My backyard overhaul journal

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by Dez

They stay outside all winter. Most people that I've talked to that have tried wintering indoors and outdoors prefer leaving the fish outside. Keeping large fish indoors requires tons of water changes just to keep the water quality high. With wintering them indoors, you have to feed them which soils the water.

How do you keep the pond from freezing solid during the long Edmonton winters? I lived in the Cold Lake area for many years and the lake ice would be several feet thick! Seems to me your 24" depth could easily freeze all the way down during a cold snap? Even though the koi hibernate as Kien mentions, don't they still need O2, especially considering the size of some of those bad boys?