big will the pond be? what fish do you plan on stocking?