Maintain Your Koi Pond
When it comes the time to change the water in any fish enviroment it would not be a good idea to change all of the water at the same time. Any sudden enviroment changes are not a welcome thing by fish at all. Change on temperature, pH, or even chemistry of the water. If you have a good filtration system it should have a biological filter and also a mechanical filter. This is just like water found in the wild. The filter that removes the fish waste that is dissolved is the biological filter. The filter will turn the waste into nitrite and then into nitrate. This happen to be done all in the filter system. Nitrate is harmless to the fish but it will allow build up in your pond that can harm your fish.
There are some water plants that you can purchase which will help remove the nitrates. But it would take so many plants to remove the amount of nitrate that you need them to. Some people use a trickle tower to remove any nitrates in their koi pond but they are not that cheap and by giving your water a partial change is much more cost efficient. Which is like ponds found in nature. Water changes should be done often however they only need to be changed about ten percent every two weeks. When you do your water changes you should also check for nitrate levels this will prevent any discoloration in your koi pond. You can test for nitrate using a test kit that will let you measure the nitrate level, pH, nitrite, and oxygen level in your koi pond. Similar to ponds naturally occurring in the wild.
If you are planning to use tap water when you fill up your koi pond you should also use additives that you can buy at the store to remove chlorine that has been added to the water. Chlorine will come out of the water if it sits for a few hours also.
